All I hear about is 3DS Max this, Maya that. They are too expensive, and uncouthly complicated. The one modeler that dwarfs all of those in ease of use, reusability, functionality, and overall results is a little known program by metacreations called

RAY DREAM STUDIO.

This is the apitimy of great modelers. The free-form modeling makes curved and high-poly models a cinche, while the mesh form is the easiest for low-poly models.

I believe that RDS has been overlooked for too long. Blender, truespace,nendo, 3DS, maya, poser; they all fall short of this cheap ($200, come on) software package.

I do ALL of my modeling in RDS and I can effectively create realistic low-poly characters in a matter of minutes. Litteraly, minutes!

So all of those out there who don''t have the money to buy 3DS or Maya, etc. Get Ray Dream, get it now. Metacreations knew what they were doing when they created this. This is one fine ray-tracing program.

(Also, Is there anyone out there who uses RDS and knows what I''m talking about?)

I like Cinema4d ease of use, 3dStudio is great too, now for shareware modelers, Moray is ok, but lacks a lot of features, and I mean a lot, for free the most promising is OpenFx looks great, and has a LOT of features, its quite new but is GPLed, Hopefully it will be ported to linux soon, which lacks a 3d modeler.

Edit:

hmmm, sorry, forgot Blender has a port for linux, but I dont like blender, its not quite a traditional modeler from my point of view

Edited by - kwizatz on July 9, 2001 3:57:18 PM

quote: Original post by Just3D
All I hear about is 3DS Max this, Maya that. They are too expensive, and uncouthly complicated. The one modeler that dwarfs all of those in ease of use, reusability, functionality, and overall results is a little known program by metacreations called

RAY DREAM STUDIO.

I''ve heard of ray dream studio, but never used it. Metacreations sold off a bunch of their programs. Is ray dream studio supported still? If so by whom?


--
http://www.3dcgi.com/

where''s the URL?

I seem to recall looking at RDS and being unable to use it... never figured out how to do anything more complicated than a wineglass... and that was a primitave

While you''re busy telling us to ''come on''... I''ll repeat that Rhino is $195 if you can get it academic... and I''ll also wonder if you''ve read this entire thread, as it contains a bit of hino/Blender wars...

also, it seems to me most of the people speaking of 3DS and Maya are saying that they work well, but aren''t really reccommending them...

--Tr][aD--

quote:
also, it seems to me most of the people speaking of 3DS and Maya are saying that they work well, but aren''t really reccommending them...

I would recomend 3DS if it wasn''t $3000 to buy it, price is the only bad thing I have found in it, certainly no newbie would or could pay that much, the same goes for Cinema4d XL, however maxon has Cinema4d GO for starters that sells for about $300, but lacks a lot of features Present in XL, 3dstudio doesnt has a starter lever product as far as I know, they have a demo cd, but you have to order it, and go throw a lot of stuff before actually getting it (at least it was like that when R3 was out, latest is R4)

for the URLS:
Kinetix - 3d Studio Max R4
Maxon Cinema4d 6.0

quote: Original post by TrIaD

also, it seems to me most of the people speaking of 3DS and Maya are saying that they work well, but aren''t really reccommending them...

I will definately recomend both of these programs. I use both, and love each of them. I feel that a user shouldn''t get too attached to one single program. If you limit yourself to only one, then you are missing out on a lot. They all have their strong points, and weaknesses, but all programs do. The only weaknesses these particular programs have are their prices. Sure Studio Max has a stronger polygon toolset, plus an easier export system than Maya, but Maya is much easier to use dynamics and probably has a smaller learning curve. You just have to learn what you want beforehand, and adjust accordingly. If price is your biggest problem, then I would still recommend these, but only if you KNOW that you are going to get your money''s worth out of them. Remember that these are the high-end software packages (Maya more-so than Max), and are not to be taken lightly. There is a reason they are so high-end. They are that good.

-Luxury

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
I feel that a user shouldn''t get too attached to one single program. If you limit yourself to only one, then you are missing out on a lot.
-Luxury

You make a good point. Games maybe less so, but on movies they don''t use just one program. They use a combination of proprietary software and Maya or others.



--
http://www.3dcgi.com/

Well, about Ray Dream Studio, I believe Metacreations has changed it to "Carrara". They say that they merged Ray Dream Studio and InfiniD into one big package, sold to an undisclosed buyer. I really don''t know if this version is as good as RDS (5.0), but it''s worth looking in to. If anyone is interested: the aging site is www.metacreations.com, though it looks like the company is breaking down.

Hi!

I got just Hash Animation Master and after using it half a day I''m very pleased. I have just used modelling and I really like building with patches. Other modellers I tried before had lots of tools I had to use and combine even to build a simple model. But with AM I was able to build nice models right away just using patches. I think AM is worth of money! Student version was just $199.

I exported my car model to .obj file so the patches are converted to faces. But it seems that some faces point wrong direction. Car''s lefside is not visible outside. Does anyone how can I determine which side is visible in AM? AM seems to render both sides. I don''t want to have all faces duplicated.


Net Racing Demo:
http://www.geocities.com/stefankjb/download.html

Does anyone use GIMP?