Inspired by Kenmo, I was curios as to what everyone uses here.

I've been using

Mod Tools 7.5 - Making the basic model shapes and now that I've found the 3D paint part of it I'll be using it for that.

Sculptris - For details on the models. 

Wings 3D - As a file format converter.

Meshlab and UV Mapper - To map and clean

Daz Studio 3 - Once I get to the point of setting stage, lights and cameras for my models.

I have quite a bit more installed than this like Lightwave, Silo and Houdini but just keeping them around to learn something new from time to time. Since I'm not experienced with those others yet and trying to get to know one at a time, I've just been sticking with the list above.

Wings - to do the basic modeling

Accutrans - file converter

Wings, UVMapper Pro and Roadkill - to do the mapping

Poser 8 - to render

Notepad++ - to edit Poser files

VLC Media Player - so that I don't go insane while using all the previous ;o)

I also have Hexagon, which I never use because it's so buggy for me and Carrara Pro 7, which I haven't got around to learning as of yet.

Laurie

 I have Accutrans on my system but not sure how to use it properly. Probably the best way to go once I figure out what I'm doing with it. =D

Quote -  I have Accutrans on my system but not sure how to use it properly. Probably the best way to go once I figure out what I'm doing with it. =D

It's a whole lot more stable than Meshlab, which I have trouble with quitting on me regularly ;o).

Laurie

 Yeah, Meshlab dumps out on me a lot as well. The 3D paint part of it is cool but the texture cloning feature only works once in awhile. I think it's still an early release though so maybe in the next few releases they'll get it to shine. =D

metarequoia - model, UVmap and texture

Bryce or Terragen 2 - rendering

PSP 3 or 10 for post and pre

 Oh yeah, forgot - airflamer reminded me, been using GIMP for making scaled JPEGs of PrintScrns that I want to show on the interwebs. =D

I use Photoshop for making textures. Probably always will, even over programs that paint directly on the model ;o). I just feel much more comfortable in it since I've been using it for nearly 16 years...lol.

Laurie

 It would be nice if they made a plug for Photoshop and Photoshop clones to import models into it.

Hey, I was wondering, why are those texture files several megs big when you can download a thumbnail and get the same result?

This free texture site has some that are 3 to 10 megs big

 http://www.imageafter.com/category.php?category=fur
[
The only thing I can think is that some were done by amateurs not yet familiar with scaling and resolution?

](http://www.imageafter.com/category.php?category=fur)

I use ImageAfter photos all the time. It's a good resource ;o) The images are hi res, so that you can use them large if you want/need to.

Laurie

 Ah, I see. I'm still pretty new to this so I wasn't sure if the larger texture files were comprised of many layers that made for things like bump and illuminosity  and by just saving the thumb to disk I was missing out on the lower layers.

I guess rethinking it you only need what you can visually see in the texture and in the instance of bump the 3D software, itself, calculates shade opacities for dents and cavities. 

But that's how newby I am. =D

You'd probably like Mod Tools texture painting setup because it still requires heavy dependency on inputting, organizing and aligning texture files.

I can't quite say yet rather I like it that way or the easy peasy way through a 3D paint specific program other than that there appears to be a whole lot more control over practically everything when it comes to old-fashioned texture mapping.

Ah, and mustn't forget the fact that you can go back to any texture layer and tweak at any time where as its all ctrl Z as far as the eye can see with something like Sculptris's paint setup.

Blender 2.49b to model in. Looking for a good sculpting tool to refine my mesh in and that won't add hugely to the poly count

Obj2Cr2 to import said mesh into Poser - this is a must-have for conforming clothing

Morph Clothes (D3D) for adding morphs

I have been using the GIMP, but have recently started looking at Elements 8 and just got a copy of Photoshop CS3 to play around with - wEEEEEEE!!!! - very excited about this.

Poser 7 99% of the time, occasionally Poser 8 (not the workhorse yet).

Notepad++ to write my Matmatic shader scripts

Poser File Editor to edit my Poser files

I own Hexagon but haven't really put the time into it, i confess (Blenderised).

Tried Silo. I mean, really, really, really, ReallY tried. I finally gave up after the upteenth crash. On the umpteen install with different video cards and drivers, different versions (touting bug fixes) and especially after that last unhelpful comment on the Silo boards. It's like: "why am I wasting my time?" Obviously, this works for some people. It really doesn't for me.

