I used to be somewhat proficient at 3D art, having been a long-time user of 3D Studio (right from the DOS version up to Max). I no longer have this program (yes, I know its “available”).
So that leaves me wondering if there are any good freeware graphics packages out there?
I use POV-ray.
I am familiar with POV-Ray but I’ve always been to scared to try it. The idea of developping a whole scene using only text-based scripting is rather discouraging.
Haven used it but i’ve heard good things about Blender
If you don’t mind a watermark on your images, Maya is available for free in what’s called a Personal Learning Edition: http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/maya_ple/index.shtml
They describe the mark as “subtle enough to let you evaluate your images, but intense enough that those images cannot be used commercially.”
But, if you want to mess around with some really high-powered (and at $7,000 for the complete version, high-priced!) professional-grade software, this is a good entry.
I know that a few magazines were giving out the full version (not the cut-down ‘special edition’) of TrueSpace 3 within the last year or so. It’s quite a solid little program, although it lacks a lot of the features that newer programs have. Not sure which magazines had it, but if they were giving it away free, you might be able to find it somewhere online for free (and legal) dowloading.
That said, if you’ve got a hefty system, and think there’s even a remote chance that you’ll want to use your 3D skills as part of a job application, go for Maya PLE, since it’s more of an industry standard.
Blender is good for modeling and animation. It doesn’t do raytracing, though.
There are export scripts that let you create and animate your models and scenes in Blender and then use POV-RAY to do the actual rendering - and then you get your raytracing.
Maya PLE sounds interesting…I’ll look into that.
Actually, Blender does do raytracing as of version 2.32 cite.
critter42
POV-Ray has at least one graphical frontend that I know of. It’s free, too. Forget the name, though.
Well paint me purple and call me a baboon. I hadn’t downloaded a new version in a couple of months. See what happens with free software? It moves too fast to keep up with.
Moray. I like the text way, myself.