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3d animation software recommendations

R

Rdes

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I am looking for some 3d animation software. Something with not too much of a learning curve.. Any recommendations???
 
I started with Lightwave 3D 8.0. It's runs great on mac os 10.3. The learning curve is going to be a little hard with any app if you never touched a 3D program. But this one is pretty basic but not to basic to make some cool stuff. Once you master this app I would move to Maya. If your a student newtak gives a great discount! ($210.00)!!!

Lightwave also has a great opiton to export to flash.

Lightwave
 
As far as easy Cinema 4D is a great app and it is getting more and more powerful. It the one that we use for our business with Maya for the high end stuff.

As far as a little more complex program, Maya is a great app as well. And they have a Personal Learning Edition that you can download from their site, which makes learning Maya a little more easy.

🙂
 
what do you want to do ? Learn 3D in general ? Animation ? Modeling ?...

If you are really serious about it and are ready to make some investment, I'd say get Maya, Lightwave or Cinema4D (depending on the sort of projects you want to work on, what other people you would work with use).

If you want to take it more slowly, then you might want to check out wings3D for modeling (it is free), Blender (free as well), Hash Animation:Master ($299), Carrara Studio ($399) etc. before diving in the deep end 😉
 
Cinema 4D is certainly an excellent program. And, what's even better is that you can get a full (though slightly outdated) version essentially for free. Pick up the latest (December) issue of MacAddict and on the CD that comes with the magazine you get a full version of Cinema 4D CE v6. That way, if the learning curve is a bit much, you're not really out anything. (Cinema 4D v8 is about $500, FWIW.)
 
Originally posted by Snowy_River
(Cinema 4D v8 is about $500, FWIW.)
Click to expand...

the base package is $600, the 'XL-bundle' with advanced rendering, character animation tools etc. costs $1700...and then you get the 'studio bundle' for $2500. I really like the way they broke down the advanced features into modules, so you can buy the base package and then add only the modules you need (even though each module costs $500, so the bundles seem like a good deal).

I have been wanting to 'switch' to Cinema4D many times, the only thing holding me back is that it is not widely used in the industry. I might pick it up for personal projects, though (Wes, I might start asking you pesky questions, be warned 😀 )

Also, make sure to check for educational versions if you qualify.
 
Lightwave 8? How did you get that, its not even available yet.

I've been using Lightwave for years, good stuff. And like posted above, there will be a learning curve regardless of the software - there's just so much to learn.

D
 
Originally posted by quintara1@mac.c
You may want to take a look at Electricimage Universe, which also integrates well with FormZ.
Click to expand...

-Rdes

And the renderer is the fastest on the market.

But the real strength of EI is all of the plug-ins you can buy. The physics plug-ins are just unbelievable.
 
I've had a quick go with Maya and Bryce, and I found Bryce very easy to use. But it doesn't have anywhere NEAR the flexibility of some of those other products. I've been wanting to try Cinema 4D for a while, I don't know whether there's a demo version available.

Edit: Just had a look, and there is a demo of Cinema 4D on their site, I'll give it a go one day.
 
I dabbled around with the Cinema4D demo last night, that is a sweet program ! Very clean, very fast (moving around metaball objects in realtime is just mesmerizing 😛) although I have not checked out the 'low level' polygonal modeling tools yet (cut, extrude, merge points etc.). Took me a while to understand the whole logic of the program (who reads manuals anyways 😉 ), but after that I had a blast.
 
I've used Ray Dream Studio which was bought out by Eovia and is now gone through Carrara, Carrara 2, and Carrara 3

I currently use Carrara 3, and the enhancements in 3 almost make me want to buy

Carrara is an incredibly powerful animator, particle systems, NURBs, and renderer package.

It has features of a professional program, but it is designed for the home amateur.

After using Carrara I knew all the concepts of modeling and was able to understand and use Lightwave and Maya with only minor adjustments. Student price is 150 for Carrara 3 I think.
 
I moved to Maya after using C4D for about a year. At the time it was C4D XL7. When I switched to Maya, it was like night and day. Maya is much faster and more equipped for character animation. HyperNurbs in C4D is to SmoothProxy in Maya 4.5+, but a helluvulot FASTER.

If its character animation only you are interested in, (and cheap and easy, at that) check out Animation:Master. (www.hash.com)

I am currently using Maya 4.5 and am thinking of moving to maya 5. If I had more money I'd look into Softimage XSI (PC only). Its pretty tight as well.
 
Originally posted by quintara1@mac.c
You may want to take a look at Electricimage Universe, which also integrates well with FormZ.
Click to expand...

Universe has its own very capable modeler now.

Extremely fast renderer... I animated a minute long movie on my 6100 many years back (rendered it during the night shift at a service bureau) AND it's soooo easy to achieve a realistic look...

Back in the day... it used to cost $8000!!! But it was the only pro-level Mac animation program.
 
agreenster:
do you find Maya faster than cinema4D for poly-modeling ? I am not sure I understand from your post which one is faster, Hypernurbs in C4 or Subdivision in Maya. I guess I will have to play with the PLE a bit more...

iindigo:
last time I checked, Blender had a pretty nasty user interface, though. Again, I should probably check out the latest version. 'Free' is definitely nice !
 
Blender has improved greatly over the last few years. There's a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it's really great. I use it for all my 3D stuff...
 
ok, one more demo app to put on my 'check it out' list...oh wait, I can actually check out a full version ! Yipeeee 😀
 
3d Rotation

To all those 3d animaters out there, how can I simply rotate a 2d logo from freehand etc. into a 3d rotation with depth etc..
The effect must export to flash or quicktime. I have not got the time to get into Maya or all those heavy packages. There must be mac software that allows me to bring in a vector of jpeg and produce this animation.

Thanks Aljay
 
Aljay said:
To all those 3d animaters out there, how can I simply rotate a 2d logo from freehand etc. into a 3d rotation with depth etc..
The effect must export to flash or quicktime. I have not got the time to get into Maya or all those heavy packages. There must be mac software that allows me to bring in a vector of jpeg and produce this animation.

Thanks Aljay
Click to expand...

Well, you can do a limited amount of the 3D rotation in Freehand MX and Illustrator CS. Do a search in the help for Extrude and Revolve in Freehand and Illustrator. I believe that it is under the Effect menu in Illustrator. You can export a swf from there. But to animate it, you can't do it in Illustrator, but you can in Freehand, albeit rather primitively.

You might want to just import it into a 3D program of sorts for the easiest way. Or you can pay me to do it 🙂 (PM me if you would like).
 
Aljay said:
To all those 3d animaters out there, how can I simply rotate a 2d logo from freehand etc. into a 3d rotation with depth etc..
The effect must export to flash or quicktime. I have not got the time to get into Maya or all those heavy packages. There must be mac software that allows me to bring in a vector of jpeg and produce this animation.

Thanks Aljay
Click to expand...

electric rain has some software, swift3D, that creates flash movies from vector artwork. Its quite simple and relatively easy to use. and it doesn't break the bank.

D
 
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