Forum: 3D Modeling


Subject: The modelers and side apps you all use?

MidnightCarnival opened this issue on Jun 19, 2010 · 57 posts


pauljs75 posted Mon, 21 June 2010 at 6:26 PM

Wings3D - Box-style mesh modeling and UV mapping. Seems just natural and fast regarding workflow. The way it deals with loops/rings/and selections is still impressive. Hard to get much better bang for the buck for what it does, unless there's a long awaited update. Only weak point is still no heirarchy for complex models, so keeping parts sorted when they start adding up can be tricky.

Carrara 6 Pro - Rendering/Animation/etc. Yeah, two versions behind - but does what I need it to without being overly complicated. I don't really use the modeler in this, because Wings is better for that purpose. Physics is laughable. (If I come across the money, I plan on upgrading to version 8 with the fixes and more features.)

Sculptris - For sculpting style modeling and 3D painting. Until I get the hang of it, it's more for entertainment right now. Also seems to deal with tri-based meshes at the moment... If it evolves into something that can do displacement/normal mapping for quad-based base meshes and can paint UVs with multiple separate charts... Then I will definitely consider it a very strong complement to Wings and Carrara.

PhotoShop and Illustrator - Painting things and touching up as well as 2D art and postwork on 3D.

OpenCanvas 1.1b72 - Fast sketches or paints on the computer. Doesn't lag like PhotoShop can at times. It's a light app that boots and responds quickly. Drawing mode has a nice pen/pencil feel that antialiases nicely, and allows for adjustment of tablet pressure sensitivity on the fly.  "Watercolor" paint mode is pretty neat and is remniscent of working with graphic markers. Downside is that some menus were never translated from Japanese, so it takes a while to learn what the gibberish prompts under the English menus mean.

Paint Shop Pro 6 - Very quick and simple image edits or compression. No waiting for the program to load and it does what is needed.

Pencils/Pen/Paper/traditional media - For when ideas hit while not around the computer. Doesn't hurt to keep in practice with some of the ol' school ways.


Barbequed Pixels?

Your friendly neighborhood Wings3D nut.
Also feel free to browse my freebies at ShareCG.
There might be something worth downloading.