Meaning building meshes in say, Wings 3D, etc. Building models with polygons, or nurbs, etc. I am now starting out trying to learn all of this, using Wings 3D, it's very complicated, overly complicated if you ask me, lol. Bryce TRULY spoiled me in it's ease of use! But, here is one FYI point I will make. A few booleaned items I am actually making with the help of Bryce. It sounds like a long route, but right now it is saving me some time... Bryce WILL export previously imported meshes, so...I have made some higher polygon primitives in (the free) Truespace, I take them into Bryce, arrange and boolean them how I want them, and then export the group out of Bryce, and back into Truespace, where I True Boolean them. *True Boolean - Where the neagtive objects do not exsist anymore, you are actually creating a new solid, one piece mesh. (in the end) I then can take that true booleaned object into Wings for further polishing/finishing up. (a few rounded edges, etc) Why don't I just do all the boolening in Truespace? Lol, `cause I know how to move/arrange objects in Bryce as easily as anything, Truespace's interface is learnable, but it IS confusing. I'll learn it later, lol. Just fyi. AgentSmith

Yep... I used do it that way too... But now I am using Truespace to model in and yes learning the software is a little harder but well worth the time and effort especially if you are like me in any sense of the word I am working towards using Maya or Max or lightwave for Gaming,Movie,Series,ect and Truespace really gives you an insite to what can really be done for a program that costs at least half the price of the higher end software and will help with the higher end software in the long run...But the bottom line is...Are ya havin fun yet?

Congrats on the start, AS. I was sort of lucky in that I looked at "traditional" modelling very early on in my 3d life. The first time I made a castle tower in bryce and looked at the monstrous wireframe view that had a pile of -ve boxes all over the place wherever there was a gap in the battlements, I knew there had to be an easier way lol. The funny thing is that, even though most of my modelling is still done outside bryce, I am using bryce's modelling abilities more now than I did at the start.

l Oh, I so recognize this!! 'cept that I'm batteling Amapi. :)

hahahaha I just learned how to do plop rendring in bryce, so don't feel too bad....hahahaha

<p. Sounds like an expedient way of coping with and learning a new app. I'm trying to come to terms with TS too and I may just nick your method, oddball as it might seem to some.

Let me try this again...I am trying to learn TS too AS, so I might just nick your oddball "boolean transfer" scheme. As I often say, "whatever works"!

i really like the wings 3d interface. One button gives you the list of what you can do depending on the selection. There are no confusing tables, etc that often find their way into "high end" apps. Want for than one window? Just make a new one! Wheee! Virtual mirrors are also nice...and all this in a free package!

I am really liking Wings. I've had the chance to try almost all the high end apps Maya, Lightwave, Max, Vue...too confusing. AS you should enter the monthly challenge in the Wings forum this month. Last months challenge was to create a weapon of the fantasy/medieval type. I think I only won because my name is a kind of sword. Anyway, this month the challenge is to model a building, of any type, in Wings. Give it a go man!!!

Agentsmith, are you using the latest version of truespace or the freebie? The promo movies on the truespace site seem to show a much improved interface in the latest release. I've been contemplating truespace myself, either that or rhino. Just haven't got enough nerve to spend my money.. yet.

you won claymor cause your sword was great. AS if I can make somthing in wings I'm sure you can.. I've tried my hand at lightwave and maya also and found it way to confusing.way too many options in those two.

I use 3D Studio Max and Rhino. Rhino seems to be easier to do NURBS in and therefore has lately been my 3D ware of choice. But, I do most of my UV mapping in 3D Studio Max and occasionally I use UVMapper for simple mapping. I then export to obj then into Bryce where I re-apply the textures to my liking. I also have the freebie TS and Amapi. I find TS interface almost as complicated as Max and Amapi too quarky to handle.

I'm all for Rhino. Much easier to learn than any other modelling program I tried. Excellent for any non-organic modelling. Organic modelling is harder, but far from impossible. Texture mapping I'm doing in Lith Unwrap and UV Mapper. Sometimes I don't even need to do that, because the textures apply in Bryce easily. AS, drop by in Rhino Forum and see what masters of the program create.