 Robyn, Sculptris is awesome for detailing but it instantly weighs down your model in polies on import.

i haven't attempted to make clothes yet but I just found a side bar in Mod Tools where it apparently does that too. Although a freeware program specifically focused on tailoring might be cool. =D

Have to give you a big kudos for being able to get use out of Blender. Ten years ago when I originally attempted all this stuff, I was studying with Truespace, 3D Studio Max, Cinema 4D and Blender and Blender was the only one that I could really call my own because there was no way that I could afford the others. Unfortunately, however, I couldn't even begin to figure out how to set up Blender's screen.

The 3D Studio Max Bible and hand on experience all came back to me when I picked this up again recently and it makes a lot more sense now!

As for Silo, I have the trial and it hasn't buggered up on me but then again I really haven't got my hands very dirty with it. I just inspected the menus to see what it could do (like exporting geometry through render into obj files when the trial runs out (mwahahahahaha). I also inspected it to see if I could get along with its interface. I'm sort of fifty, fifty with my opinion of it right now.  I think I can do the same things with freeware modeling apps to be honest so I don't think you're missing out on too much. =)

You're doing well to have Silo running long enough to have a good feel for the interface, Midnight. Overall, it promises to be a really good app (not sure if NeverCenter is working on the next version) with significantly smoother sculpting tools to Blender, but I could never keep it open long enough to really do much save-worthy work on it.

One GOOD thing I was able to do with Silo was check quad - vs - tri count: very useful for making your mesh Poser-friendly. I suppose that would be doable in Blender too, just trying to sort out how.

 Back when Blender first came out there was a beginners' guide that you could find pretty easily in bookstores. I'm not sure if they ever updated it but I had planned on sitting down with it when I finally got through the Max Bible.

I ended up tossing it all away though out of discouragement as the PC I had back then could in no way handle those programs like the old PC I have now does. So I mostly ended up with a text book education in 3D but that Blender guide had covered all of Blender inside and out.

I do know that you're not alone as a user and fan. There are tons of Blender users out there on the net and it's good to see so many people paying tribute to a quality design program that's generously offered as a freebee.

Once I get all the info hammered down that I need for Mod Tools I"m going to move back into Silo again but from what I've seen, it was pretty much a bare bones modeler for the modeling and sculpting aspects. If it had other features like stage set ups, hair or a 3D painter, they're all still hidden in a menu I haven't found yet.

I know there's someone here whom mentioned recently that they use Silo mostly so I'm assuming that it's a pretty competent app if you're video card will accept it. 

My card messes up with Metaseqouia which is a shame as I really liked that program.

Paint Shop Pro
Painter
Art Rage
Hexagon
Wings3D
Google Sketchup
Sculptris
3D Coat
Vue Pro Studio 8
Cinema 4D ver 6
Bryce 5.5
DazStudio
Inkscape (not too versed)
Canvas (not too versed - maybe vector art isn't for me LOL)

Carrara Pro ver 6 -  jsut got this about 2 months ago from a magazine's cover cd (3D Artist or 3D World - I think)

I mostly do 3D stuff during the winter as in the summer I do photography....and my cameras are Olympus E500, Olympus E620 and Canon A610 Powershot...

For now my work flow is:

Hexagon 1.21 for modeling.
3DCoat 3.3 for UV mapping and base texturing.
Carrara Pro 5.1 for final texturing.
Then modo 401 or Vue Infinite 8 for rendering.

For work, when I have to do 3D, I use:

Silo
Modo
ZBrush
Topogun
UVlayout
UVMapper
Photoshop
Poser
Phi builder
PMD editor
EasyPose Underground

For work, when I have to do 2D, I use:

Manga Studio
Anime Studio
Photoshop

Additionally, I own versions of Hexagon, Carrara, Vue, Painter, Sketchbook Pro, 3d coat, Rhino, Wings and Blender.   My opinions on these vary depending on how long it takes to do basic actions, with Hexagon (a program I used to be the moderator for here) trailing - I hate having to validate nearly everything I do, most apps just let me do whatI want to do without me having to re-confirm.

Quote - Carrara Pro ver 6 -  jsut got this about 2 months ago from a magazine's cover cd (3D Artist or 3D World - I think

It was Digital Arts.

Carrara 7 is being given away in the latest issue:

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/magazine

 Interesting - linking to Digital Arts has ended up disabling Digital Arts. Now I can't order for the mag. =L

Have used and would use again:

Wings3D
DAZ Studio 2.3
Poser Pro 2010
The Gimp
UVLayout
Binary Morph Editor

Whatever else I need I tend to write myself.

