Forum: 3D Modeling


Subject: The app thread ! DEBATE

TRAVISB opened this issue on Dec 10, 2002 ยท 54 posts


brycetech posted Tue, 10 December 2002 at 8:49 PM

The Good, the bad, the ugly of amapi: The Good: Im a hardcore amapi user. its interface, unlike the majority of other applications out there, is set up in such a way that you are always looking at your model. You dont have to wade into screens to find tools. You click what you want, you drag, you're done. Its fast..its easy to get started on. Being a vertex level poly modeller (mainly), its too easy to make inorganic shapes. In fact, its so easy unless I make something overly and unnecessarily detailed--its boring. So I use amapi for organic modeling mainly. Its fun to watch a real or imaginary character come to life in just a short time. The Bad: unfortunately, amapi is unstable on some systems. So much in fact that its unusable. It is for this reason, you should most definately download and try out the trial version of the software from www.eovia.com before you jump headlong into it. The Ugly: Amapi 6 is not much different than amapi 5. There are some differences, but unless you are an advanced modeller..you wouldn't notice what they are. Amapi 6 does support the ever-sought-after obj format, but it only basically supports it. I exports nicely to this format, but it imports it very sloppily. As a person who makes my own models, this isnt very important to me..the export of my models into obj is very important tho because I can keep my quads. Another difference is that amapi 6 lost a very powerful modeling feature..the ability to extrude multiple adjacent polygons as one face (I think lightwave calls this 'smooth shifting'.) the end: for what its worth, unless you are a hardcore advanced modeller, you're actually better off getting carrara 2. It comes with a fully functional version of amapi 5.15 so you get a really big bang for the buck. You get all the neat rendering options of carrara + you get the modeling capabilities of amapi 5.15. If you are an advanced modeler, and amapi will run well on your system..amapi 6 will have you doing things you never thought you could and you'll be doing it quickly.