Good evening everyone! Ok, i need a good program that will do good looking 3d images. My CAD skills suck, and you cant really get good looking images in CAD. If anyone had made any maps for UT, UnrealEd is a great 3d program with a few minor bugs, like the fact you cant move objects w/o redrawing them, and you cant render an image. So if anyone has any programs that are similar, and wants to help me, Post a link here!! Freeware is always prefered!
Take a look at Zap's MediaPC log in the Project Logs, I think he states what 3D program he uses in there somewhere.
Which is also called FreeSpace 3. Or was it TrueSpace 3? meh you get teh idea. Personalyl I use ZModeler. It's completely free, and I find it to be able to do everything I need. I don't know about rendering imafes though. If you like UED (like I do ;p) then just float the 3D view, and then screen capture it. If you've got UED 3 (Comes with UT2k3, and maybe Unreal 2, but I don't know about that one) then you can do ANYTHING with it. Also UT2k3 comes with Maya, which is another modeler, so there you go then too. A few options that'll maybe help.
Some 3d programs I've run across in my time: 3ds Max/Vis (Vis is the architecture/cad version of max, which is the animation version) Maya Hash Animation Master Milkshape3d Of the three, 3dsMax is the one best suited for Case design, but it isn't cheap...about $5000 US for the education version. I would recommend trying Milkshape. It's a 3d program designed to make models for 3dfps (First Person Shooters), but you could probably use it towards case design. If you are looking more towards getting just a 3d program to mess around with, I suggest Animation Master. It's $300 US, and can do some amazing stuff. Only problem is, like Maya, it doesn't use the traditional polygon modeling. It uses patches and splines. A little more difficult to make mechanical looking items. Personally, I use 3ds Max.
i use 3ds max 5 and its great tho expensive (got the leftovers lisences from my mates business) but ive used a program called rhinoceros at my uni which i assume isnt very expensive as its on all the computers at my uni and it is pretty good stuff
trueSpace 5 is bout $600 Bryce 5 runs for less, and works well. it just looks like a kids paint program. its good, though
Maya is probably considered the best (most complex too) I just used 3dstudio max, for mockups though usually they dont have to be that complex so most any program will do..
Sketchup is good. It's more of a design program though rather than something for making pretty images. Have a look at this animation to see how easy it is to use: http://www.sketchup.com/images/recent_news/sectioning_animation.gif
well theres truespace 3 se which i got free of a magazine coverdisk, also pro desktop - its very expensive but( i used it for my A Levels the technology dept were allowed to distribute the prog a certain amount of times ! i dont have the prog any more - AutoCad, 3dFX, Simply 3D, to name just a few
Look at this post http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22707 Look for my post (Somewhere near the end) in there SnaRf
