With Carrara 4 on the horizon, I've started debating spending my money on Amapi Pro just to get the nurb modeling. It looks so much better and easier to me, but Im not sure. But boy does stitching polygons together old. Anybody have experience in both nurb and polygon modeling that can give me the pros and cons of both?
Any input would be much appreciated.

thanks
-j

Hi Hack, the NURBS are better in most cases like industrial design (cars, objects for home use, instruments, etc), polygons and subdivision surfaces are usally better for character creation and life forms. There are at the moment dozen of modeler softwares on the market. Regarding me, i use Carrara, Amapi and Wings because the things that have one don't have the others (wings is free). I don't know if exist a software that can do all that a serious designer need, for example the way that i can apply bevels and selections on wings is much better than carrara and amapi, but amapi have the best arsenal for sure, i can't live without it. Maybe Silo is a good alternative, but i really don't like the GUI! Wings instead is similar to Carrara vertex modeler. For my work, also in very complex models this is all that i need. TOXE

I bought Amapi Pro 7 because it was advertised as a NURBS modeler. I was not happy though with the lack of control or smoothing of the NURBS while modeling. And Amapi Pro 7 (with the 7.15 patch) has a bad habit of introducing random points into NURBS meshes which defeats the whole purpose of using NURBS in a precise manner. Amapi Pro 7 is a good intro to using NURBS for the academic price before using a better product. Some will say that HyperNURBS are not real NURBS. But if they work better... Sub-Division modelers are the thing now. Which is like an auto-polygon modeling mode. But Rhino3D is still the king of NURBS for automotive body designing.

And then there's modellers that seem to concentrate on primitives and operators. I rather like c4D for doing tech stuff, as it has all sorts of tools to rapidly throw together a hex-head bolt with beveled edges. Why do people keep asking "which modeller is best?" My answer has to be the best choice is not forcing yourself to pick just one, but using whatever is better for the task at hand.

Thanks for all the comments guys. Us financially challenged people are the ones who ask "which modeler is best". Must be nice to be able to buy them all. (if applicable: I dont believe in pirating software. I like to support the manufacturer and actually pay for what I use) -j

Flat out, hands down, the best modeler for the money is Rhino. I've ben using since 2001, and havn't looked back. It will do anything you need, architectural, automotive, charcter design. It's basically a really friendly 3D Cad program, and is as accurate as you need. You can model real world objects in Rhino, it's used in everything from automotive design, deisgning buildings, industrial design, many, many products are deisgned using Rhino.. And nomuse is right, there really is no "best", it all depends on what you need and expect form a program. For many people, Rhino is way overkill, for some it's not enough. Cinema has very good modeling tools, not quite as intricate as Rhino's, since it's not a Cad based app, but still very good. I have very mixed feelings on Amapi. Not worth the money, it's almost as much as Rhino.

Rhino is good - if you have a PC. If you're on the Mac, it's not an option.

I'm no pureist about modelers and will use whatever I need to get the job done. ALL modelers have their own "issues" too.I use AmapiPro and may have a little better luck with it that Shonner does - I really like it but it's not strong at the kind of rendering I need

If you're on a budget or a hobbiest, Carrara really is one of the best all around packages on the market. From modeling to texturing to rendering, it has the bases covered. It also has a lot of stuff you have to pay big bucks to add on other softwares. I'm looking forward to the release of Carrara V4 - there always seems to be "extras" added that never make it into the pre-release feature list...

But discussing 3D packages is a little like discussing politics, right? ;)

Mark

Message edited on: 09/17/2004 15:57

Message edited on: 09/17/2004 16:01

I'm pushing Carrara. The modellers are functional, the render engine is excellent, the price is very reasonable. But more than all of that, the thing is easy to use and just feels very friendly. Maybe that's just four years of Ray Dream speaking, plus enough Bryce to get over the Kai interface hurdle. But I think Carrara is mostly pretty clean and simple. And not a small point -- it renders so durn fast it gives you a lot more willingness to experiment there.

Attached Link: http://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/lw-gallery/index.php?cat=2

Message edited on: 09/17/2004 22:00

Wings3D is perhaps the best box modeler out there, and concidering it is free I would venture to say that it is the best value of any app on the planet... don't let it's sparce ui fool ya, Wings3D really does the job well... :)

Yeah Wings3D it quite cool. I really like it. I have just got Amapi 6 with this months issue of 3D World Magazine and by exchanging data via the obj format both programs work quite well together. I think that using Amapi Designer 7 with Wings would be an awesome combination.

I use Carrara just to complement Zbrush and Hash, to me an Illustrator turned 3d artist, I think Carrara's UI is the worst but I was atracted by its rendering and third party plug-ins.