Aye, I'm all about Rhino. The only modelers I haven't tried are Maya and Cinema, and I'd have to say I've never seen anything, from any app, that you couldn't make inside Rhinoceros. I even got a crazy hair flowing and started boning stuff, using Lightwave, with my Rhino creations! But I know what you mean, AS, I find it easier to arrange a scene in Bryce than in Lightwave. Good stuff...

Don't about the learning curve in C4D being lower then Max, I've found it much harder to switch to use (used truespace and bryce before I got Max now I use Max and Bryce). I wanted to learn C4D purely through getting the freebie a few weeks ago, but I keep finding myself going back to Max. Just what you get used to I guess.

I'm liking C4D a lot, and finding it quite easy, too. I signed up for a C4D modeling/animation course at school, and I've just found everything so intuitive... Now I'm just wondering if they've got a special upgrade deal... Preferaby an upgrade from (the free) version 6 :D

because you are a student you can buy the full version for 300 dollars. http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketlist.html?PHPSESSID=15d85dbc42fb6424fb1903c31ad34f75&qk_srch=cinema&image.x=7&image.y=9&qs_platform=

I'm WAY not up to speed on Wings enough to enter a challenge, lol. I'm killing myself on just how to model a screw head... Besides, the next few weeks is so busy for me (I actually have a couple paying gig's with Bryce), I may end up just fixing up the Bryce version of my sci-fi glasses, and releasing that first, while I continue my study with Wings. Then later when I release the Wings obj version of the sci-fi goggles, anyone who bought the Bryce version can get the generic for free, or something like that, etc... I use the freebie version of Truespace 3. I would most likely buy Rhino 3D before I laid down the money for Truespace 6. The next "complete" 3D package I will probably get (one day far down the road), is Cinema 4D. AgentSmith

I have always tended towards Nurbs modelers. I used to used Infi-D (still do sometimes), until Metacreations sold out. After that I used Pixels3D. If your a Mac person you should check it out. They used to give the previous version away free. It is a Superb spline modeler/animation/renderer. If I was on a PC, I would be using Rhino. I have browsed their web page longingly many times!!! Boy, I wish they would port that one! I started using Wings3D about a month ago. This is the simplest modeler to learn I have found yet. It has many features that are normaly only found on more expensive programs. It is still beta but very stable. I can't wait to see what it will be, when finished. Best of all - It is free and runs on almost anything. I have also found organic shapes much easier with nurbs instead of polys, but that is an old debate. Claymor - Your sword was awesome!

I..am..Still waiting for that fechacht magazine to show up!..;) Mid-October..I am gonna be so far down on the C4d learning curve..;) at least I'll know lots of folks that know C4d from months of experience I'll still lack..;)
Don't feel bad, I got started in modeling with Amapi 4.15..so Wings seems like a breeze..;) You can use Wings any way ya want, use as many primitives (I did an Escher pic with over a hundred primitives in it..got 'jerky', but modelled fine..;) as ya want..ok, I did a tutorial/cheat-sheet in the Wings Tutorials (you put it up for me, so ya know what I'm talking about)..give it a whirl. Find your own style, it's a tool, not a discipline (ducks thrown cubes..;)

Well i have to say that my Software of choice in modelling is Actually Autocad, mainly as i have been using it as a work tool for the past umpty ump years, but its pretty easy to run thro, and although it doesnt do soft objects, like animals or people, very well, i find its the fastest when making anything man-made, e.g spaceships buildings etc. for example all the buildings modelling i did for this months challenge entry took about 2 hours added up. (3dsmax is the 3d graphics version of this), i've tried wings, rhino etc, but i keep coming back to ACAD for speed.

