Graphics Programs

[masteriii]

Hello all.  I wanted to throw out the question "What 3D graphics program/s do you use?"  and see what kind of discussion comes up.  I did some elementary 3D rendering back in middle school (which was over a decade ago) and have no idea what it is like on the market these days.  My goal is to find a relatively inexpensive program, though I am willing to pay more if it is something I will use for a long time, which is not too difficult for a beginner.  I would love to be able to mock up plans for real world builds until I have the space to complete an actual build and before I spend the money on materials/equipment.

Which programs are user friendly?  
As far as costs, which programs give you more for your buck?  
What kind of features does the program offer?
Is the program better for exterior or interior builds?
Can four dimensional objects be created? That is can I build something that is bigger on the inside or must the inside and outside be built separately?

Any other help/advice that you can give is greatly appreciated.

[cathlyn847]

There's Google sketch-up (free) I've seen alot of TARDIS models built with it on this site.

[dreamland fantasy]

My current 3D graphics program of choice is Maxon's Cinema 4D. The version I use is R10.5 Studio. The latest version is R11.5, but sadly I can't afford the upgrade price at the moment.

I find Cinema 4D one of the easiest 3D programs to use and rendering times are pretty quick. It is expensive however with the cheapest option being around the £1200 mark upto around £3200 for the full blown option, although Maxon do have a 50% off sale at the moment.

In the past I've used Lightwave 3.5 and Imagine 3.0 on the Amiga, but 3D modelling/rendering is something that I've only recently started to get my head around so I never really did much with them. I've always been impressed with the results that Lightwave produces though.

I've also been quite impressed with the results of the Blender 3D program which is available for free, but I found it quite hard to get to grips with. Maybe I never gave it enough of a chance though.

Kind regards,

Francis

[ravage]

myself i started using google sketchup 7 to figure out what my inside of tardis is going to be like
mine you i only start using it this week so im still getting the hang of it and also learning from the tuturtioals from youtube which helps

[sanguinewolf]

3ds max 2011 with vray 1.5 for modeling and rendering and poser pro for character creation (thou im looking into going to zbrush for more accurate characters, but that has to wait till im solvent again lol )

[maverickjsmith]

I use google sketchup 6. It's easy and insanely fast because of it's simplicity. Though it's simplicity means certain things can't be done or take a lot longer than with a more "professional" 3D program. Though I rarely run into this in TARDIS building.

That being said, for TARDIS building it's free, yields great results, and some 3D modeling programs either have an importer for sketchup (I'm looking at you MODO), and for the rest just search for a free plugin someone wrote to convert your model into a format your big 3D modeling software can read.

All in all, I think for the hobby we all share here, it's definitely one of the best choices

Maverick

[gamechaos]

Blender is a quite robust free program. The link is here: http://www.blender.org/

[expendable]

I use Sketchup 8 (better terms of service) along with Kerkythea as a rendering engine, with GIMP for simple graphics.

[oslm]

3DSMax 2012 for the modelling with vray2.0 for the rendering -- As for the textures, I mostly work with photoshop but I will sometimes use photopaint or a free program called paint.net --

[the_prop_maniac]

SketchUp Make 2014 when modelling and Kerkythea when I'm rendering. These two don't give me any trouble, and their both really simple to use.

- Tom