Spoilt For Choice
There are many 3D applications on the market with prices ranging from free to thousands of pounds. As we are looking at an introduction to 3D we will look more closely at the free stuff.
The 3D software market has a large chunk taken up by AutoDesk who make Maya, 3DS Max, Mudbox, Motion Builder and many more. But there are challengers to AutoDesk’s rule, namely Cinema 4D, Blender, Houdini and LightWave (I’ve probably missed some but you get the gist).
The industry standards (By industry I mean Film, Gaming and Architectural Visualisation) are Maya, Cinema 4D and 3DS Max. They all cost a ton of money but are really good at what they do.
Blender
I would like to introduce you to a program called Blender (www.blender.org). It is a powerful package that has one main advantage over all the other 3D software programs, it’s FREE! In this case free does not mean a poor product. It was created with the intention to allow people to make Pixar style animations with a free product.
It has a great following and support via the on-line community. There is plenty of training material available to get you up and running. For an introduction into the world of 3D I can’t think of a better product, its good, its well supported and of course it is free.
Daz3D
Daz3D (www.daz3d.com) is another free package that allows you to create scenes from existing content. For example you can take a predefined character and change its appearance, clothing and pose then render as a final image. It has lots of free content that can be manipulated within Daz3D and like Blender has a large following and on-line community. There is also the option to buy additional content. The models and scenes can be exported for use in other 3D packages.
If budget is no obstacle then I would go for the either, Maya, 3DS Max or Cinema 4D. You should be able to get hold trial copies of all these programs to test and compare and see what suits you best.
Differences?
When it comes down to it the differences between the packages are small and tend to be industry related. Maya and Cinema 4D tend to be used for film, TV and animation as their tool sets lend themselves to those areas. 3DS Max tends to be for the gaming industry and architectural visualisation (arch-viz) for the same reasons, its set up to maximise productivity in those areas. Saying that, there all so good now that you can do pretty much any of the disciplines on any package.
The software I have mentioned so far are pretty all encompassing packages. There are also programs that concentrate on individual areas in the 3D creation such as modelling, texturing and animating. These are worth looking at but are usually used as part of an overall 3D work-flow.
When I started learning 3D I was taught on both 3DS Max and Maya. I preferred Maya because the user interface (UI) suited me better. That’s the only reason, it was not due to any performance or technical considerations. If I had to learn off my own back and not as a part of my job I would have chosen Blender, because like most people I don’t have a couple of thousand pounds available to spend on 3D software.
I do urge you to do some investigation yourself and see what is out there as there are way too many to list here. I hope this has been a useful in giving you at least a direction to look in.
All the best,
Ian
