Pro artists: alternatives to 3D Studio Max, LightWave 3D, etc.?

When I grow up I want to be just like Chip Midnight and Nephilaine Protagonist (except of course for good looks and actual artistic ability -- I'll have to FAKE that part! ) However, even in my current SL-induced altered state, I can't bring myself to spend a couple-five grand on pro-level tools.

So all you virtuoso pixel pushers out there: is there a way that mere mortals can get involved with 3D modeling and rendering without having to take out a second mortgage?
I've looked into it a little bit, and here's what I've found so far:

There is an open-source modeling program that has been packaged for Win and Mac as AC3D by an outfit called Inivis (www.ac3d.org). This looks to be quite powerful -- you can download a full-featured version and test it for 14 days, and a full license is only US$50. Problem is it only creates files compatible with aforementioned pro-level tools, and does not do the actual rendering.

There is a shareware renderer called Virtualight (www.3dvirtualight.com) but it has its own file format, so in order to use it with AC3D you have to save your scene as a 3D Studio Max file, use another shareware command-line utility to convert to Virtualight format, and then run the renderer on that to produce a Targa file. Installation is very tricky (you have to actually modify the autoexec.bat file -- flashback to 1982!) and I haven't gotten the whole process to work as of yet, as there are many command-line options and poor documentation.

There is also a 3D plug-in for Photoshop made by Andromeda Software (www.andromeda.com). The Deluxe version costs $109. It only does one prim at a time, but you can combine a texture layer and a photo layer, and you can also create "dropouts" -- transparent areas in the 3D object. Once you've created your objects you can arrange or combine them in Photoshop, but building anything complex in this way is obviously very labor intensive.

So that's about it. Any other suggestions?

AC3D - if you can't render anything without the expensive 3D modeling programs, what's the point? There has to be some way around that?

"Andromeda Software" - holy crap, if that's the same company I'm think of "WOW" that they're still around. I have 5 inch floppies around here somewhere from an "Andromeda Software"...lol

Anyway, this isn't *exactly* the kind of thing you're looking for, but it IS cool and related. Actually I think the latest version that I used was actually very very similar to a normal 3D modeling program. My first 3D graphics toy was "Povray"...I was doing that back when it was for DOS only and it was just a command line program. Now it's a full blown Windows application and it's totally amazing. Last time I saw it was years ago so it must really be mega cool now. Should be here:

http://www.povray.org/

Is that Pearl Harbor scene cool or what?

Also you probably already know about this, but something called "Milkshape 3D" is (I think) a free to use 3D modeler. But personally I don't care for it, I think it sucks.

A really cool modeler out there is called "Rhino 3D", but that costs $800 (I think). But look on the bright side, instead of a second mortgage you'll just have a bigger credit card debt. lol (Seriously, try playing with Povray or "Povwin" it might be called now.)

Nevermind. I think I found your solution:

Use AC3D *and* Povray!

The AC3D website says it can export to Povray's format--bingo, there ya go. (Well maybe) Povray is a free and cool ray-tracing program!

(It also exports to Milkshape which should be free, and Lightwave 3D which...I forget if that's free or not. Also, directx .x and 3D studio .3ds files are pretty standard so they'll probably load in alot of free rendering programs if you can find them.)

Another edit:
And if you try povray try out "Pov-tree"...that's freakin cool. It still may be the better standalone choice.

Uh uh, my favorite tool for modeling on the go is Bryce 5. It's a little heafty on the price, but it's SO worth it! It's really a gem!

I've messed with a Bryce demo, it was a pain to learn (seemed like it was only good with landscapes?) and I didn't use it much since it's commercial. People have done some really cool stuff with it though.

POV-Ray is a free 3D renderer, but it doesn't include a modeller, and the scene description language is hard to work with if all you've used is modellers. There's a modeller for POV-Ray called Moray (http://www.stmuc.com/moray/) that costs 80 euros. Moray has an interface similar to that of 3D Studio Max. There are also a great many free specialized modellers that export to POV-Ray, but Moray is the only general-purpose modeller.

Another alternative is Blender (http://www.blender.org/). It's free and is both a renderer and a modeller, but the interface is a bit hard to use. I don't know what it has in the way of third-party utilities.

Take a look at Blender.

Edit: Carnildo beat me to it :)

I know I was using something called "Povwin" (something like that) way back, I thought it had basic 3d modelling tools but thinking back it probably didn't. I think my subconcious exaggerated the features it has a little, since I was used to using EDIT.EXE in DOS (no joke, basically notepad for dos) to work with pov files. And I was doing this on a...486! So naturally Povwin was a huge step up for me with all the annoying things automated.

But I'm pretty sure I was using a free 3d modeling program (doubt it was Moray--this was free) along with Windows Povray. I know whatever I was using was designed for POV...anyway, I'm pretty sure there's decent 100% free options out there.

And AC3D does claim on it's website to export to a POV format, so that should be good too for a cheap commercial option.

Thanks to all! I've successfully used POVRay to render a scene created in AC3D -- it is a bit cumbersome -- a little dialog box comes up so you can type in the command line options -- how cute! The scripting language looks pretty clean though, and quite powerful.

Also now have Blender and Movray, will post my impressions in a few days after I've had a chance to do some real work with each setup.

The benefit of povray is that it is firstly a ray-tracer which is beauuuuutiful (but computationally intensive), and the textures are usually 'procedurals' which eliminates worrying about mapping textures on objects, since they exist in all depths. So you make a CSG cut, like a cylinder punching a hole in a sphere, and the procedural is just calculated for the exposed faces. Very handy when making marble-ly things and the like.

Povray is cool, I just don't have time to mess with it anymore...

Wow I'm surprised so many are familiar with POV.

There might be a way to automate what you're doing a little more somehow when using a modeler with POV. I remember just hitting a "render" button (similar to hitting a compile/link/run button in a programming IDE) and it just rendered the scene automatically. I forget what I was doing exactly, but I think I had a pretty quick system working.

And yeah, one reason POV looks so good is exactly the fact that it's not a 3d/modeler and renderer. The specialization makes it better. If it wasn't for SL I'd have reinstalled all this by now probably!

If you want to use and learn one of the pro-level tools (for free even) check this one out: Maya Personal Learning Edition

Maya is the one a lot of game companies and film / broadcast people use. This learning edition is free for non-commercial use (with some limitations i'm sure).

There's also GMax which is a free stripped-down version of 3DStudio Max.

I haven't used either of these.. since I use the full version of 3DStudio at work - but i think they could be worth a look if you want a taste of the high-end stuff and learn them.

Yes, if you're learning I would definately second taking a look at the Maya PLE. It will watermark everything you render, and the files are not compatible with the professional Maya, but it should be enough to start learning with. I believe for $20 you can get the Maya PLE and a book that goes along with it, all on CD or a CD and a book or something like that. I'd definately recommend some sort of tutorial or instructional material because Maya is deep, but fun. My limited experience is basically a one-semester course in 3D animation with it in college but it's very cool.

Aha! I knew there was a free trimlined version of 3DSM but I couldn't recall the name! That's pretty cool too, I think the interface is as good as Rhino 3D's which is my favorite. I think you just can't export to other formats or something, so you're limited to just using/seeing your work in that program only. I think.

And if you are a math junkie looking for the super high end take a look at houdini personal edition, its the same thing as the full version with a few limitations (and oddly its updated more often than the other versions) Fantastic tool, used for damn near everything but never talked about.

Personally I use Maya at work and Lightwave at home, lightwave is a hell of a package for the 1500 asking price, well worth it for hobby or professional.

Neil Nafus
FX Artist
Microsoft Game Studios/Fasa Studios