I don't know, all these higher end modelling apps look the same to me. It's all that 4 view thing and polygons and nurbs and sheeesh I don't think my brain can cope. On the other hand give me a physical equation to solve, a dinner to cook, and an essay to write, and I can do all three at once. Does anyone know of somewhere that gives a simple interpretation of what all these modelling types are about?. I think if I understood the components and building blocks then I could get over my mental block with modelling. Basically I need a dictionary of modelling terminology. 8) Catlin

Attached Link: http://www.embedinc.com/book/glossary.htm

Well Catlin, because you can view your model all at the same time from different angles in virtual space using the 4 views, you can better manipulate the shaping of your model to suit your needs. There are just too many terms and to discuss them individually would fill volumes and hardly a topic to which justice would be done on a forum thread. In these modeling programs you can model using solids which are often called primitives and using boolean techniques (named after the person who first came up with the algorithm for the technique) you can create fairly basic models just like you can in Bryce but these are real booleans which like AS said leave only the positive forms reducing the chaos on screen that you get in Bryce and lowering the amount of polygons making up the model making for a lighter model. You have many different techniques at your disposal with which to create your models. Way too many to go through here but you have techniques like lofting, which is much like extruding, where you first create a silhouette shape of the object using lines, often are called bezier curves (lines) which have control points (vertices) along it and by pulling and pushing on these control points you can shape your line into any shape you want. Then this shape can be lofted or extruded (both terms are often used interchangeably) along another line, which acts as a rail (axis) whose length dictates the depth, which your finished solid will be when the line shape is extruded along it. Another popular modeling technique is NURBS (Non Uniformed Rational B-Splines), which is actually a compilation of different model surfacing techniques. Generally, you first create a front view and a side view of your shape or perhaps an axis line (rail) depending on which surfacing technique youll be utilizing using spline curves (similar to the bezier lines from above) creating a mesh frame. Then you select whichever surfacing technique is best suited to put the skin on your mesh frame thus creating the general form of your model. You can then push and pull on the individual control points to better define your model, say a head model for instance. Once youve finished detailing your model, it can be converted into a polygon mesh and at this point you can start texturing your model and exporting it to other programs. NURBS allows for more organic models by allowing the user more control over fine detail. Metaballs can used to better represent certain organics. Would be nice to get a program that would allow vertex push/pulling on a metaball wireframe. Each modeling program handles these techniques differently and is what makes one more popular over another depending on what the end user finds easier for him/her. Hope this helps explain and de-mystify some of the more often used terminology a little.

Thanks for the tips guys. 8) Hopefully one day I be able to come in here and say "look what I made", and it'll be something more complex than a set of teeth. Which up until now, is the only thing I've made using Rhino, vampire teeth of course. 8) Catlin

Quest, the program you are talking about is called Amorphium. Metaballs are actually NOT Brycean, I'm sure you all knew that. Metaballs stem from Play's Amorphium, and were called biospheres. Biospheres, in Amorphium, are much more powerful and controllable than Bryce or Lightwave style metaballs, you can adjust the energy on Biospheres, which you can't do with metaballs in Bryce. Lightwave's metaballs are pretty cool, though... You've all seen them in action in movies like Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

Finding Nemo is my latest favourite movie. If you haven't watched it yet you should. 8) Catlin

omg, we took the kids to see that at the drive in this summer...and my 3 year old who very rarely talks, would not stop saying "nemo nemo nemo nemoooooo" hahahahahah the next week we went back, and had to postpone watching our movie to see "nemo nemo nemo nemoooooo" again....lol as for modeling? hahahahahah am still stuck with bryce for all my models...lol

Errrmmmm, Shadow, I hate to say it but POVRay had Metaballs before Amorphium was a twinkle in it's programmer's eye!! :-) They were called Blobs in those days (late 80's/early 90's - although POVRay is still going) and also were adjustable for force as well as diameter, both settings being fully animatable. Have to agree finding Nemo is awesome :-)

Aye, that rocks! I'm not certain about timelines, all I know is that Play was involved with the technology used to create the liquid Robert Patrick in Terminator 2, and shortly thereafter Amorphium went public to try to keep Play from going under. I'm not super Amorphium-loyal, but it's another intense tool in the book!