I am interested in trying to learn a 3D app such as Lightwave or Maya. I will only be using it to create images that will be printed, I am not interested in creating any animation. I now that for print you need to have alot more detail than you do for video, and that yo need to have a very good rendering engine. So which app do you think is the best for print?

As far as I know, Both of those have their own rendering engine.... Most of them do... I think what you need to ask, is which "2D" app to use.... and there ARE many... Photoshop being my main app...Painter... paint shop pro...like I said, there are quite a few.... the main considerations are simply price, purpose, and YOUR learning curve... put them together, and you can usually narrow it down a lot... what it says at the top about 3D is equally true about 2D... including the part about downloading demo's and tryout's... For myself, My bread and butter is in 2D... I cerate and print what, likely, would be called advertising graphics.... everything from signs to truck size vehicle wrap... for my output, I use Photoshop and, on occasion, Illustrator... they fit my needs, but mightn't fit yours... like it says, try 'em out, and see which you prefer. Lou.

Some say maya is harder to start from, I know little (well ok nothing) about it's render options. I do know Lightwave is much cheaper... I often render for print in Lightwave and am happy with the results so far. You need to 'trick' the 72dpi resolution by rendering large frames. I have tried rendering at maximum resolution (16000 if I remeber right) but you may not need that much. For highly detailed images I use a 12000x8400 camera resolution, with highest antialiasing settings, but you can get away with less for printsizes below A4. Grtz

Don't forget to check out Carrara5Pro, recently acquired by Daz.

Chris

Yep - there was a good upgrade deal in 3dworld UK edition, the mag had carrara 2.1 on the cover disk and a special upgrade price £100 ish to move to 5. I've been playing with the v5 demo (also on the disk) and it's quite a capable app although I found the interface a little clunky (just personal comment - please no flame wars! - I always state that choice of app often needs personal trial as a main point along side the feature list, I love 3ds Max but am not keen on Maya etc etc etc... )

Most 3d apps are capable of producing good print size renders, so that really does leave the questions - which package feels right and do I have any drop dead features - for example I want extreme photo realism, so GI / HDRI/ Caustics are a must versus I'm doing cartoony style work so I want a toon renderer etc etc.