I've been into 3D Studio before it became 3D Studio Max, when computing was DOS OS based and I started with 3D Studio revision 3. 3D Studio was Autocads offspring geared towards the artist as opposed to engineers and draftsmen, which was Autocads domain.

Autodesk is the parent company of both Autocad and 3D Studio and was bought out by Kenetics and then by Discreet. Having also learned Autocad before 3D Studio came out because user-friendly 3D graphic programs were virtually none-existent at the time, Im fully aware of its capabilities. Autocad is best suited for non-organic mostly primitive modeling where architectural structures are the focus. In fact, my first ever 3D model was the Raptor, a copy of a spaceship designed for a space war game and I modeled it using Autocad.

We had PovRay, which was a command line program and you needed to know on the Corsican coordinate system where a particular point was in xyz 3D space first before you could enter it into the PovRay program and have it plotted on the monitor, a big hassle, well, at least to me it was. Today I believe, and I could be mistaken, PovRay has a frontend GUI which would make it far more easier to navigate and more productive.

Todays more modern high-end modeling programs not only use primitives but also incorporate such things as metaballs (a more sophisticated metaball routine than Bryce uses), NURBs, splines and shaping tools giving the ability to create more organic looking models such as people, animals and plants.

3D Studio was considered second only to SoftImage, a French company which took the lead in cinematic CG special effects then. As with all these wonderful tools they continued to mature and evolve in complexity and as a single program, become truly immense undertakings and eventually become unmanageable for their programmers. So the next logical step came with the advent of C++ and the ability to modulize programs into different subroutine capsules that could share variables with the main module making them object oriented and less cumbersome. This programming feature lead the way for faster and easier developments in all these huge programs and opening the SDK (Software Development Kits) programming market.

This made it possible for programming geeks and entrepreneurs to develop and market their own plug-in modules and all one had to do was piggyback them onto the main module. So not only does 3D Studio Max employs this program expanding feature but so do all other huge program developers and not necessarily only graphic programs either.

If not for the advent of Object Oriented programming the common person couldnt touch these programs today from a financial standpoint making these programs more available to us starving artists. Most these programs come with basic plug-ins only.

Most, if not all well known graphic program developers incorporate this plug-in feature and the most popular programs get the most traffic and the most people eager to sell their goods. Although often expensive, these plug-ins offer the user the ability to pick and choose whichever one they need and not have to buy an entire bundle. We often see prices ranging in the thousands for some of these plug-ins, I shudder to think what a program would cost if all these plug-ins were included. This is also the way the big cinematic special effects companies work today. They develop their own plug-ins for their own specially developed CG programs. As a result of their work we often see less expensive work-a-rounds and plug-ins.

Hey! You all still with me? Now, getting back on topic, ;DSlakker, every little practice you get makes you better at what you do. CAD training will not hurt you at all.

Rhino is mostly a NURBs modeling program but it does have primitives to work with. 3D Studio Max offers different approaches to modeling making it more versatile but also more expensive. Also being the offspring of an engineering program, Autocad, it is one of the most precise artist oriented programs. I like them both and find them more user-friendly then others and I too have used or tried to use and own quite a list of 3D programs, many, I havent had the chance yet to get around to trying but theyre mostly the same toy with a different color on it. Getting use to the GUI is often the most complicated part of the learning curve. I find Rhinos NURBs easy to work with but 3D Studio Maxs NURBs more robust with more to offer.

Hey, Twistedbolt, you spamming us?