Beginner here.. willing to learn.

[Arakith]

Hey all, glad to have found this place.

I am really wanting to learn how to do 3d graphics on the computer, animation, skinning, meshing, everything. I plan to make videos with music, or something close.

But, I can't figure out where to start. I prefer to download a demo and learn, before I decide to buy. What is the best place to start? The best program? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] Thank you.

[Arakith]

Hey all, glad to have found this place.

I am really wanting to learn how to do 3d graphics on the computer, animation, skinning, meshing, everything. I plan to make videos with music, or something close.

But, I can't figure out where to start. I prefer to download a demo and learn, before I decide to buy. What is the best place to start? The best program? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] Thank you.

[Gary David Bouton]

Welcome to the 3D site, Arakith--

There are MANY places to start. A good place is to check all the threads here and see what is discussed the most---in that way, you will have support for whatever application with which you start. Me? I'd download the demo of Adobe Dimensions 3 from Adobe's site.

But there are many more demo applications, and it would be good if you stated your platform (Mac or Win) coz not all applications come in both flavors.

What I'm going to do is create a new thread called "The FREE modelling apps list", and you can check what our members here recommend for beginners, okay?

Kindest Regards,

Gary

Gary David Bouton
Gary@GaryDavidBouton.com
Free education! The Writings Web site
and the updated GaryWorld Gallery is pretty okay, too.

[Arakith]

Awesome, thanks.

[Earl]

If you're going to be creating music videos with your 3d software, you're going to want software that has the utmost precision and control of keyframes, motion curves, splines, and a sophisticated real-time preview of animations. Non-linear animation setups are a huge bonus. These will all make lip-syncing and rhythm-matching much less painful.

With those in mind, I would only recommend you try one of the big players in the animation world: LightWave 3D, Softimage|XSI, Maya, 3ds max - neither of which are cheap for beginners. Most of them have full-featured working demos (LightWave and Maya for sure). For best cross-platform compatibility, LightWave offers exceptional PC and Mac support. Softimage|XSI is great for working on both PC or Linux. Any of these four apps will have a wealth of resources, tutorials, and experts on the net.

I guess it depends on how serious you are about creating music videos - but if you're steadfast, then I wouldn't bother learning a smaller app first - it's faster to jump straight into the belly of the beast. Each app has many books at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com that are targeted for beginners.

Personally, I would have to recommend you try LightWave 3D. Off the shelf, it's the most complete and versitile application. It won't require any additional plugins to accomplish a fantastic music video. LightWave's built-in rendering engine is by far the most beautiful and sophisticated out of the four (note: most high-end users of Softimage, 3ds, or Maya use 3rd party rendering engines, and thus don't need native rendering beauty), Oh, and LightWave is also the only application of the big four that offers an educational version from which you can upgrade into the commercial version - that alone can save you a bundle.

Having tried all four of these applications, I would be glad to answer additional questions or point you to other sources if you'd like. If you want help acquiring working demos of any of these apps, I can point you to the right place. If you're anything like me and want only the best without compromise, then I'd check into one or all of those sites above.

Good luck!

NOTE: NewTek, the makers of LightWave, also make a killer non-linear uncompressed video editing system for Windows NT/2K. It's an entire studio for the PC. Again, for serious music video production, it would be wise to look into video editing software to composite, stream, sync and manage your 3d creations with live footage and music. NewTek's VideoToaster is the best bang for the buck, without compromise.