Hello Renderosity, :o) I want to make some rotating textured spheres that look like little planets and was hoping to learn if there is any software particularly suited to this sort of thing. I may even want to put some orbitting moons or rings around these planets. If possible I'd like to add an atmosphere to some with varied geography and geology. I don't just want some smooth spheres. I want to give them some "character" - atmosphere, oceans, mountains, deserts etc. I can get access to Bryce, 3D Studio Max and Macromedia Freehand and some Adobe software. Any software recommendations for this sort of stuff? :o) Thank you. Seamus. :)

Pandromeda's MojoWorld? The basic software (Transporter) is free.

Renderosity has a forum and gallery dedicated to MojoWorld, if you want to see what's possible.

Wow! Thank you. I will take a look.

You can pull of such a thing using Vue d'Esprit...

you can pull off such a thing with any 3d software capable of animation... its a pretty basic action you want. simple rotation.

Thanks for the response. :o) I want to make some spheres that represent "worlds". The planets Arakis, Geidi Prime, and Kaitan come to mind. Remember one of the early scenes in David Lynch's D U N E? You could request information a particular planet with a voice command (using a console I think) and up popped the planet with a small printout of the world's geology, population, precipitation and so on. Like a fancy Atlas I suppose. :o) Another use would be to make a rotating "Earth" that is linked to a database of members of a group/club/community and indicates the location of members in selected regions. When the mouse hovers over Australia for instance, a list of the Aussie members is diplayed. I think I can get access to Bryce but I'm not sure about 3D Studio Max and Maya. What sort of animation is recommended for use in Webs? I understand Gif animation is common but for anything else is Flash the recommended? I can see I have plenty to learn. :o) I need to do a good foundation course I think. Starting with Gifs and moving up step by step. :o) Thank you.

Ummm. GIF animation is a bit weird compared to most types of traditional animation. Carrera can do it, and it's a lot easier with the Cognito plug-in, especially if you think you'll need to adjust the relative speeds one it's all set up. One thing to watch for is strobing effects. At 15 fps, you're taking a picture every 1/15th of a second. Ensure that the planet is in a different place for at least 5 successive frames or you'll get some very odd motion effects. Mik

Flash would allow you to add the interactivity you describe, but doesn't do 3D nativly. I agree about using Carrara as an in-expensive, but highly capable program for doing what you describe and Carrara has a plug-in that allows for outputing to Flash, and then you could add the interactivity. But look-out for a steep learning curve with Flash! Some things are easy, and others are a LOT more difficult then they should be! What is your final output? CD-ROM, Web, a video project? 3D gets pretty big for the web, but can fit onto CD-ROM very easily, and with high frame rates for better quality. Hope this helps! :>

Output? I just want to make a nice looking web site I suppose. :o)