In about one month I will be able to purchase any and all the software that I want. I would like input from everyone as to the type of software I would need (besides Vue)for 3D Modeling, Figures, Abstracts, Space, etc. I'm purchasing two Dell rendering engines with all the bells and whistles, so any suggestions would be appreciated...Zhann

To work great with Vue get Poser first of all. Poser imports fine into Vue. I have no commercial modeler and cannot speak about that. :-)Guitta

A request to all of you who will answer Zhann's question: please no commercial offers with prices and links to commercial sites (they will be deleted immediately). Just tell Zhann what you use yourself and how the succes is in relation to Vue. Thanks. Guitta

As modelers, we use autocad, we do engineering work that is why we use it, also because we know it, next we use UV mapper for the texturing, we also use BodyPaint, by Maxon and Corel PhotoPaint for final touch ups and use for texturing maps. We like all our software and it works great with Vue, but all of this is a personal preference, you have to check out peoples demos and decide which would be right for you. Hope I did this right and it helped you. Sharen

I use Poser 4, it imports perfectly into Vue, and is a great product by it's own merits as well. Just started playing around with trueSpace 5.2, it looks like a very nice modelling software. Vue reads the trueSpace COB format perfectly, so importing trueSpace objects into Vue is easy. Looking at the import/export possibilities, these three softwares seems to compliment each other nicely.

Modelers : - free : spatch (basic), amorphium 1.0 (organic modeler, and very easy to use) - not free : probably rhino 3D is the best, but I haven't this soft Yves

Yves, where have you found the free amorphium 1.0 ? I went to their site, but all I found is to purchase. Do not hesitate to post here the links to free modelers!!! or other free software:-) Thanks, Guitta

for Guitta (and the others) here are a info/links to get free modelers.

• TRUESPACE 1 -

download it here :
http://www.pcplus.co.uk/article.asp?id=8556

• AMAPI 3D 4 -

download it here :
http://amapi.idevgames.com/html/download.html

• AMORPHIUM 1 -

you can only get it in magazine

1. order the issue 60 of COMPUTER ARTS :
   http://www.computerarts.co.uk/news/story.asp?newsFeature=29609

2. or the OCTOBER 2001 issue of PC FORMAT :
   you cannot order PC FORMAT back issue online, so grab first the current issue, you'll find there all the necessary information for ordering.

for other softwares you should try www.download.com, you'll find many useful softwares.

by the way CARRARA STUDIO 2 will be released soon... with fantastic features (fast rendering, global illumination, caustics, subdivision modeling, collision detection, inverse kinematics, particle system, multi-layered textures, 3D paint, etc...) and a very low price.

go to http://www.eovia.com

:) Eric

personal prefernce is really where it's at as far as the ware goes. I love Vue's rendering, just wish more exporting was possible with it..only able to export terrain object really sucks. poser is great for "posing" but for developing models rhino, max, amapi, carrera, the list is huge. I'm still struggling with autocad..can't seem to get the shapes into 3d with it for some reason. I know it's me not the ware. ~l~ like rhino for it's simplicity of use, UVmapper for making texture maps, corel photopaint for actually filling texture maps, or postwork if needed. max is fantastic for tweaking the mesh of an object.

Don't forget photoshop.6.

jaqui, there is a special way you have to work with autocad to get it to 3ds, if you need help, we can tell you how to do it. Sharen it is easy.

in my opinoin trhe only commercial modeller worth the money is Lightwave (but then i'm probably biased) any objects i have imported to vue from lightwave hardly ever need any more work in vue (even uv maps translate between the 2) I agree that you should get poser too (coz i for one can't model people to save my life, not many can)

Modeling organic type models is a real skill, and I would say there are many that can do it, and are very talented. Sharen PS: chemicalbrother, I too can't save my life if I had to model people.

i agree modelling organics is a skill ( I can do it, just take a look at my great white shark in the lightwave gallery) modelling humans in proportion and to scale is an entirely different matter tho............

