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I have been interested in making 3-D models for a long time just for fun, but all the big-name cool-looking stuff costs a fortune. I've run across a few very cheapo programs that weren't worth the CD's they were pressed on (they'd only allow a few simple shapes & colors, no documentation or help files (!?), usually tiny image output exporting- like, 200x200 pixels. Whoopee.)
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Also [while I'm dreaming] it'd be nice to have a drafting-type program that can also do fairly nice rendering... does such a thing exist? I have some knowledge of DirectX/Direct3D (what it is and what it isn't) and general programming, but it'd be a bummer to spend the time writing something myself only to find out that there's something already out there for free that I just hadn't heard about...
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I have been interested in making 3-D models for a long time just for fun, but all the big-name cool-looking stuff costs a fortune. I've run across a few very cheapo programs that weren't worth the CD's they were pressed on (they'd only allow a few simple shapes & colors, no documentation or help files (!?), usually tiny image output exporting- like, 200x200 pixels. Whoopee.)
,,,,,,
Also [while I'm dreaming] it'd be nice to have a drafting-type program that can also do fairly nice rendering... does such a thing exist? I have some knowledge of DirectX/Direct3D (what it is and what it isn't) and general programming, but it'd be a bummer to spend the time writing something myself only to find out that there's something already out there for free that I just hadn't heard about...
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You can try BLENDER, wich is free. It's a powerfull software and very complete, with excelent features and a very good workflow, but need to get used to ;-)
You can also try Carrara from eovia, wich cost USD 400.
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Hi doug...
If you enjoy creating 3D landscapes and scenery, then definately get Terragen. And in it's current stage of development, it's free: http://www.planetside.de/terragen/
And you won't belive how photorealistic it can be. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]
And for a 'normal' 3D app, that's free, checkout this page: http://www.freewarehome.com/index.html
Scroll down the menu on the left to the "Graphics" heading. Try a search too using those specific keywords: "free 3d software".
Good luck! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
Let us know how you do.
"The lessons to be learned, are found along the path of your journey, not at your final destination. That is only where you will rest, between lessons"
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I've been completely hooked on the freeware app Wings 3D (can be found at - surprise, surprise - www.wings3d.com). It's a modelling app, and you can do simple texture rendering, but it is recommended to export your model and render it in some other rendering app. Currently, Wings exports to the following formats
* Nendo (NDO)
* 3D Studio (3DS)
* Wavefront (OBJ)
* VMRL (WRL)
* Renderman (RIB); currently rudimentary
* Hash:Animation Master (MDL); separate plug-in
* PovRay 3.5; currently as a separate plug-in
and it imports the following formats
* Nendo (NDO)
* 3D Studio (3DS)
* Wavefront (OBJ)
* Adobe Illustrator (AI)
-Paul
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Paul nailed it. For free, Wings is completely awesome. And it's really COOL, too [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]
Danny Huff
http://www.asherrocks.com
(I'm the guy who USED to have a lot of excess hair)
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yea, Wings is pretty cool, espec. for an app written by one person... though it should be suggested here that because it is written in java it is sometimes sluggish on lesser machines...
oh, and for those just opening it up for the first time and who are wondering where all the creative tools are... simply right click and start creating... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
have a good one eh..
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Wings is not written java but a language called Erlang (I believe it is something developed by LM Ericsson), and it is not completely done by one person either (even though he is doing the main part) but is an open source project.
-Paul
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I would have recommended Strata, (alot of very talented 3D artists got their start with it) but apparently the free version is no longer available. Just visited their site and can't find a free version anywhere. That really sucks, because Strata was a fine introduction to the toolset and methods that allow one to model, texture and render in 3D. Shame to see it go.
Brett
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Okay lemme narrow the field a bit: I want something free/cheap that can do everything to make still images, end-to-end. Importing from all this and exporting to all that is great except for the fact that this and that are the expensive programs I can't afford.
