I've been using Wings3D for a few years and love it. I also use Vue Esprit for rendering and texturing, upgrading to ver 5 last year. I do final compositing in Paint Shop Pro ver 9.

I would like to add another modelling app to complement Wings3D. I'm hearing good things about Silo and Hexagon. I'm not much of an organic modeller but would like to try... I'm more at ease modelling buildings, houses, towers, castles & spaceships and some very primitive cars...

Any preference for Silo or Hexagon for a Wings3D or Vue user???? I know this is a very personal question, but I have the utmost respect for the regulars here and would like some feedback...

Cheers

Ken

You may have to download the demo versions for each and just try thim out.  You will soon know which app you like working with then.

       Since I demo'd Silo and own hexagon and I am another wing nut I would reccomend Silo. The interface is similar to wings so you will have a much shorter learning curve.  I was able to pick up and use Silo very quickly. Wings is quite good at organic modeling too though. Wings has the best mirror feature I have seen.

yes I always miss that mirror function too in other apps.

What sort of  mirror function are we talking about here?

I also have another Silo question. How do you deal with Silo's SubD mesh when you want to export it to other apps? Specially when you have creased edges to lower the polycount on the poly cage mesh. I think this is more applicable on hard surface or mechanical model than on characters.

I came out of a 3DS MAX enviroment, and I have to say, Wings is hard to beat. It has most of the modelling options, and a superior navigaion system to even the top end apps. The learning curve is almost flat. You could argue a good case for best MODELLER around.

IF you are looking at trying out a different enviroment, then by all means. But if you think something else is going to add large numbers of option to your modelling world, you may well be disapointed. There isn't a lot Wings can't do.

As far as silo exporting I only had the demo for a while. I liked it for its similarity to wings a straightforward modeling tool. It has a few extra options and better polygon handling ability. I still perfer Wings's mirror and edge tools.  What do you plan on modelign that might help use define things too.

I find those additional tools are only necessary for hard surface modelling. For organic, you only need the Soft selection, split poly, add edge loop most of the time and all those tools are available in Wings3D.

I wish Teyon would check this thread and answer my question since he has Silo.

Silo is by far my favorite modeling program for organic stuff Ive ever tried. The topology brush alone makes it worth having. The only thing silo is really lacking is uv tools but mabey in the next release they will add this feature. In the Next release of silo they are adding zbrush style sculpting tools so it will be even more powerfull. Best yet its cheap at $109.

If you are interested in modeling Hardsurface models such as buildings, Mechanical, exc... you may want to try Sketch up. It only has a few tools but the way it works is amaisingly fast and easy. It even does a pretty decent job of creating uvs automaticly.

If you like doing mostly architectural stuff, google has a free version of sketchup. But I think Wings is still better for developing mostly organic shapes.

Attached Link: http://www.nevercenter.com/downloads/download_silo/

i recently started working with xsi and it also is a great prog. the mirror function is less sophisticated then wings though, extrude along path and disolve are included.