I secound sketchup. Its by far the fastest thing for architectural modeling. Also It probably will only take you a few hours to learn the program inside out as well.

If your in a spending mood please buy me an upgrade to Maya 8 while you are at it lol. Just joking. And for all you people talking smack to ruana get your facts straight. South Africa isnt a poor country at all. Yes there is poor people but there are also poor people here in Florida as well as everywhere else in the world. Its just a fact of life. He has every right to spend his hard earned money the way he see's fit. Better spent on software that could advance his career than some stupid flashy gizmo for his car or Jewelry that he wears once a year.

Back to the subject matter. I think Max should be all you ever need. Ive never used Cinema so I cant really compare the two but Max is a verry well rounded package that can do just about anything that you need it to. If not there is always a plugin for it. The learning curve may be a little steep as with any highend 3d software but if you have patience you should work past that realitivly easy. I prefer Maya over any package aside for a few exceptions such as silo for modeling but since you already have Max you should stick with that since its just as good but has a little bit of a funky interface in my opinion.

A few other software options that are verry helpfull  that you may also want to invest in are Silo and Zbrush. Dispite the low price of 109 usd Silo is in my opinion the best modeling package out right now. and Whenever version 2 is released should be even better. It is far better than Maya or Max for organic modeling especially. Zbrush is another piece of software that you must try. Both of these software are used to compliment your main package and give you much better results in a much faster time. Granted its more software to learn but both of these are verry easy to pick up and start using from the get go.

Silo is by far my favorite modeling program for organic stuff Ive ever tried. The topology brush alone makes it worth having. The only thing silo is really lacking is uv tools but mabey in the next release they will add this feature. In the Next release of silo they are adding zbrush style sculpting tools so it will be even more powerfull. Best yet its cheap at $109.

If you are interested in modeling Hardsurface models such as buildings, Mechanical, exc... you may want to try Sketch up. It only has a few tools but the way it works is amaisingly fast and easy. It even does a pretty decent job of creating uvs automaticly.

The Zbrush forum here on renderosity tends to be a little dead so you may want to try Zbrushcentral.com. But to answer your question YES. Zbrush is way worth the 550 or so that they are charging. Plus you will be able to use along side of max but after using it a while and getting used to the interface you probably wont even want to model your organics in max anymore because of the speed and power of Zbrush. Also if you are in any kind of gaming field the ability to extract normal maps from 1million+ poly models for your few hundred poly models and have them look almost exactly the same is priceless. The same with displacement maps but you get a lot better result but i dont think that any game engines support displacement mapping yet. Pixologic has a free demo if you want to check it out.

O yea i forgot to Mention Rhino earlier. Its a pretty good nurbs modeler but the thing with nurbs is that they are kind of hard to use for beginners.

I think Zbrush is about the same price as Photoshop. I think it was around $550. If you want to texture your models in any other program you probably will need a copy of photoshop along with a copy of that program but with z brush you can texture your models efficiently inside of the program. The only downfall to z brush is that it doesnt have any animation capabillities. I dont know how Z brush compares to Amphorium because ive never used it. Zbrush is the closest thing to modeling out of real clay that i found out there which makes making impressive 3d models really fast. Unlike other 3d programs where you mostly pull and push verticies to shape your model. Plus it has a very powerfull displacement mapping system that makes a very very low poly model look like it is over a million polys. One more thing to blab on about Zbrush is that Weta Digital (Lord of the Rings makers) are using zbrush to make all of their 3d models now. One example is the King of the Dead in the last movie plus a lot of the orc characters. So yes, Zbrush is a tad expensive but whell worth the price in my opinion. Best 500 that ive ever spent on a program.

I would suggest Zbrush since you are new to 3d modeling. I would compare it more to modeling out of real clay than building up your mesh like in other programs. The learning curve isnt very bad at all dispite what people might think. The interface is a little wierd to get used to at first though cause it isnt set up like most programs. Poser isnt really a modeling program but more setting up scenes so i dont think thats the way you want to go, or mabey you do but you wont be able to create your own models but just tweak settings of models that other people have created. Also Silo is a pretty cheap way to start and it is also a pretty good program from what i heard but all it has is modeling. Maya, Max, Lightwave, Softimage XSI are probably your best ones to get but they will set you back about $1000-8000. I personally use Maya and Zbrush and love them both. www.pixologic.com has a free demo of zbrush if you want to try it out and Maya has a free version Called Maya PLE that you can try out and see if you like them. The only thing about PLE is that it watermarks all of your renders so you cant really use it but for learning but you cant beat the price lol. Also I think about all of the rest have free demos that you could try too. I hope that helps a little.

I guess its a matter of opinion. If you ask a Maya user he or she will say that Maya is the best. The same goes for Max. If its a matter of render quality Both Maya and Max have Mental Ray Built in which is the best renderer out right now in my opinion. I am a Maya user and ive tried Max too and i personally think maya is a little more straight forward and easier to use but that could be just because ive been using it for a lot longer lol. Also I have been using auto CAD for about 5 years and it works pretty good with maya too. Solids seem to come out as curves though but the workaround to that is just export your model from Auto CAD as a 3d studio file and import it into maya and it will convert it into a poly mesh which is easier to work with anyway. One main diffrence that ive found between the two programs it the texturing systems. I dont really like the way the material editor is set up in Max. Maya's Hypershade is much easier to pick up and has much more to offer when it comes to making complex shaders. AS modeling goes i think they are pretty much the same and have about the same exact tools, to my knowledge anyway. One other diffrence ive found is that Maya has a whole lot more tutorials out there than Max does so it may be a little easier to learn if you are willing to do the research to find them. All i can really say is try them both and make your own mind. Thats the best way to find out which one you like better. Good luck.

Message edited on: 06/02/2004 14:54