Guitta, I'm so happy to have something to teach you :=) As mentioned by Eric I found Amorphium 1.0 in Computer arts but in disc 38 (October 2001) from the french version. Seems you can order the UK magazine at the address mentioned by Eric! Yves P.S. : should be difficult to model human in Amorphium 1.0, but not impossible. I'm not a master in that so I try only to model simple objects !

For easy human creatings many people uses ZBrush from Pixologic. I dont create humans, I prefer to create morphs for Poser figures. Also in Zbrush. Its an absolutely great software, sure the forerunner of all future 3D software. But beware! the learning curve is hard! (Is'nt it Mark?) Guitta

never tried painter..I know I have a le version on cd somewhere, but never tried it. actually, scale modelling a humanoid in vue is very simple, using a cylinder and two spheres with a boolian union between sphere1 and one end of cylinder, and boolean diff with the other sphere on the other end of cylinder. practice is two cylinders as well...but overlap them after boolean ops and group, that basic shape then becomes the joint sections. one finger section, ball being tip. hollow being joint. scale it up, fore arm , a bit more shin. not hard at all. basic shape in about half an hour..detailing is harder..unless you apply bitmap for details. also, with this structuring process, grouping each body part, the final figure is easily posed in vue.

sharon, it's just getting the perspective with it..the single viewpoint screws me up, very, very poor depth perception here. for that alone need glasses. never mind extreme sensitivity to light ( Halogen headlights are painful, more so than old style headlights) and astigmatism. as for carerra studio, why? it is the same interface as poser & bryce, which, for me is extremely difficult, I much prefer the interface in dream 3d (corel draw 6 ) or ray dream 5, ( only thing different between ray dream 5 and dream 3d, other than 6 years, is the particles in ray dream. corel draw's standard interface is one of the best in my opinion, not htese useless big bulging globular controls. oops, sorry don't get me going on subjects like that.

Maxon Cinema 4D XL, Vue, Adobe Photoshop & After Effects, (ohhh I must not forget Micro$oft Word as well ;o) )for most of my freelance work. During the day I use 3DS Max amongst others...but that is my 9to5 job, so does not count ;o). Don't forget if you are buying two rendering machines, then you will need applications that support Network Rendering, and even then, most applications can't split a single frame between two machines. It may be worth considering a dual CPU machine as a cost effective alternative in the long run. Cheers

And to use Vue's network render feature for animations, you have to buy TWO copies of Vue!!

HI GUITTA . . . 8^) How are you, fine I hope? Yes, ZBrush is a very difficult program to learn! But, once learned it's probably the best organic modeler on the market, for the price. You push & pull / add to & subtract from / twist etc., as you would with a ball of clay, all in real time. It is great for modeling human or animal models, & it can also do standard modeling as well. Once your modeling is completed, you can then apply materials / textures / & paint on your model, again, all in real time. A new version is due out very soon, I'm kinda anxious to see what new features it's going to have, as it still needs some added features, IMHO. SO MANY PROGRAMS to choose from, a person can become very dizzy, just trying to decide. Ha ha ha. Have a good one . . . Mark. ;^)

If you can afford it get Lightwave. Then add Poser 4 and the Pro Pack which has a Lightwave plug in. Last but not least, get Ozone 2.0, the Vue D'Esprit plug-in for Lightwave. Well, you did say you would be able to purchase any and all the software. :-))

Ideally run the whole lot on a G4 Mac under OS.X

More realistically...
I use a dual PIII 1Ghz box with 1Gb RAM running
Paint Shop Pro for 2D stuff (highly underrated it is too)
Amapi 6 for modelling (now on offer for 149GBP in the UK)
Poser 4 and the Pro Pack for people
Vue D'Esprit for rendering

