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Cheap 3D app suggestions?

jacg

jacg

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 16, 2003
976
88
UK
Hi. I did some basic 3D work using magazine coverdisc free software in the OS9 days and I'd quite like to do some more basic 3D text animated logos.

Can anyone suggest something affordable (or free!) that will do cool looking animated 3D text for putting in FCP or Motion. Ideally a really well designed cocoa app - I can't stand a GUI that drifts away from the OS X norm. (I was looking at Cararra Basics 2 on their website but could see no OS X screenshots. Just very ugly looking ones).

Hope I picked the right forum category!
 
Here are a few affordable or free 3D apps that I use: Blender, Hexagon, Vue, DAZ Studio. One thing to note is that very few, if any, 3D apps have "pretty" interfaces. Because of the inherent complexity of 3D work, most 3D apps are designed for function not form. With that said some are better than others. I like Hexagon's interface best of the ones I listed (made by same company as Carrara, so Carrara is probably good). Blender is very difficult to work with due to it's Unix origins but is extremely full-featured and is free. Vue only recently added the ability to do text, so I'm not sure it will do everything you are looking for. Vue 5 is also very buggy. If you are going to get Vue wait for 6 which should be coming out this fall.
 
jacg said:
...Can anyone suggest something affordable (or free!) that will do cool looking animated 3D text for putting in FCP or Motion. Ideally a really well designed cocoa app - I can't stand a GUI that drifts away from the OS X norm.
Click to expand...

What about FCP itself. Doesn't this include text animation?

About the only free, profesional level 3D animation software is "Blender" but if you want an "iLife - like" GUI that is not going to happen, profesonal 3D is complex and the interface will be as large and complex as FCP itself.
 
I'll chuck in another recommendation for Blender, but with a couple of caveats - it is tough to get into at first and the interface is not hardly the most user friendly (which may well put you off reading your post), but on the other hand, it is free and is very powerful and is well worth the effort.
 
Thank you

OK, so the "cocoa 3D app" concept was an over optimistic one. :rolleyes:

I see the makers of Blender are working on the interface but in the meantime I will download it and have a look. What I want to do is quite specific, so maybe I will cope... I can't even remember the names of the apps I used in OS 9 and on the Amiga, but none of them was easy either.

Thanks for the help, everyone.
 
i like lightwave's interface because it a) has separate environments for modeling/texturing and layout/animation/rendering and b) has a very text-based ui so youre not always wondering wtf those buttons are for. it also helps that that's what we use at school :p
unfortunately, unless you're a student it's quite expensive.
http://www.newtek.com
 
Cheetah3D

jacg said:
OK, so the "cocoa 3D app" concept was an over optimistic one. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Cheetah3D http://www.cheetah3d.com/

Cocoa, does animation, $99. I don't know if it's any good, but people seem to think so - I mean, considering the price. I was looking for the same thing, as in the Mac OS 8 days I used a free version of Amapi - very simple but good app. I haven't had the time to test Cheetah3D yet.
 
Modeling for Blender can be frustrating. If I have something complicated to model, I'll do it in Wings and import it into Blender. For rendering, Blender can do some really cool stuff. Now they're putting cloth and fluid modeling into Blender making it more powerful than ever. I can't wait to get my iMac Core 2 Duo (I'm looking at you, Mr. Jobs) so I can actually play with those features without my computer melting.
 
i like vue, but it does not do one thing which kills it for anything but landscapeing and thats the ability to turn a complete boolean object into a solid single wire frame model, once you have 3 or more boolean interactions it's impossible to see whats going on.
 
neuronetix said:
Zax Pro Animator works as stand-alone or After Effects plug-in. See this review.
Click to expand...
I agree, Zaxwerks is the easiest way to get fast, good looking logo/text animation. You need another tool if you want to do more complex things (I like Cinema4D), but Zax is really great for fast work.
 
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