I’ve recently found myself with a great deal of spare time after work. This is because of a great amount of things, not the least of which being kicking the World of Warcraft habit. I’ve retaken quite a few old hobbies I had - black and white photography and development, offline computer games, freelance journalism, helping my father build a 17’ coast-hopper - but I’m on the prowl for new and cool things to do.
I’ve always had a certain interest in digital animation. Though I’m no drawing wizard, I can create a straight line and have had a penchant for it that’s probably more work than talent. But the thing is, pen-and-paper drawing doesn’t interest me any more.
What I’d like to try is 3D modelling; to that end, I’ve bought, on recommendations from friends, a copy of Bryce 5.5 and have downloaded a simple 3D wireframe editor called Wings 3D. I understand that it’s old, but I’ve been told it’s a good starting point.
So, modellers out there, where do I begin? I would appreciate advice being given and resources found online, as importing books to Norway takes a while and is more expensive than it should be But, that said, any advice is appreciated!
Basically 3d studio Max is preferred by the 3d game developers, Maya for animation, but since the 3d max owners acquired Maya recently, future versions are bound to be more compatible or will eventually merge, both packages have a huge base so even though Alias was bought by Autodesk, new releases and support for both packages is expected for a while.
My advice is to play with Bryce for awhile until you hit its limitations. Then learn 3ds or maya or cinema 4d (the easiest). Renderosity has some good tutorials and free stuff such as materials for bryce: http://www.renderosity.com
I suggest Pov Ray . It has a surprising amount of features and renders some great images and animations. And its freeware. Although its not really necessay I like to use the Moray front end modeler for povray. Its not quite as user friendly as some of the commercial programs but its not as resource
intensive either. It will yield pro results