That's really cool. How long does it take to write a modeler? 

Link is back up.

Ordered, and the confirmation mail has stated that they're sending me LAST month's issue. 

So I've fired off a couple of emails and made a couple of costly calls to the UK and not quite sure if this is going to get resolved or not. 

Either way, just a warning in case anyone follows that link and orders.

For me Wings for modeling photoshop 5.5 LE for postwork and textures. Rigging and rendering is done in Messiah 2.5. Do backdrops in bryce 5.5

Last year on another UK magazine's cover CD (or DVD)  I got a full working copy of Realsoft 3D... I could never figure out the interface as it seemed to be less then user friendly but I hear it's a very capable app....

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.

Quote - That's really cool. How long does it take to write a modeler? 

I wouldn't know. When I said I wrote stuff myself, I was talking about utilities for turning morphed objects into deltas, copying UVs between files, manipulations CR2s, that kind of stuff.

My guess would be that I could hack together a very simple modeler in a couple of weeks if I was really focused, and then I'd keep refining it for the rest of my life and never feel like it was ever ready. :laugh:

 There are A LOT of 'left in limbo' modeling apps out there on the net. LOL. So I guess it's just good sticking to the small utility side of things. XD

It appears mostly everyone is using Wings3D - I don't know how to work with it properly, to be honest.

It seems to work in the same way that Houdini does where everything is orchestrated by a bounding box.

Until I figure out how to get somewhere with it, it's been a great resource for converting Mod Tools and Lighwave (non-commercial versions) files into Wavefront OBJs so that I can play with them in Sculptris.

Filmbox to OBJ conversions do seem to degrade the geometry a bit though. 

Quote - Last year on another UK magazine's cover CD (or DVD)  I got a full working copy of Realsoft 3D... I could never figure out the interface as it seemed to be less then user friendly but I hear it's a very capable app....

I just learned my lesson - get it in the store where you can see what you're getting or don't get it at all. LOL.

Quote - For now my work flow is:

Hexagon 1.21 for modeling.
3DCoat 3.3 for UV mapping and base texturing.
Carrara Pro 5.1 for final texturing.
Then modo 401 or Vue Infinite 8 for rendering.

I forgot to mention that I use GeoControl 2 for generating terrain.

And for postwork, I have Paint Shop Pro 7, Photoshop CS2, and Painter 9.

Quote -

Inkscape (not too versed)

Having a download and peek, Inkscape is a free Illustrator alternative. I believe the main idea behind those types of apps is that you can attribute those point curves to every object in a drawing thus giving full control to rearrange or manipulate them anytime you like, especially if they are on top of one another. 

This can be somewhat done with Photoshop, PSP, GIMP, POS PRO layers but not as exact as with Illustrator type software.

Although actual free drawing or painting with something like this looks impossible so I think, don't quote me on this because I'm not too versed either, I think you place down a pointed shape on your document and import your free hand drawn and painted stuff into that shape so that you can also have free control over moving and resizing those images as well.

Art Rage appears to be more of flexible free-hand-drawer for WACOM fun:
http://www.artrage.com/

 What do you guys think of Paint .NET...erm for those of us whom have had the misfortune of having .NET on our systems anyway?

Illustrator is just about the only thing I'll use for vector ;o). But then, I'm an old graphic artist, so I'm very biased...lol.

Laurie

 Was I fairly spot on about what I thought Illustrator/inkscape was? I tried to use Illustrator way back in the day, not that I've opened up Inkscape, the little I learned about Illustrator seems to have finally sunk in.  =D

You can make some very nice things with Inkscape with time and practice. You can make awesome things with Illustrator and, oh, a lot more practice ;o). It's like - do I use MS Paint or do I use Photoshop? LOL Maybe that comparison is a little extreme, but you get the idea ;o).

Laurie

 That's cool. I'll have to check into it and use Inkscape as free training grounds for right now. =D

I also have a copy of Shade (forget version) which came on a free mag's cover cd last year or prior to last year... Never did much with it though,,,,

Inkscape sometimes has issues with my Wacom Intuos 3 tablet that other apps do not have....

How's Serif's Drawplus compare to Inkscape other then money?

Quote -  That's cool. I'll have to check into it and use Inkscape as free training grounds for right now. =D

If you do 3D modeling, vector isn't very far off. A lot of the same principles ;o). Bezier curves and extrusions and booleans.

