I have been doing 3D modeling / animation for a while now at school with their Max 3D software on windows. Does anyone know of a decent modeling/animation package for Mac OS X, either open-source/cheap/educational discounts for my home computer? Thanks in advance, SwiftCoder Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. [edited by - swiftcoder on October 17, 2003 4:33:00 PM]

Perhaps I should re-phrase that:

I really like Maya, but I can''t afford it on my current budget
I could get Lightwave 3D at a good educational discount, but I have never used it, and find mixed reviews, a couple of opinions would help.
Already tried Art of Illusion and Sphaera, both free at the moment, but neither are really powerfull enough for what I want:

Skeletal Animation system.
NURBs Modeling and Polygon Mesh Modeling, with conversions both ways.
Export to an open format, so I can write a converter to my Games internal format.

And preferably a good RayTracer as well

Here''s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently.

There''s Maya Personal Learning Edition which is free, but I''m not sure what restrictions are on it. I believe that it''s full-featured, but can only be used in not-for-profit apps.

I''ve heard really good things about Cinema 4D.

Try Blender. It is open source and comes available for Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, Irix, Solaris, NetBSD, blah, blah, blah. It''s what I use. Getting used to the interface was a little wierd at first, but once you do, it''s pretty decent.

Josh
vertexnormal AT linuxmail DOT org

Check out Golem: Lands of Shadow, an isometrically rendered hack-and-slash inspired equally by Nethack and Diablo.

I tried Blender a while ago (on Windows), and didn''t really like the interface, then I tried it on OS X and it seems even worse, I guess it is just the diferences between the interfaces are greater.

''Maya Personal Learning Edition'' is full featured, except it watermarks prints and screenshots, and can''t export.

Here''s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently.