Hi everyone, I am thinking of going into 3d art to make projects for my art portfolio and I was wondering what freeware programs would you recommend me to look at.

List of freeware programs I found online:
-Blender
-K-3d
-Art of illusion
-Softimage
-Google sketch up

There is probably more that I do not know of but I would like to hear your opinions. I would also like to know if game developers wouldn't mind if using these free programs. I recall visiting a couple of game websites with job postings and said something about "must have experience with Maya" or "must have experience in 3d studios max".

Thanks for the help.

Although I am not an artist, I only heard good things about Blender and K-3D. Your requirement is to build a portfolio. My suggestion is to pick one of the above (let's say Blender) and start doing 3D art.

Once you know how to use one of them, when you switch to Maya or 3DS you will probably know how to use at least 75% of the features. There's a similar analogy in the programming world when it comes to IDEs - should I use a free one or a commercial one. In the end, it doesn't matter that much. What matters is the end result. These tools you can learn as you go along.

Think about this as learning to drive in a cheap car vs learning to drive in a BMW M6 - you can achieve the same result with both

In terms of what game developers "prefer" - well this is very specific per project. Some game studios even have their own custom data files, so you shouldn't worry too much about what programmers prefer in general, but focus more on your actual art.

For a free software, I think you should go for Blender : it's a complete software and there is even a ZBrush mode.

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-243/sculpt-mode/

@papi0t - I agree.

It's good to get experience in really any 3D modeling software if that's the route you're looking to take.

Also, if you're a student, you can sign up for a free 3 year license for nearly all of Autodesk's software.

I know a couple of bigger studios that actually use Blender for all of their model work. It makes sense since they can get the same quality of product without the hefty licensing cost.

Not much else for me to add. Good luck!

Be aware that while Blender is definitely free, it had a very unconventional interface and the learning curve is extremely steep. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.

Be aware that while Blender is definitely free, it had a very unconventional interface and the learning curve is extremely steep. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.

It didn't see to much worse than Maya to me (although I've only just dabbled in modelling), and Blender has a pretty substantial community, too: http://cgcookie.com/blender/. I didn't have a ton of trouble after watching a couple tutorial videos.

But Dave's suggestion to look at free student version of Maya is a good idea, too, since it might be advantageous to work with a more common commercial software. IIRC there are limitations of what you can export with the student version though.

Be aware that while Blender is definitely free, it had a very unconventional interface and the learning curve is extremely steep. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.

That's very out of date. The interface has been redone from scratch 3 years ago now, and everything you need is available from a mouse menu. There is also a search function where you can type in the name of a command and find it.

Head to BlenderCookie.com and watch the free videos: http://cgcookie.com/blender/get-started-with-blender/

The interface has been updated, but it still assumes you know what you're doing. It still has keyboard shortcuts that change depending on where your mouse cursor is, and it's still going to be strange for anyone used to standard Windows interface convensions. For instance left mouse-click rarely does what you expect, if anything at all.

To create a primitive with a custom number of segments/divisions you have to open up a console and run a python function. Explain that to a beginner.

Compare with Gimp, which is also a free program but a struggle to actually use for anyone not already well familiar with its unconventional interface.

[quote name='Scarabus2' timestamp='1354742831' post='5007528']
Be aware that while Blender is definitely free, it had a very unconventional interface and the learning curve is extremely steep. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.

That's very out of date. The interface has been redone from scratch 3 years ago now, and everything you need is available from a mouse menu. There is also a search function where you can type in the name of a command and find it.

Head to BlenderCookie.com and watch the free videos: http://cgcookie.com/...d-with-blender/
[/quote]

The interface has been updated, but it still assumes you know what you're doing. It still has keyboard shortcuts that change depending on where your mouse cursor is, and it's still going to be strange for anyone used to standard Windows interface convensions. For instance left mouse-click rarely does what you expect, if anything at all.

To create a primitive with a custom number of segments/divisions you have to open up a console and run a python function. Explain that to a beginner.

Compare with Gimp, which is also a free program but a struggle to actually use for anyone not already well familiar with its unconventional interface.

Ok, I guess I can give Blender and Maya's student edition a shot. I know I havent done 3D modeling before but in the past,I had trouble learning programs like Illustrator and I had to get used to GIMP because I had no access to Photoshop. I always have some sort of learning curve to go through in programs I am newly exposed to.

Be aware that while Blender is definitely free, it had a very unconventional interface and the learning curve is extremely steep. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.

Blender has a steep learning curve but I'm not sure this is because its interface is 'unconventional'. All of the big commercial 3D modelling programs have equally steep learning curves. 3D Studio Max is no picnic either. 3D modelling just isn't an easy thing to learn, unfortunately. Something like MilkShape maybe can be easier to learn because it is smaller and there is therefore less to learn, but doing the same things, i.e. low-polygon modelling, that you can do in MilkShape in Blender amounts to the same thing.