Hi guys. I wanna make clothes for Poser but I really dont have any background in 3d modelling. The question is what 3d application is the easiest to learn for an ignoramus like me specifically in creating clothes and morphs for Poser. I understand that Carrara has the Transposer which would make working with Poser a little bit easier. Price of the program is secondary for me. What I'm looking for is the user friendliness for beginners like me. Thanks.

c5pro has transposer. That would certainly come in handy to have, but you don't need that for modeling clothes. People model in hex and carrara. I think most would agree hex is better for modeling(certainly more powerful) and I think easier.Silo is liked alot too and would probably also serve your purpose, it has a nice displacement tool that hex doesn't have, tho hex has more features.Some prefer it to hex.Hex works well with carrara. People also use truespace and wings3d. It's personal what a person things about the interface. I would go try the demos. As far as morphs go...not sure about modeling for that. You would need the ability to utilize a none poser format(probably obj). D|S has a plugin, but not sure about poser.

Two things to look for; The program you can afford. The program you can work with. Carrara has the Ray Dream/Kai Kruse background that does make it one of the easier programs to pick up and get modeling with. It plays well with Poser, too; and I don't mean the import capabilities (Transposer) but that Carrara can make nicely-grouped meshes that are simple to texture and rig in Poser. That said, Hexagon is a wonderful little modeller, Wings is free, Silo has some specialized tools that can make the job easier. On the subject of morphs -- no 3d program that I know of is really friendly towards the morph process. You'll always end up worrying about scale changes and changes in vertice order or number that cause the morph to fail. That said, Carrara's toolset is about the most primitive one out there for manipulating a surface as needed to create a morph. About the best tool I've found so far in Carrara is bones; rigging a mesh inside Carrara, posing it, and saving out the poses as .obj files to make morphs from. My last recommendation is that clothing modeling is tough stuff; almost as bad as figure modeling (when you include the rigging issues...!) It would be unwise to spend a heap of money then realize you don't enjoy doing it or have no knack for it. Fortunately, Carrara has a full-function demo.

Since price is secondary (be careful there ;) for you you might want to get Carrara first (demo anyway) and see if its modeler(s) are sufficient for you. In fact, Carrara may feel a bit less daunting to get your feet wet anyway since you won't be overwhelmed by a huge toolset, never having worked with a modeler before. Carrara has a very good vertex modeler now. It's common to see people new to 3d get dazzled by "Pixar uses this" or "so and so uses that". Try not to fall into that trap. Those operations have hundreds of people (extremely talented people) doing very specific tasks full time. What works for a few hundred full time pros could be a slog in the mud for a part time solo hobbyist. The Maya forums are full of hobbyists who've spent a chunk of change and then never do anything with it beyond rendering semi-transparent shiny spheres with hair ;)

Be sure to check out the Silo demo. The Topology brush is excellent for creating new geometry that conforms to a figure and the program is easy to learn with plenty of features.

One of the main people who do a lot of the free clothing for Poser, has been using Carrara to make his clothing since way back I understand. It should be a piece of cake in Hexagon.

Message edited on: 02/17/2006 17:24

If you are new to 3D modeling, then you will eventually want to render what you model and that may become your most important question at that time. Carrara has an excellent render engine and shading system for the price - or really for any price. It does have a few needed functions that the big boys have but they are somewhat specialized functions. Yet since you do say that cost is secondary, I would take a serious look at Cinema 4D as it is said to be the easiest and most powerful 3d complete program to learn from the beginning. (Carrara is not acknowledged for it's native modeler - even tho many do well with it and have for years.) Cinema also has an add-on facility (a plug-in) to get Poser models in and out which works very well... from Robert Templeton. Aalso, if price is secondary, I would look at MODO too. MODO will soon have a rendering engine of the first quality and its modeling ease is unequaled.

I am learning Carrara because it can do some wonderful atmospheric scenes. If I was primarily interested in modeling only, I'd look somewhere else. Try out some demos - especially Carrara 5. Once you get a feel for one 3D program, the others come a little bit easier.

Carara and Hexagon for modeling is a very good combo. Carrara and Silo is also very good.

good luck,
wb

Thanks guys for all the input. Will consider what everyone says.

BWTR Who is that clothing maker you speak of?