~
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Haha, thanx for the heads up here Paul... I was mainly going on what I had learned from another source on another 3D board... and of course the sluggish part going from my own experience with said app... ( running it on a small 266 celeron )
It was this sluggishness that had led me to inquire as to what's up, to which I had recieved a reply indicating what I had originally posted here... beyond which, other than the language discrepancy here, fact remains... you will require a quicker machine than mine to work with this app in a fluid manner... this all said, Wings is very cool indeed and poised to become much more with a bit of work [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
What? no more free Strata Base? ah now this is sad news indeed if this is the case... I agree that Strata was/is a perfect 3D app to begin one's 3D experience... excellent handles for manipulation...etc
Ah Doug, in search of the magic app that does all for free... if this was the case there would be little reason for the big apps to even exist at all... does this make sense ?
but... you could always try this... Amapi3D
Amapi
make sure to copy your licence password down in order to activate for saving etc...
[This message was edited by gidgit on October 05, 2002 at 14:41.]
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one I've found (hey, I'm new.. yay) to be really nice.. is 3D Canvas.. ( www.amabilis.com ) I kinda found it by accident, but I like it. I think it's better than Wings3D (but I havent really tried it out so dont eat me if I'm wrong here) and there's also a Pro version for 70$.. it seems nice.. I'm really.. not a person to ask about that.. but hey.. it's a nice free one. it's not a demo either! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img] it's just, well. FREE! haha.. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]
-Zorg
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Try it out some and let us know what yas think... also what type/size of machine you are using... thanx [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by gidgit:
Try it out some and let us know what yas think... also what type/size of machine you are using... thanx [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
??? try out what, the pro version? wings3D?
(was this even to me??)
-Zorg
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the free demo of Vue d'Esprit 4. The demo I have continues to work after the 30 days was up. It still has all the limitations of the demo of course. I can't save in the native format etc. but it does allow you to import models and create scenes with them, render them, and save your output as jpg's etc. I've had fun bringing in ready-made models available on the internet and rendering them. The attachment below is an example. I didn't model the "Swan" chair but did find it enjoyable to create the setting and lighting for it.
Regards, Ross
<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>
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haha, yes Zorg, the message was to you... sorry bout the confusion, anyhoo, I was suggesting that you give the free version of 3D Canvas a good go and then let us know what you think... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
hey right on Ross... cyber chair... this looks great.. btw, nice that you are back... and wow, Spud Island... that is such a nice place with very red sand... I have relatives in NS and have visited both provinces, and... wow, what a nice place to build... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
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What's considered a big model? I often see people post rendering times for images. I know from 3D PC games that the typical game-engine load is 500-800 rendered primitives/per-frame, but that's 30 to 75 frames per second usually, and ray-cast besides.....How many primitives/vertices does a "big/complicated" ray-traced model-scene have? 50K? 500K? 1 mil? What's the biggest you've ever done? Do commercial programs have limitations in this regard that typical users run up against a lot? -I'm imagining data structures to make it easy to handle large files in little pieces, but don't know right off "how large is large"....?
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by gidgit:
haha, yes Zorg, the message was to you... sorry bout the confusion, anyhoo, I was suggesting that you give the free version of 3D Canvas a good go and then let us know what you think... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
yeah my PC is kinda old, 64mb ram.. and, uh, like 500mhz.. it's really not very good. I'm getting a new one soon tho.
I'm going to have fun testing out 3D canvas fully..
-Zorg
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doug,
I can't speak for any commercial program except Lightwave, but it allows you unlimited polygons, actually limited only by the amount of RAM in your machine, and you can even get around that by using "bounding box limit" which shows your models as simple boxes when you manipulate them. This keeps the machine from bogging down with huge meshes.
An organic character meant for still-image work can exceed half-a-million polys, easily. Not a very efficient mesh, but I've seen it. The problem with any sort of data structures in rendering raytraced images is that the scene must be taken as a whole by the raytracer. Every poly must be considered, even those hidden from camera view for true raytracing to take place. So, although you have a nice idea, I could only see its' implementation in a non-raytracing renderer. Remember, rays are emitted from the camera and must trace their way through the scene.
Hope this sheds some light on the subject...
Brett
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Hi Brett, good info here..:)
I have to say though regarding raytracing, that many times I find I get better results by not rendering backfaces , I suppose that it all depends on the lighting and positioning, as well the reflective values placed on surfaces, transparency levels if any...etc...
Could you shed some more light on this? ( I am such a rookie [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ) Thanx in advance
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I was under the assumption that the whole image didn't have to be rendered all at once. -I have no very good books that go into this, however.
