3d animation prog help
 

ok i cant figure out what or how to explain.. forgive my tangents

Im looking for any program, with good help files that allow me to create a 3d image of creatures and/or humans.. either fully or by importing a skin to cover to give the details..

besides that also to make them move.

wanting to test out a small series by makeing a vampire type vs humans with super powers..

thanks

note: if i gotta pay for one fine.. its ok.. just reaaaalllyyy bored

throw drider a link lol

maya is one, i prefer it, blender(free iirc) another, milkshape is a good simple one for doing quake/half life style animations and is free.

poser will get you a good start, some of the fractal designs stuff has nice 3d painting where you can skin quickly over existing models.

and theres always 3ds max, if you absolutely have too ;) theres a lot of plugins for it to do animation, bones pro, bonesjiggler etc

pixels 3d mac only

3dsmax if you have the cash to get it...

i love it and used it regularly

I've used 3D Studio Max 4 for well over a year and right now I'm beginning to learn Maya. Maya is really cool to work with - just about the only annoyance I have is how uncool the user interface looks. 3DSMAX was a lot tighter in this respect.

Anyway, you should probably go for 3DSMAX or Maya.

well the thing is.. i want to create a "wire frame" and over lay it with a "skin" that i create.. doing this is beyond me cuz i mostly chat and play games.. but i want to branch out and learn something new..

with the progs listed are there any sites with "newbie" lessons and such?

milkshape will allow you to skin, so does poser
body paint3d too

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pc...s/examples.htm
http://www.perpetualvisions.com/arti...aint-poser.htm

i wouldnt recommend maya or max for this as the learning curve will be very steep.


also look for halflife and quake md3 skinning tutorials they are quite similar and a lot of them use milkshape

I'll second that. I've been in college for 4.5 years learning this stuff and it still sends me through the frikkin' loop. Skinning and UV mapping is an art form, and one thats only aquired through much much much practice.

My software of choice is Maya, and yeah, the curve is hella steep.

One software package that wasn't mentioned here was gMax, its sort of like Maya's Personal Learning Edition. Oh yeah, its a stripped down version of 3D Studio Max. It was built specifically for creating game models. Here's a linky: http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/

Should you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them, I'm currently in the middle of mapping and painting a character for my final animation class.

This is the part where I pimp above mentioned project:

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~aarp/fuzzguy.jpg

This guy will be covered in a dusty, dirtballish fur, except for his face, hands, and feet. Thats why I didn't bother with much detail in the arms and legs.

:eek:

uhhhhhmmmm

Milkshape is NOT free it has a free 30 day trial... then it costs 20 dollars or 28 dollars now i think

but for Drider_it... you do NOT want Maya or Max unless you are planning on being a commercial game / video artist .. these programs cost thousands of dollars... Max is currently 3500 dollars US, maya is 2000 US... so it doesnt look from your post that you are serious about becoming a modeler... i would suggest if you are, to go to school for it... and either way, check out www.milkshape3d.com the milkshape site has links to tutorials... also, www.polygods.com has video tutorials you can download on using milkshape... also check out www.dosfx.com ... walks you through creating a model and skinnign it

Ive used max the most, but am planning on getting into maya... and also will mess around with milkshape, its a great program, seen some awesome stuff with it... mainly for creating game models... ALOT of game engines are supported

my bad, i guess it either used to be free or i just pumb forget, its $25 after 30 days. its been a few years since i last used it for some genesis3d projects.

you can get max for 99 for a student ed for a 7 month license

softimage is also pretty good, i was always a fan of nendo stuff too, these two we use for nintendo development mainly.

thats kind of cool... theres a new free 30 day trial of Max 6 out from discreet

http://www.alice.org/

here is a program That is free and fairly easy to use
It is mainly used to teach 3d graphics!

it's a big download at 67 Mb, but i thought it was worth it.

heh got poser 5 .. awesome program.. what i was looking for .. thanks all.. 3d stuidio i will look into next week.. poser is rockin yet the complexity of all the add ons are a pain.. trying not to load everyone i can find that is.. till i learn the basics a bit more.