I absolutely love 3D. I've been usng 3DS Max for 3 years now and also teach it to young adults who are interested in the gaming industry at a local Cont Ed school.

I am also a Highschool teacher. I know my teenagers would love to learn this stuff. They'd go crazy for it! I teach in an econmically odd area. Some kids live in rich neighborhoods and others in very poor ones. These kids need something to interest them after school. Keep off the streets and out of trouble. Believe it or not its my affluent students that are in the most trouble. They have the means to get into a lot of trouble especially drugs.

My school budget is not huge for extra cirricular activities. So, how would I get the software together to do his?

I know I could use Wings3D for modeling. Photoshop LE for texturing and manipulating scans. But what about the animation part? Does anyone know of a really inexpensive (hopefully free open source app) for animating stuff?

The cheapest I can think of is Bryce at about $300 CAD.

Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

Curtis

DAZ Studio may be the best way to go to teach. The app is free so each stdent can sign up at DAZ and get their own copy

From the feature section of D/S

"Pose / Animate...
Pose your characters however you like, make your figures thick or thin, tall or short, beautiful or monsterish, and even animate them so they become exactly what you want them to be."

Attached Link: http://www.anim8or.com/

Think about blender, open source and a complete package,

UI is daunting at first, but, most computer literate kids will get it pretty quick.

http://www.blender.org/

GIMP for photo editing again open source and it's only real pitfalls are a little bit of an odd ui and no CMYK.

http://www.gimp.org/

cost for both = $0

You might also want to think about Wax (compositing - http://www.debugmode.com/wax/) or jahshaka for vid editing (haven't tried the latter I use adobe premier - but it gets good reports)

This is so great. I did not know DAZ studio could animate. I like Anim8tor, GIMP and Wax. They all look like fantastic apps.

Thanks so much guys!

Don't forget to point them here to upload their work and get hints n tips... :)

Sorry to drop back in to the show a little late but it occurred to me this morning, that these folks may be perfect fit for using Maya PLE? it's aimed at students, watermarks output but has near enough all the other functions of the main product...

Attached Link: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

The other indispensible helper is the hot key map....

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Reference/Hotkey_Map

Thanks, but I tried Blender and it totally baffled me. I know Wings3D farily well so I'll probably use that.

It seems to me that if you are teaching students 3d modeling you would want to:

1. Save money and hopefully get free content to go with it
2. introduce them to the excitement of the 3d world via a program that has a short learning curve
3. Make they are using a program that is completely compatible with poser content
   4. Hopefully get them interested enough about it that they would want to continue with it in the future
    Well, I'm gonna put another plug in for Daz Studio because it meets all those things. Students would be far more likely to put what you teach them into use if they could get their own software for free. You would also want to limit the access they have to adult content and Daz has a higher restriction on that stuff. You'd have to take that into consideration in the public school environment.

bandolin,

Sounds like there are several cool things out there that will fit what you are looking for:)

Weigh all your options and you will be able to tell what will work best for your students.  

Stac

I'm really teaching the basics here. The problem with DAZ is that it is really open to abuse. I know the reaction I'll get the first time a 13 year old loads a naked V3 into DAZ studio. They are so immature you have no idea.

I want them to learn how to model, build, texture, rig, storyboard and animate. The entire pipeline, but really simplified. I've got a garage scene already made. The students will model a simple robot, add their own textures to the environment, rig the robot, storyboard an action sequence and animate and render.

I figure it'll keep'em busy from now until Christmas. These kids pick this stuff up so fast its scary.

I might introduce DAZ to grade 10 and 11 students. They're older and more mature. They'll be looking for more advanced stuff. V3 is a very sophisticated model. Far more sophisticated than any gaming character that's for sure.

Keep the advice coming, though. I love all your suggestions.

But Daz for all its merits isn't a modeling program, so if you want to teach 3D modeling you'll need to use something else in addition. Also Daz autosmooths any 3D content you put into it, which can make some imported models look really crappy by rounding-off edges and corners, unless they've been set up to avoid that..

Also, with respect, I was puzzled by DazRyan's comment, "Make [sure] they are using a program that is completely compatible with poser content."  Why would anyone particularly want to do that? It would be better to use software that's compatible with standard file formats such as OBJ or 3DS.

A few more apps you might find useful are;

Milkshape at http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/index.html, which is a boning and animation software for low-poly models.  Shareware -- try free for 30 days then register for $25 if you like it.  It's mainly aimed at game-mod enthusiasts, but has wider application than that.

Truebones at http://www.truebones.com/, which sells motion-capture files for $1 each -- handy if you're looking for instant animations (walking, dancing, whatever).

PoseRay at http://mysite.verizon.net/sfg0000/ , which is completely free, and a useful file format converter and editor.

Thanks pearce. I'll look at those links.

e-on software has a PLE version of Vue 6 Infinite here:

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/?page=try

Renders are watermarked, but the PLE version doesn't expire and is perfect for a learning tool. They also have an academic store if you decide to purchase non-PLE licenses.

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/order/?bEdu=1

Hey Bandolin, check bakhter.com, they have several  Free 3d modeling/animation programs Might find something useful there.

http://www.bakhter.com/html/freeware/3d_software.html

Attached Link: http://sourceforge.net/

Keep trying with Blender, for a free program it really is excellent. Anim8or is pretty good too. But take a look at Source Forge. There are several 3D programs there. as well as graphics programs. It's an excellent open source resource.

On source forgehome page, scroll down to software categories, click on multimedia, then look over on the right and you'll see a list of project topics. click on multimedia graphics,  then you'll see links for 3d modeling and 3D rendering. Having just looked I can see 736 listings for modeling and 1515 for rendering. Most of those will be useless for what you want, but many of them could be very useful.  Most source forge softwares are free.

So, Blender can model, animate and render. Hmmmm...

I wasn't considering Blender because I found it near impossible to learn. But if it can do all those things then maybe its worth considering.

Does anyone have a favourite beginner tuts for this app?

Thanks bonesturcture.

I have to tell you that my "day" job is grant research and your post struck me as interesting.  If you can figure out the right "curve" you may be able to get funding for this kind of program for your students.

The naked V3 does bring up some issues I'm sure (that I hadn't thought of).

I'm also wondering if its your plan for each of the students to have their own software program or whether you will be teaching using A source program.

If you want them to model individual simple models then there is a simple modeling program that I have called Spatch.  I have had this program for a while now and I don't know if its still available for free but it is a great program for simple modeling.

By the way, just as a side note - I live near an art school - Temple's Tyler School of Art and I was reading how some of the students use 3d programs for their renderings - one I specifically remember is a jewelery design student that uses the Rhino program to design her jewelery..

We have two computer labs of 33 computers each at our school. Students will have their own stations and I will have a instructor station with an LCD projector. I'm starting off in Wings3D because of all the free 3D apps I've tried it has the lowest learning curve and is fun to use.

After that, I think I'll be moving on to blender. After visiting the sight and seeing what people are doing with it and the new revamped interface, I decided its the best free app for modelling, rendering, animating and UV mapping.

I'll be using GIMP for texturing.

There is no budget for this, my time is voluntary.