modeling applications

I've just watched an introduction video of SpaceClaim

http://www.spaceclaim.com/stream/video.aspx?v=Analysis_Demo.flv

pretty fast modeling. When I compare this to 3dsmax, it's a much simpler and faster approach to create geometry. And I think it is useful not only for engineering.

FormZ looks impressing too:

http://www.formz.com/downloads/video/video.php

It appears to me that certain applications like e.g. 3dsmax are outdated and need 3rd party plugins to keep track of what new applications can do. I am learning modeling now (organic and engineering/architectural) and plan to buy a license for that modeling program. What are your experiences and advices?

[hiroguchi_saitou]

Yeah, they have what i call intuitive modelling experience, something that`s most of the old 3D program (max, maya, maybe xsi?) doesnt have it. 3dsmax is the worst, they have the most primitive, prehistoric modelling tool to date, even a good 3rd party like orionflame and polyboost can`t do much about it.

Honestly i envy other program like zbrush. modo, space claim etc, but right now i don`t have time to learn it, and i`ve a bad addiction with mental ray :) that`s the main reason i think, because on maya or xsi, shader creation is toooo complicated and unintuitive.

Until now i`m not enoughly convinced with other solution (maxwell, vray, brazil (i don`t try v2 so i don`t know) etc) so i don`t have any choice at all.
==> to illustrate this, i have a display design that consist of 7 small booth with approx 420.000 polys, daylight lighting with some sec. lighting, 1-16 mitnet aa, final gather, 1024x768, reflection here and there, and can achieved acceptable result within under 10 minutes, on my prehistoric single core Pentium4 with 2 GB RAM. Well aside from scanline, that`s the best result i can get from advanced renderer, any other renderer can match this?
-> oh yeah, that prehistoric P4 machine, that`s my ACTUAL machine right now on my office, believe it or not :)

I might be can use other tools just to sculpt, model, or build, but i don`t want to go through the hassle of format conversion. 3ds format can`t handle polys, just tris, afaik, as so with lwo or other open platform, and buying professional conversion tool isn`t cheap.

So there`s go my rant :)

3ds is tri only? No quads? I wasn't aware of that, but you're right, I just checked out some 3ds files I exported some time ago. I hardly never use that format for import or export. But a max file does have quads?

Shading and rendering is again another thing, and I think 3dsmax is very strong there; I'm a bit afraid of the shader nodes of Maya, they look scary.

So I agree with you, it is a bit of dilemma. To have a copy of 3dsmax only for rendering is a bit of a luxury, and stand-alone renderers may not replace Mental Ray entirely, especially for animations.

I was fading out the shading/rendering aspect for the moment and only wanted to find out what modeling software is the best, which is the best approach to both mechanical and organic modeling, because I believe that a rendering solution will not be a big problem in the future as every renderer gets better and better every year. Yeah, in the end it is us, the artists, who profit from the vast development of software.

[perolalars]

Hi phil999
I would recommend Rhino3d Modeling tools for designers and for the organic modeling a plugin named Tspline T-Splines
Works great and real fast learning curve.
for rendering you can use VRay for Rhino
cheaper then 3ds and you can complement with spaceclaim, works side by side with rhino
i love rhino
best regards