Hi We shall be starting a Games Design Programming course in October 2008 (students would be 18+ years old on a Foundation Degree - 2 years duration). I need to teach a limited amount of 3D modelling and animation so that the students all have a basic grounding in low poly modelling etc. I personally have used 3D studio Max and Blender to a limited extent. 3D studio Max would be an overkill and probally eat too much money out of the budget and Blender is a complete non-starter. I trialled it with a "test" group and they found the interface almost impossible to use. I don't mind it myself, I actually got to like it, but their response made me have serious reservations about using as the main teaching tool. Can you please recommend 3D software that you think would be suitable. I have looked at the sticky list in this forum and I quite like 3D Canvas. It's cheap, seems OK but would it lack credibility ? Any replies would be welcome Thanks

Quote: Original post by hansol
Hi

We shall be starting a Games Design Programming course in October 2008 (students would be 18+ years old on a Foundation Degree - 2 years duration). I need to teach a limited amount of 3D modelling and animation so that the students all have a basic grounding in low poly modelling etc. I personally have used 3D studio Max and Blender to a limited extent. 3D studio Max would be an overkill and probally eat too much money out of the budget and Blender is a complete non-starter. I trialled it with a "test" group and they found the interface almost impossible to use. I don't mind it myself, I actually got to like it, but their response made me have serious reservations about using as the main teaching tool.

Can you please recommend 3D software that you think would be suitable. I have looked at the sticky list in this forum and I quite like 3D Canvas. It's cheap, seems OK but would it lack credibility ?

Any replies would be welcome

Thanks

While i prefer 3ds max myself, XSI is generally a pretty good modeling tool and a lot cheaper than max if i remember correctly. You may be able to get a largely discounted mass license for educational use.

I swear by XSI Mod Tool. Free, supports a decent array of formats (including the DirectX mesh format and the industry standard COLLADA), and it provides all the same modeling features that the full package supports, just with some poly count limits. It's a well known industry tool too, and can be used to easily make models for games like Half Life 2.

I also like XSI. The UI is pretty straight-forward once one realizes that it's divided into sections (Model, Animate, etc...).

Another vote for XSI Mod Tool from me.

No, it isn't as big as 3D Studio Max or Maya in the game industry, but it is still definitely used. The price of free for the Mod Tool version makes it that much more enticing!

An additional piece of advice to the OP: If you going to be teaching XSI (or any other package), make sure you know the material you are going to cover. My intro to animation course sucked because my teacher, who apparently knew his way around 3D Studio Max, decided to teach the course in Maya. This was good because it is what was being used in the upper level courses with the other professors, but it sucked because he was learning the software at the same time as we were. Spending hundreds of dollars on a course and having your teacher not be able to answer your questions tends to piss a person off.

It looks like XSI then, thanks guys.

Hey guys,

Since you all like XSI so much can you tell me how the UV mapping is and also about exporting for a Direct3D game.

Is it very complicated to texture a model ?

And what format do you use to export ?

I'm using Lightwave 3D and although I love the modeler I don't like how the UV works (I'm still a novice at that though.) And I'm not even sure the .obj files I export can have more than one texture, it's a pain.

Thanks.

3D Canvas is very good. I used this before, i like that.
Maya- i think, have nice UI, but i never make anything in this program.

Milkshape3D is very good 3d program for me. Have everything what i need,
animations,weights,bones etc

i think Milkshape3D is the best for me, and very cheap. :).

Fragmotion > Milkshape

Fragmotion doesn't get the mentions it deserves.