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Hello Doug--
A "big model", like most phrases, depends upon the context within which the phrase is used. There are oodles of ways you can bring your system to its knees using a modeling app: use a lot of different parts (in which case, the saved file size will probably be a tip-off...like 15MB or such), human hair can be defined and then the rendering engine will take forever, you could also perform reflection tracing to 5 or six redundant reflections and let the rendering engine waste a day or so...I guess the opposite of "big model", at least the way I'd define it is, "economical model", or "thoughtfully executed model".
NOT that grand scenes should be avoided, heck no. It's just that with every generation of processors comes a generation of equally ambitious programmers and we all think our machines at home can outprocess a Cray or a Solaris or something.
On the topic of economical, user friendly modeling/rendering/animation apps, remember Amorphium, the cute product that encourages you to poke at primitives as though they are sculpting clay? Electric image is now giving it away if you buy 3D tools for $299. Attached is an Amorphium image (The product is $117 U.S. currently).
My (opinionated, as always [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] Best
Gary David Bouton
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ook, you know, I started using Wings, it's a lot better than what I thought it was, espescially once you learn how to use it more (which I'm still working on.. '^_^)
3DC has some more options, but overall, I found wings to be better (but that's just me...)
-Zorg
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Well, a raytracer works in kind of a strange way: "rays" are emitted from the camera (as opposed to light rays entering a camera in the real world). At least this is how I've come to understand it. There are many good references online concerning this subject. Early raytracers were very slow to render, requiring high computational times (as they still do). Machines have gotten faster and the calculations have been optimized so that raytracing no longer takes hours to render, even on a modest machine.
The image is raytraced. The thing in the back is supposed to be a mirror. Do you see why "backfaces" must be rendered? Do you see how it wouldn't be possible to not consider the whole scene at once? The render engine needs the mesh of the whole scene to complete the tracing. AFAIK, anyway. I hope I'm not explaining this wrong, and as I said, there is much info on raytracers available online.
The image is very simple, and is NOT radiosity, it is fake radiosity using area lights. It took about 3.5 minutes to render on a 400Mhz machine with only 192Mb RAM. Not too bad.
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The computational power required to calculate backfaces is enormous. Ed Catmull, who I believe still works at PIXAR, first introduced the Z-buffer to modeling apps as a way to calculate and then dismiss backface rendering, 'cos you don't need those calculations for the final render, anyhow. Today, most modeling apps use a Z-buffer engine to speed processing of the final image.
At least, this is what I read in a book on Maya 4 [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
My 2 cents, natch'
Gary David Bouton
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Hey! Anyone have any recommendations for freebie (or inexpensive) 3D software for the Mac? (OS 9 or OS X)? Thanks!
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Wings 3D is a really great modelling application. And it runs on Windows, Linux AND Mac OS X. Try it out!
-Paul
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I'm imagining things I'd want to be able to do...
Two questions:
-What 3D modeling software supports depth of field?
-What modeling programs support lensatic effects (such as fish-eye, etc.)?
I wonder because most 3D rendered mages I can casually recall have unlimited depth of field and use flat-field projection....?
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Doug,
All the major players support depth-of-field (DOF) natively. I personally don't care too much for Lightwave's native DOF, it's very limiting and I like to target the center of focus with a null, so I use X-DOF2 (a very nice plugin for Lightwave). As far as cheap or free apps, I'm not real sure you'll find DOF included, it's not really a low-end effect. I've attached the same scene as above, but with X-DOF set to focus on a null placed at the foreground corner of the yellow box. Notice the effect; it has limited uses, but really calls attention to the item(s) that are in focus.
As far as lens effects, I can't give you a list of apps that support them, but these are really dependent on what controls the app allows for the camera. In Lightwave, you have Lens Focal Length, which works just like the focal length of a regular camera lens. See below a render with the camera set to a focal length of 2mm. Gives you that fish-eye type render. You say that most 3D images use "flat field projection", but this really isn't true. Granted, alot of CG images look "flat" compared to photographs, but all 3D apps that I've worked in can use a perspective view for the render, unless you're looking at an isometric view render such as offered by CAD programs and the like.
Anyway, a couple examples follow, hope this shows you what I'm talking about.
Brett
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Sorry, these are out of order, but you get the idea.
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