Does anybody know of any tools in Linux that are somewhat like 3Ds max. I''m taking a gaming class at my university right now and we''re using 3Ds max to create the levels, characters, and monsters. I was just wondering if there was something that was like that in any way available for linux? Double T Roy.Ens@ttu.edu

Well, there''s always Blender.

rm -rf /bin/laden

Well...you could look at the Blue Moon Rendering tools, which basically do what 3d studio does; ie. Render nicely. However, if you mean a nice integrated package, which is easy to use, etc. and free...

No.

It is possible to use something like wine or vmware to emulate windows and run window programs on that, but that would probably be your best bet. Other than blender (which might be worth looking at, depending on what you like. I dont like it.) none of the applications I''ve encountered for linux are fully functional, or provide a nice modeling interface.

I''ve heard that you can get a copy of maya running on linux; I''m unsure if that means emulated, or native or what, but it might be worth looking into (if you feel up to the cost of buying maya)...
mmm... looking on their website (http://www.aliaswavefront.com) says maya runs on linux, but also costs ~$600 US.

*shrugs* Maybe someone else knows of something...

Actually, what am I saying?

You dont want a commercial license do you? =P

You can download a copy of the maya personal learning edition (free for non-profit use) from the website. Not sure if that includes linux support, but worth looking into I guess ~300Mb download, but maybe you can bum it for a high bandwidth connection @ uni or something.

K-3d (http://k3d.sourceforge.net) is nice, Free and free (and alpha, but it''s working aicely). It doesn''t have a renderer, but you can use any Renderman-compatible raytracer with it (it has a list of these for Linux, including Free ones).

And it''s not a KDE app (dunno what the ''K'' stands for).

As for Maya, the free edition is windows and Mac only. No IRIX or Linux version (and it doesn''t work in wine, I tried. It runs in VMWare with the software GL drivers though).

You might want to check out Vertex 3D. It''s specifically designed for OpenGL. http://wolfpack.twu.net/Vertex/

It can work with (using plugins) other model
formats such as dxf, lwo, and raw.