What to use?

[Catfordskater]

Hi, I've been drawing for a while in XaraX, CorelDraw but now i would like to learn 3D Graphics.

Can anyone recomend any programs to get started with? Are any free programs available and are their any that would run ok on a low-spec computer?

Any help would be welcome.

Ross

[Catfordskater]

Hi, I've been drawing for a while in XaraX, CorelDraw but now i would like to learn 3D Graphics.

Can anyone recomend any programs to get started with? Are any free programs available and are their any that would run ok on a low-spec computer?

Any help would be welcome.

Ross

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Hi Ross, welcome.

If you want to try your hand at some basic modeling, to get the hang of things, i suggest using the freeware app called "Wings 3D": www.wings3d.com

That should get you started.

You can also get the freeware app for 3D scenes/landscape called "Terragen": www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

That's an extremely easy and fun program to use.

[gidgit]

Yup, I agree with "the keeper" here... wings3D rocks, and manoman, Mark and others are doing some very realistic landscapes with terragen, and I mean very realistic... photo like

Speaking of which, how about doing up a Terragen thread for us Mark? That would be so cool...

[Catfordskater]

Thanks,

Unfortuanatly my system is a Pentium 100, with 64 mb ram and a 1mb graphic card. also it doesn't run openGL very well. Any ideas of what would run on this system?

[gidgit]

hoo boyo... uh, well, uh, I am not entirely sure then... I mean, if you had at least a 200 mmx type machine then I could see some other options open to yas, but... with a 100 and only 64 megs of ram and such a v chip, well, back to hoo boyo...

hang tight, we will do some looking around to see if we can't come up with something for yas... btw, just curious... what OS are you running with?

[gidgit]

ok, I am back... here's the nittygritty... there might or might not be a software package out there which will work on your machine... I mean, yea, what did they do when the machines were of the era that yours is, right?

Thing is that unless you find some software at a computer swap meet or something I doubt you will find anything decent to use... and even then... forget it... simply because the software which will run on your system is too old fashioned to even bother spending the time to learn 3D in this manner...

The latest tools found in 3D apps today are more than worth buying a new system for... and I don't really mean a brand new system... any mmx system, say a celeron 300 or better, with at least a 8 meg v card and min 128 megs of ram will get you going with most any modern day app...

and even then things will slow down with the larger models and or fx... but... hey, I learned to model on a 266 celeron just fine, though am now using a celeron 400 in order to make even decent use of an app called Cinema4D...

and... a celeron 400 is hardly what I call a powerhouse... most folks at the larger 3D forums laugh at my little system...

there ya have it... 300 mhz or more is the most min config I would reccomend, and...the bigger the better

in fact, for vcard concerns alone perhaps even a .18 micron PIII 533 or higher will sport a motherboard which will at least allow agp 4x v cards (256 bit)... and will be more machine than you will require for at least a few months

Sorry man, but these are the realities as I see em

basically, if you have the funds to buy even a 533, then you would be better off to buy say a AMD duron or even athlon 1ghz or higher, c/w a 64meg 256 bit v card and 512 megs of ram...

so to recap...

min to run 3D... 300 celeron
decent to run 3D... 533 PIII
best to run 3D... as much power as you can get your hands on... 1-2 ghz or faster is better

[This message was edited by gidgit on July 22, 2003 at 13:29.]

[jens g.r. benthien]

you might check

http://www.openfx.org

it's a free 3D software package which runs on 100 MHz machines.

Only the rendering might take a bit longer than expected...

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://www.sacalobra.de

----------//--
If you don't know how to dream you'll never be a designer.
----------//--

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Nice catch Jens.

Whadaya wanna know about Terragen Gig? I guess i could do something up.

[gidgit]

yes, it will run on said system, but really, is this the best solution here?

I think this is more to fix'n a symptom rather than fix'n the root... which is the need for much more power... bottomline... regarding both hardware as well as software... just my opinion

I mean, yea, I never bought into the ya have ta have powewr stuff, or ya have ta have XP stuff... but... there are limits eh... even for us holdouts

just the selection tools/methods found in Wings3D alone, make or break the whole modeling process... say you modeled a wheel with a hubcap and ya wanted to select the hubcap to color it so as to further select by color... well... select the whole wheel and hit the (-) key until it shows only the hubcap selected... much quicker than say attempting to select via faces if there are more than but a few...

this seletion method, coupled with the dolly cam on mouse button alone will save hours of work by days end... and then there is the rest of the tool set eh



Hey Mark... ... start a Terragen thread and just post some of your cool worx my man... everytime I see em I am floored with what this app in the right hands is able to do

[This message was edited by gidgit on July 22, 2003 at 16:28.]