3D software for the future

Assuming prims will not be the standard for construction within virtual worlds in future iterations, and also assuming I have enough in reserves to blow on a nice suite of software, and assuming I am a quick learner with 15 years of professional 2D design experience, but zero 3D experience. Finally assuming that it takes a couple years to get things like this down to second nature (no pun intended), wondering what might be the best financial and mental investment for whatever the metaverse may be in... say... 2012, where my universal avatar can run from Second Life to Metaspace to someones home-hosted world to some Electronic Arts thing yet to be created , over to (wherever).

As usual I see maya and studio max, poser, bryce, etc and the few packages mentioned with all the pros and cons... I guess my question is which package(s) are best geared for agility in what is going to be one of the most rapidly-advancing and changing technologies of the next decade? File formats, open standards, etc, all this comes to mind .


Thanks,

Court

as far as building, I'd rule out poser... don't get me wrong it's excellent for building and animating characters but it's tools for actual scene creation are nowhere near the flexibility of suite's like Maya etc.

While it isnt used all that widely until more recently in the industry, Rhinoceros is very powerful and pretty damn easy to learn. Using it together with its various plugins (Flamingo, Penguin, etc) you can do just about anything you'd want to do.

It is a mainly NURBS program, while most of the industry tends to use polys, but it is starting to make a name for itself in game design and movies.

Also, not too bad on pricing if I remember correctly.

Give it a try-out with the Personal Learning Edition ^_^

Also, Maya and 3ds max are powerful, and more widely used in the industry.

While they are not as widely used, and more specialized, ZBrush and Mudbox are interesting, and a very inexpensive alternate to a full modeling application.

Rhinocerous looks interesting. thanks for the tip. I just saw theyre developing an OSX version too, i signed up. While i use both WIndows & OSX, i like to make sure the apps are agnostic to the OS's so I can 'flip-flop' between platforms.

Also, free at the moment, Moment of Inspiration, created by the main person behind Rhino. Its in beta, is a lot simpler, and still pretty damn powerful. All the main things draws of RHino are there in an even more user friendly UI.

Not the same, but not bad at all either. Good way to get used to how Rhino works without using Rhino

Blender.
Because the best financial investment is something you can get for free

Blender is a demon to learn o.o

Also, not powerful enough for industry standard work, if looking for something to handle more than sculpties and random models and such

Powerful, but not a complete package

The 3D software for the future hasn't been programmed yet.

/me giggles

Go make it, 2k =P

Man if I could code.. and everything else needed.. I would so try to lol

Its not really about which tool you use, its about how you used it. People have created killer 3d scenes with free 3d programs such as Wing3d and/or Gimp......

To be successful, you don't need expensive 3d software...it just takes dedication and practice to become successful.

Most of my SL work is done inworld and I use Photoshop CS2 for all my texture work. Sculpts only come in hand for complex shapes, for that I use AC3D(very cheap and learning curve is low)......and yes I tried all other 3d apps and found AC3D and Wings3D to be very easy to use.

Productivity matters, so you don't want to waste time learning complex 3d apps....use whats more useful and easy to learn. Its all out there free!!

I think virtual worlds on the web has its own place and the way you create 3d for it is way too different than creating 3d for such games like UnrealTournament or HL2....

Perhaps the format may change but the idea of keeping file sizes down will always stay the same. The goal is to have complex scenes that look very high in detail, but with small ammounts of prims and/or textures.

My vision is more features/options for textures and I think the Windlight viewer is a peek preview of what they are doing.

That's a pretty blanket statement and as such is bound to be wrong in some contexts.

http://www.plumiferos.com/index-en.php
http://www.blendernation.com/2007/12/28/alligator-vs-gravity-crazy-gator-tries-to-fly/
http://peach.blender.org/
http://apricot.blender.org/
http://blender-archi.tuxfamily.org/Main_Page
http://dtpblender.instinctive.de/cms/Main/Home

So that's work in a feature film, tv show, short movie, game, architectural work and dtp covered. So perhaps "not powerful" is the wrong reason to quote. "Industry standard" is generally the most cost effective way to get a job done combined with a good bit of inertia. With projects such as peach and apricot helping to refine Blender's workflow and speeding up the development of new features, it's definately one to watch if your eye is on the future rather than the current "industry standards".

the problem i have with blender are the 16000 different GUI's converged into this big hidden-menu mess. With all due respect. It's actually the current 3D app Im using, and with it being free, I have confidence that it will continue to support whatever file formats are universally-supported in the future, but damn, those menus. You get what you pay for, I understand that, and the tradeoff blows away what most others offer. It's just as soon as Im away from Blender for more than a few days, it's all left my memory

My big question tho, is what technologies in general are predicted to be the normal in the near future--particularly vector languages that will "paint" out 3D scenes of the future.

