3D Package...

[hothands456]

with all the various 3D packages out there..I was wondering what your thoughts were...3DS MAX, CINEMA, HOUDINI, MAYA, SOFTIMAGE, VIZ

 

I know its a general question but your thought/comments would be appreciated

 

 

Thanks,

Alex

[Jeff Mottle]

How long is a piece of string?

 

There are waay too many variables to get anything useful from such a broad question. Perhaps you can tell us more about your requirements and how you want to use a 3D package. What is it for, what type of projects do you work on, how big are they, what features are you looking for?

[hothands456]

sorry about that, I know its too general...something with a fast slick renderer, a focus set of poly modeling tools, maybe nurbs and subd,

solid animation tools, scripting capabilities, dynamics, particle systems,

but overall cost effective.

 

If Autodesk moves to acquire 3DS Max and Maya, which broadens their market, its like the people I know who use Max won't switch to Maya or vice versa, how does that help 3d person making a software purchase.

 

Would you consider any of the open source 3D packages out there, i.e. Blender?

[AJLynn]

Everything you've mentioned so far is a good package with a lot of capabilities - and most of them have trial or 'learning' versions that are free downloads, so you can try them. Everybody here has their favorites, and for each of them there are a lot of people making really good renders, so it's a hard question to get an answer to. (Though there aren't many people on this forum using Houdini, XSI or Blender, and it's pretty heavy on Max, Viz and C4D people.)

 

I think it's a matter of style, what you already know, what you want to be able to do and what software you need it to work well with.

 

If you model in Autocad or ADT and want a good package for finishing things off and rendering, with a lot of render plugins available, then you want Viz (or Max, which you would need for the dynamics and particles - think of Viz as "Max Lite"). You link up an ADT file in Viz/Max, assign materials and lights, and bam, you've got a fast render. Spend some more time on it and you can get some very good results, especially with mental ray included and VRay and Maxwell available.

 

If you want to use advanced animation techniques and you like mental ray, maybe you want Maya. And then there's C4D, which I like for the interface and the way it organizes objects in a model, the relative ease of making cool stuff happen in the renderer and automatic Photoshop layered output. It also does particles, dynamics (in the Studio bundle) and has scripting and a GUI for expressions.

 

Blender looks interesting, has a lot of render features and is free. Never tried it - I've got too many 3D programs kicking around my head already.

 

WRT the Maya/Autodesk thing (Autodesk already owns Max and has for a while), it's probably too early to judge what the effects will be.