Laurie

 I gave up searching for the free version of Carrara 7. Digital Arts canceled my order because I pestered them too much and they appear to be the only magazine that NZ distributors don't carry. We have tons of mag shops over here that carry nearly every mag possible but no one here has heard of Digital Arts.

I've checked the latest issues of 3D World over here and the mags are over $20 NZD and all their included discs carry are shareware and textures. Thhhhhpppppttt.

I think GIMP and Inkscape are the next big thing, as they are easy and free access to them THIS is what people will be learning and becoming comfortable with. There's a possibility, that if they ever sell their efforts, in a full-featured production, they could give Adobe a good run for their money because so many people will be more familiar and comfortable with using them.

I personally think that is Blender's goal - to eventually sell their software after they've laid long enough stake in society to train and accustom everyone as to familiarity and use with it. =)

It will be in 3D Artist and 3D World mags one day.  But it is not the Pro version.  So I'd wait for that freebie.

 I don't really need the pro version of anything just something that I can get comfortable learning the basic interface with and study from that isn't going to shut down and stop saving the good stuff that I can actually do with it. It's all about the interface, how easy it is to work with, good documentation and universal logics. 

Softimage is bad about universal terms but because the learning edition  'Mod Tools' is free and they've included awesome documentation of how to use all the features, I can overlook the obscure phrasing for it's features and tool set. 

As for Carrara, it's a bit bare bones, isn't it? I relies on DAZ Studio for layout and I don't imagine that it come with a full-featured 3D painter, clothes taylor, competent hair generator included?

Modo sounds like it does everything I want but it shuts off completely after thirty days so you feel a bit forced to focus on all your time, every day for a month, with Modo. I have it downloaded but haven't installed it because of that.

You probably wouldn't want to use Carrara for modeling in.  But the Pro version has some added features in other areas that the basic version doesn't have that you would probably be interested in.

 Thanks for the info, Shawn. I'll keep checking mag shops for pro versions then. Mags in NZ can cost up $30 NZD which is like $20 USD and that's a MONSTEROUS amount to pay for a mag unless it is including access to last version software of something good. =)

Attached Link: Blender history

You won't ever see Blender for sale.

It's been around for a long time now and the move to Open Source has probably been the best thing for it. If you don't want to shell out bucks for 3D software, try familiarising yourself with it. You can model, animate and render with it. It also has a compositor, video editor, fluid simulator, cloth dynamics, physics, particles, smoke......the list goes on. In short it pretty much does everything. It is not an easy program to get to grips with but there are literally thousands of tutorials (of varying usefulness) on the Internet, and an enthusiastic, helpful user base.

Click the link for a bit of history.

I was gonna say...I don't think Blender will ever be a for-sale program ;o). It's already been around for so many years that you'd think, if they were to ever sell it, they would have done so long before now.

Laurie

Blender will always be free.

But, since I want to ensure it remains so, I bought the book whilst it was still available to buy as a book... now you can get it as a downloadable pdf. They probably are going to have one out for the next version.

I really want to support energy like this: it's good to see top-quality products don't have to come with a hefty price-tag.

 Yeah, I have to agree with everyone here. Instead of shelling out close to $600 for the latest version of something like Carrara that I don't know what it does or even looks like it's probably best to give my patronage to a developer that is not only putting their product up for grabs but also generating such a large knowledge base around it.

 By the way, Robyns, I bookmarked that link to remember the name of that book. I had the original book Blender produced back when it first started.

Blender at one point was commercial software. Way back when... Then Elysiun (or whatever the company name was) asked folks about pricing, and somewhere along the line there was a suggestion to open source it. The people behind the open source idea actually managed to raise the money with fund raisers, donations, and such, and bought out the rights for the software... And then Blender went from being proprietary closed source to public open source...

I'm sure if you look around on the net, you can find the full story behind it.

 Bonjour
When i have time i use:
Silo 2
Rhino 4
Argile 2
Zbrush 3,5
Carrara pro 8
Poser pro 2010
Painter 11
Cs3 design premium
Art Rage 3
Vue d'esprit infinite 2 8,5
Geocontrol 2
UV mapper pro
Capture NX 2
Lightroom 2,7
Postworkshop pro ( my last one bought :excellent a woprld of possibilities for postwork effects)

Quote -  Thanks for the info, Shawn. I'll keep checking mag shops for pro versions then. Mags in NZ can cost up $30 NZD which is like $20 USD and that's a MONSTEROUS amount to pay for a mag unless it is including access to last version software of something good. =)

It looks like 3D Artist magazine issue #17 may have Carrara 7 Pro (free full version) included on disc.