Rhino is a fantastic program, but if you're interested in modeling for games it isn't what you want. Game modeling is all about carefully managing the number of polygons in the model, and manually creating UV mapping to get the most efficient use of your textures. Rhino isn't designed for that. and While great for modeling geared at engineering, manufacturing, prototyping, stereolithography, and situations where poly count isn't an issue, nurbs is the last modeling technique you'd want to use for games because it's designed for creating complex surfaces, not for efficient use of polygons. In modern games, low poly models are made to look more complex through use of normal maps. That's where programs like Mudbox and Zbrush excel, but they aren't a replacement for a good poly modeler. 3ds Max is still pretty much the industry standard for game work.

While this is very much true, Rhino is starting to become more well known for games, starting with PS2. I believe a few games (I can't remember what atm, I'll figure that out later...) were partially made in Rhino, though not the most complex parts of it. I can't imagine that it was purely Rhino, because of the poly count problem, probably used some other program in conjunction to get it right or something, I'm not sure right now (I haven't read about it in a couple years).

Also, with the newest generation of gaming consoles and computer technology, while still an issue, poly count is not nearly as important as it once was. For consoles, the equipment can handle so much more than it used to that a NURBS model wouldn't have any real detrimental effect, unless essentially the entire game was made out of it (OK, maybe a little exaggeration). At the moment the main problem for rendering and storage and such is in the medium, which is also coming along, with Blu Ray and HD DVD able to store so much more than DVDs and CDs before that. Graphics cards and CPUs are advanced far enough to handle it in general, but the amount of data needed for a game completely done in NURBS and with AI, physics, etc, would just be so much that it would either be pretty damn slow or lots of discs

While poly count is still important, we're breaking through that obstacle, and pretty soon I see no reason something like Rhino couldn't be used for game design as well as everything else it does.

At the moment I love it for its simplicity, and the power that comes along with it. It has the best animation plugin that I've found to date, and the easiest to use modelling techniques. Along with this, the Flamingo (Or maybe penguin, can't remember) plugin allows for super high level renders without very much work. It's able to shove in a sky, water/ground, plants (Drag and drop plants rock in this case, though you can create your own as well), various lighting effects... Rhino, when used with all of its plugins, is capable of doing a scene of professional quality without taking even half the time to learn that 3ds Max or Maya do.

It has its limits, as does any modeler, this one mainly because of its NURBS-centered application, but in general it is pretty damn good

And sorry.. I'm always going to stick up for Rhino lol.. I would have its babies if I could XD

I said it IS powerful.. However, it is NOT powerful enough for true industry standard work. Being used in the industry doesn't mean it should, or even can be, on a larger scale. Try using blender instead of 3ds Max or Maya for a game. As the only modeler, etc. It's not going to work nearly as well, quite simply, because it's not as powerful. I'm not saying it can't handle the models, I'm saying that it doesn't have the plugins needed, it doesn't have the capabilities, and it doesn't have the UI needed to make it even a worth-while endeaor in my opinion.

Blender is powerful.
Blender is not AS powerful as 3ds Max or Maya, and is not meant to be used as a mainstream application for the uses that 3ds Max and Maya are meant for.

Rhino is an awesome modeler, no doubt about it. I've played around with it a lot, though not for a few years. For nurbs modeling it's hard to beat. For most things I'll take a strong poly/subdivision modeler over it any day though.

Umm.. We are throwing sticks into the air to see which way the wind is blowing. The url's I gave show early adoption across a wide range of industries for Blender. They show a couple of projects that will contribute a lot to Blender's features. Formats such as FBX and Collada are going to make multitool pipelines a lot easier to manage. With an open source package it's as easy to add features (as the Plumiferos team did) as to work on adding custom extensions to a closed source pipeline. I even gave an example of where a primarily Maya studio is looking to increase the use of Blender in their pipeline.

Sure 3d Max and Maya are currently the most used commercially, but there's a breeze building up and it's blowing in Blender's direction. As I said, it's one to watch