Whatever you get, have fun with it!
Mark

Assuming price is no object - I would go for Cinema 4 D XL with Body Paint for texturing and Exteriors for trees. While not the most expensive package, it is by far the most "learnable" in any reasonable amount of time while it still rivals Maya and Light wave for power to model and render as well. Of course any models you make with it can be imported to Vue as .3ds or obj. While you are at it, just get a copy of the new Carrara 2 with the new rendering engine too. Carrara is sheer fun to play with. I use it often at work to show 3d architecture models (models that I make in Turbocad and in C4D ) to people. On that topic, (work, that is) I use quite a blend of separate 3d software packages - depending on the kind of presentation I need. I draw basic plans and 2 dimensional with some 3d parametric in Autocad 2002 - however, most basic architectural 3d and very intuitive kind of modeling is in Turbocad v.8 Pro. For a quick but really nice rendering I take the model from TCAD to Vue4 via some 3ds models and even whole scenes. TCAD saves out the "pieces" with colors attached making it easy to select for like materials in Vue. Poser people are in there too. I fairly often use Rhino 2 for organic models and shapes and just because It is such a capable, predictable and crash proof program to use. It will not render (natively) unless you also get the fabulous "Flamingo" which I dont have - darnit. I just got Cinema 4D ART and have just fallen in love with the software and the support. It is extrememly capable and nice to use. It has not crashed even once - and tha t is saying something for me using software as a beginner. I do things that are not meant to be done......... You can try Truespace but is is not as powerful by a long, long shot as Cinema4D. I actually got to like the interface, but it is very slow to use - lots of clicks and icons to choose etc, it seems to me. Favorites, long term? Cinema and Vue for the flash. Turbocad v.8 for the nuts and bolts. Theres my 2 cents - more like a quarter I guess. Good luck, Riv

Thank you all for your generous comments, I will probably run different software on each computer. So far I'm ordering Carrara Studio, Poser ProPack (of course) Bryce4, Lightwave, Ray Dream5, TrueSpace, Rhino 3D, Zbrush, Cimena 4D Art, Ampi 3D 4, Amphorium 1.0,(I have most of the 2D paint programs now, just haven't gotten around to using all of them) have I left any one out? As you may have noticed I'm a software junkie, but this opportunity only comes around once (maybe twice) so I want to take advantage of it. I'll make sure they are the lastest versions also. Thanks again and feel free to continue to list new stuff you find...Be Well, Live Long and Prosper, and May the Force be with You All:-) Zhann...(does anyone know how much a Kray is?)

Cray ? does it still exist ? :=) Yves

There's only one Cray... it's used by NASA and I doubt it's for sale. I do know they sell time to use it... it's the fastest computer on the planet with liquid cooled chips. They use it mostly for testing stress levels on air/space craft in real time 3D environment. I think it's equivelent to a 500 gig hz processor. Your best bet thou, no matter what software you buy, make sure you get the largest amount of hard drive space, memory and processing speed on the market. Also make sure to get the best graphic cards and monitors with as much ram as they can hold, because without it, you won't be able ot use many of the programs available. I know Maya will only work in Window's 2000. be prepared to spend upwards of $2000-4000 just for the computer system to be able to do everything you want. Well if I had a blank check, that's what I would be doing!

Well, I had alotted around $5000 for software and $10,000 to $15,000 for hardware, that should cover it, don't you think. I'll ask NASA if they lease time...

Everyone, I believe in supporting my community, so I'll be purchasing lot's of stuff from the market place too...

Many thanks Zhann, -a shame for me I have nothing in the market place -a chance for you to have this possibility; may your work be successful ! Yves

Hi Zhann, The oppertunity you have does indeed come along rarely...congratulations :o) Although the impulse to buy all the software may be strong, don't fall into the trap of thinking that having tons of software is the best route to go, as you may end up mastering none of them at all. It may be worth considering one main "industry standard" application (Maya, Softimage XSI, 3DS Max, Houdini or Lightwave), and then spending money on training, and maybe a second College/University course on Photography or Fine Art if you have not done such a thing already. I hope you do not mind me putting a completely differant idea your direction. What ever you decide, the main thing is that you enjoy yourself :o) Cheers

Thank you Cheers, I do have a BA in Fine Arts and Computer Science. I have managed to download trial versions of much of the software suggested and am evaluating them now, several of the 3D products are similar except for maybe one or two things, they each have their strong points. The learning curve is also an important factor, although I pick things up quickly, I am also trying to get together a web site, which takes up alot of my time coding. Exhibits for my assemblage work are also time consuming, getting work together for that. But things are coming along slooooowly...I have so many ideas for compositions to render I've filled four sketchbooks! So much to do, so few hours in a day....