Which 3D app is best for an amateur?

[Mike-L]

Which 3D application is best for the amateur who would like to start creating or modifying 3D models from the web?

[eric]

Blender is becoming the most capable. Many of us use Sketchup and TSModeler, but both are what I would consider unsupported because TSM was created over 20 years ago and has never been updated, and SketchUp has changed owners and appears to be moving in a different direction and realize on a plug-in which may no longer be supported by the software. SketchUp also doesn't support animations.

Blender, being open source, still is supported and working on Modern operating systems, and has a plug-in available which can be used for most of the train simulation games still used including OpenRails. If there is ever a new shape file used in OpenRails, it's most likely going to be one that can be generated by blender natively. That's something TSM and SketchUp won't be able to support most likely.

[jovet]

I really dislike Blender, and I'd recommend Gmax if licenses for it were still available.

[eric]

Yeah, GMax was my go-to.

Blender was more of a forced transition when I changed laptops and needed to get something done quickly. It's grown on me a bit since then, especially as I see tricks and tips from others who've taken the plunge already.

[singhsumit]

avoid gmax and 3ds max.
for professional studio work, we use maya and zbrush in my studio.

at my home, for all 3d stuff, i use blender.

blender have very active community and high amount of free youtube tutorials.

[pwillard]

Just use Blender. All of my recent releases have been created with Blender. It's perfectly capable and is not destined to either become abandonware (TSM, 3D CRAFTER, GMAX) or Payware/Subscription-Service like so many other offerings. ( I'm looking at you, Fusion 360 and Sketchup).

Yeah, Blender is a bit daunting at first... you just need to use the LATEST Long Term release and stick with it. The older releases of Blender had a particularly awful user interface.

GMAX and TSM are going to hold you back and force you to do things the hard way. Sketchup was never better than just an OK option.

With a HUGE user community, you can actually get questions about Blender *answered*.

[rdayt]

Sketchup 17 is still free and there's an exporter for OR.
It won't do animation but neither can I.
That's what I use.

Randy

[jovet]

The older releases of Blender had a particularly awful user interface.

Is this to mean that Blender is intuitive to use now? It has been many years since I tried it. The hate for it I had at the time is hard to describe with words alone. It was awful.

[scottb613]

Is this to mean that Blender is intuitive to use now? It has been many years since I tried it. The hate for it I had at the time is hard to describe with words alone. It was awful.

Hi Joseph,

Welcome back - I don't know if you recall - about a year ago you graciously shared some of your work with me - can't thank you enough for that.

I have had Blender loaded many times over the years and the user interface received a complete overhaul going from 2.8 to 2.9. That said - I never could get into it and never took more than a cursory look around. Finally - just this past Thanksgiving holiday weekend I had some time - so I decided it was time to give Blender 3.3 an earnest try. I picked some kids tutorial that put out the information in a slow and thorough manner - that suited me - and worked my way through the first couple episodes. In three days - I could make a basic model - in three weeks - with a lot of help on Elvas from the Blender guys - I had enough information to fully make and animate a steam locomotive. Granted - I've been a 3DC modeler for nearly 20 years.

Blender Beginner:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...yM_86DIFrHocF1

Obviously - choosing modeling software is very subjective and has to fit with the modeler. When I started modeling - I tried both Gmax and TSM before settling with 3DC. Given the amount of support available and the fact that it's Open Source - from my perspective - all roads lead to Blender. Every time I get stuck - a quick search on YouTube yields dozens of vids explaining how to do the task that stumped me - a luxury I never had with 3DC.

There's no turning back for me - Blender does things I only dreamed about in 3DC. Fortunately - I can port from 3DC to Blender - with some limitations. If you know Python scripting - the possibilities are endless. When I try to go back to 3DC now - it's like trying to go back to Win 3.0 - for those of us old enough to remember.

For a new modeler starting today - I could only see learning Blender. IMHO. For an experienced modeler - I'd suggest giving it three days.


Regards,
Scott

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

The one other thought that makes a HUGE difference in your models - is out of the Train Sim modeling packages - only 3DC and Blender can Bake ray traced Ambient Occlusion shadow maps - that I know of. I don't think AO was around when Gmax came out? 3DC does ray tracing via an open source product called PovRay it's linked to - while Blender has its own internal ray tracing engine called Cycles.

It's truly incredible to see how much pop Baked AO Shadow Maps add to a model with no effect on performance.


Example AO from 3DC:
BakeA.jpg


Regards,
Scott