3d dealies

[ndchristie]

does anyone know a 3d program that........

- is free to download
- is simple
- is easy to use (unlike gm which can be tedious as hell)
- can disable perspective
- can import textures
- can render precisely

if you dont, i suppose well have to use gm, but id prefer to find something that i can use myself

note; this is for a pending adventure game project, and we want prerendered backgrounds

[Helm]

A very simple suggestion since I come from the amateur adventure game scene: don't use prerendered backgrounds. I know it's kind of a meta-solution to your trouble, but please, please consider handrawn/handpixelled or some happy medium in between.

[ndchristie]

were going handdrawn if we can get this to work, but id prefer to avoid it since i wouldnt be able to make the other people on the team help

[vedsten]

gotta admit that i havn't actually tried it my self, but one of my friends studiyng architecture uses "sketchup" and and has nothin' but praise. It's suppousedly (how dew you spell that?) very intuitive, and it cant be all that bad since google just brought the company making it.

Check it out: http://sketchup.google.com/

i know you can disable perspective

[robalan]

Blender is arguably one of the best open source 3D modeling programs available.  I've used it a very little bit, and can see how much it can do.  Also, it has an orthogonal (non-perspective) mode.

Here is the manual/wiki, and here is the gallery of some stuff people have done with the program.

Good luck with the project!

Oh, and vedsten: Sketchup is very far from free; there's an 8 hour free trial, but the full version is almost $500 o_O

[vedsten]

yea, for the pro vers. dunno if Adarias project is freeware or what, but there's a free edition available, dunno what features are included tho

[robalan]

Oh hey, I missed that.  Well, considering how the "favorites" look, I think Blender is probably more powerful.  It appears that Sketchup is mostly useful in drawing buildings, or at least, that's what it's used for in most of the sample pictures.  I dunno; I might give it a try if I have some free time.

[Radioactivity]

i was going to suggest blender, but robalan was too quick of the mark.
anyways, it is a good program, strike that great program considering it's an open source 3d modelling program.

[Dhaos]

Yeah, blender is great, I use it myself alot. Takes while to get used to, but it can do pretty much anything (in some shape or form) that the overpriced programs can do XD. I actually found it a bit easier to use than 3dsmax and maya...those programs were so overly complicated lol.

[Mr.Modem]

Blender is g (and still use somreat and is the obvious choice for a free 3d program with advanced functions. I used to useetimes) Wings3d for 3d modeling. It's really lightweight, but once you know all the shortcuts and menues you can model at a very high speed. The render engine isn't good at all but the program can export to many formats.

[ndchristie]

i actually never could figure out blender, i thought the interface was the most awkwardly arranged thing id ever seen, but perhaps i never gave it enough of a chance.  thanks for the suggestions everybody, though im afraid the programmer talked me into going with handdrawn before i had a chance to really look at them

[goat]

Blender has a steep learning curve, but you definitely can't argue with the results.  I come from a 3dsmax school of thought so the first time I used it I was confused and frightened, but once you get used to it (I'm still not) you can pull some amazing visuals out of it.  If you're going for prerendered graphics you want to avoid the "prerendered look" as much as possible, which imo excludes a lot of the less developed free 3d apps out there. 

If you're going to be rendering out to 2d images and not distributing any native format files, I might also gingerly suggest that just because a program is sold commercially doesn't mean it couldn't be a 'free' solution :p

[ndchristie]

id take your last suggestion except in that its illegal, and even without a trail its more the spirit of the act that id prefer to avoid

maybe i should give blender another chance, ive seen some people do some great things with it, and even i can figure out the basics (animation was beyond me, but i dont really need animation....soo.........)

[Conzeit]

hm. I think the most annoying/complicated thing about blender is the fact it relays on "modes" for everything.

when you have to stick a figure to a bone, you must go to a mode, when you have to animate, there's another mode.

but you're pretty ok once you know that. I took a small course that touched every subject from rendering to animation very lightly, so maybe I could advice you a little bit.

also, be aware there's a community wiki in blender's main site

http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Main_Page

[NyanNyanKoneko]

The best part of Blender is that the import / export scripts are written in python.  Most professional tools require you to download their SDK and write a C / C++ importer / exporter.  With blender, you can open up nano / notepad / emacs / whatever, and write your python script and save it in the plugins directory.  On the plus side, if you mess up your code, it'll let you know what's wrong with your script instead of crashing the application or writing bad data.