And the winner iiiiiisssss... Victoria! No, seriously folks, I would like to try my hand at modeling for Poser, in particular clothes and hair for the Vicky and Mike figures. What I'd like to know is, what is the best software for this. I have RayDream, but, I just found out that it does some funky stuff that results in an exported obj file that UV Mapper can't handle. (Talked to Steve Cox about it. Something to do with boolean operations and winding order. Way over my head. ) So, looks like my only other option is other 3D apps. I know there's a variety of them out there, and with a variety of price tags to go with them. And it boils down to this: Maya is out. I need a "reasonably priced" modeler. So, opinions anyone?

Rhino3D is around $700.00 and is used by many here to create clothing. We also have a Rhino forum and the Moderator is excellent. -JH.

How about 3DS Max? What's the price tag on that one?

And, is anyone out there modeling successfully with RD? How have you overcome the texture creation problem? Have you found an alternative to UV Mapper?

3DS Max is like $3000. Rhino is an outstanding modeler, possibly the best tool if you are going to just do poser modeling, but is just a modeler. There are at least half dozen tools less than $500 out there that people like, and several free ones. Cinema 4D Go was what Poserworld was mostly made with and it is about $200. There are a bunch of threads here about just this topic if you search for them.

Price tag on 3ds Max is big! They just came out with 3dsmax 4. http://www2.discreet.com/products/d_products.html?prod=3dsmax There is a program out there called Map Magic by Roy Riggs. The web page included with the prog doesn't work anymore. I haven't used it much myself. I use UVmapper. I also believe there is a plugin for 3dsmax 3.1 to UVmap and output an image file as a template. I think. -kimmarcus

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=1219

Vicky is already stealing from Posette's closet :) Follow link.

3DS Max = $3000 gulp Well, another one bites the dust. In the mean time, I just went to look at the few 3DWorld magazines I have and found that on one of the CD's is a Rhino 1.1 demo. Think I'll give it a look-see.

There are a lot of downloadable demos out there. Every product has a work cycle you need to use. If you are not happy with it you will not enjoy using the product. So try before buying. Academic discounts are also a useful trick.

Attached Link: http://www.pixelatious.com

Go to my web site and look at my Poser figures. They are all made with RayDream5. Raydream works just fine for making Poser figures. The only thing to remember is that it will strip out materials. So it's best to have the materials each a seperate body part until you are totally finished. Then you can open the model in UVmapper and assign the parts to materials to cut down on the number of parts. RayDream files WILL work fine with UVmapper. ScottA

if you can meet their requirements then you can get 3dsmax at $899 for an educational version. newtek is offering a promotion on lightwave 6.5, if you own one of a pretty long list of programs then you get $1500 off the software -- bringing it down to $995. rhino 3d is vastly overpriced at 800 dollars. it lacks many of the features of max/lightwave yet costs almost as much. its nowhere near in the same league. why dont you go to www.discreet.com and request a free trial version of 3dsmax, download a 30-day trial of rhino3d and decide from there. i dont know if lightwave has a trial version. stay FAR away from carrara, its a buggy, half-finished POS.

You can alsot give a try at Amapi. The interface is a little strange but it's cheap and incredibly powerful. I think you can get the version 4.3 for free with some magazine (I don't know the titles of the American one, I'm French, but I know that it was also offered in England and America, maybe two or three monthes ago, it should be possible to order an old issue). The version 6 is just out (you can get a trial copy here : http://www.tgs.com/media.htm) to have give it a try. It can import and export obj file now and I think it's really low priced (I just have the free 4.3) :) J-L

You can get free copies of Strata 3D, Amapi, TrueSpace and Merlin (and possibly a few more) if you can live with slightly outdated versions. They are given away on the cover disks of various magazines, and you can often get these by ordering back issues. Check out www.digitmag.com, www.computerarts.com, www.3dworld.com, www.cgimag.com and www.strata3d.com You can add UV mapping to any type of model (that will import into Poser) by assigning a material with the grouping tool in Poser, exporting as OBJ and taking into UVmapper. Good luck