k3d or Blender?

[$cirisme]

Okay, I'm looking at doing 3d stuff, probably some animation, something I've wanted to do for a long time, and I want to know, which one is better?

If you have any other suggestions let me know.

I'm leaning towards K3d for several reasons:



I have used it before and liked the built in tutorials
It works on my 2k machine, which is where I will work the most(Blender works on every machine but that one)
Seems simpler and easier to use.
But Blender seems more professional and more complex. They also seem to be more stable and well known, because there are lots of tutorials and samples on their site.

Help!!

[Ghettochild]

if 3d animation is what you are interested in i suggest starting off with 3ds 6.0, you need XP otherwise go for 5.0. this is a great intro into animation. Maya has really great modeling and partical effects like fire. dont use stuff like blender, stick with the industry standard stuff. 3ds is kinda like autocad without the command line. :lol: try going to www.cgtalk.com (http://www.cgtalk.com) join in the forums. I have used 3ds maya and softimage for a few years now and they arent to hard to learn. good luck!

[Ghettochild]

btw


http://www.cgnetworks.com/gallery/gallery_image.php?image_id=537

that hair is amazing!

[$cirisme]

I don't have the money for Maya, though, and I really don't want to pirate it. :shifty:

[Ghettochild]

well i would suggest pirating 3ds 6.0 otherwise maya has a free educational download version with a small watermark on all renderings, great for learning b/c it has all the features. otherwise i could ehem... mumble, mumble ftp, mumble, mumble

[$cirisme]

I thought you said 3ds would only work on XP?

I will mostly be working on 2k.

[Ghettochild]

maya educational is free. 3ds 6 is for xp and 3ds 5 is for everything. and my mumble mumble ftp mumble mumble is free! mumble mumble

[$cirisme]

I have Maya Educational, but it kept crashing on me. :shifty:

And thanks for the mumble mumble, but I am actually looking for an open source product. :shifty:

[CobraA1]

Try Blender - it's complex, but I've seen people do impressive stuff with it.

Ghettochild: Please don't try to prod a person who wants to stay legal to pirate. I personally respect anybody who wants to stay legal, and I myself have replaced previously ripped software with legal alternatives, even if it means giving up some functionality.

[Ghettochild]

"some functionality" 3ds and maya blow blender out of the water.


BTW cirisme Maya educational might not have worked b/c your res was too low.

[CobraA1]

"some functionality" 3ds and maya blow blender out of the water.


I'm sure they do, but that's no excuse.

[Ghettochild]

The difference between industry standard and gnu is a pretty good excuse. Cirisme please dont shut down this thread, its just getting to the good part.

[jason]

If you want to try 3ds there is a version of it called GMax which is intended for use in game creation.

The nice part is that it is free. No idea if it will do what you want but it might be worth a look. It would let you get your feet wet with max without needing to break any laws.

Jason

[Ghettochild]

interesting, i have never heard of using gmax for standard type stuff. is it easy to use? from 3ds what is it like.

[jason]

interesting, i have never heard of using gmax for standard type stuff. is it easy to use? from 3ds what is it like.
Don't know. The last time I did 3D anything it was OpenGl programming and I just loaded other peoples models in.

Jason

[Ghettochild]

oh... hey wait a minute! i am a liberal atheist.

[Tobias Reiper]

I would recommend Blender. There's talk of integrating a built-in tutorials system, with the ability to add custom/downloaded tutorials to the list.

The current version has ray tracing features. It still can't do reflective and refractive caustics, but that can be worked around using lights or an export script and POV-Ray.

The only real problem I have with it is that it uses the Z axis for up/down, when tonight my former science teacher told me Y is up/down.

For an example of what it can do and the power of the scripting language, look for my alien photo in Jardin Prayers sticky self pic thread. The geometry, minus the eyes, the black strip, and the orb was generated completely by a script. It looks a little grainy, but that's because I had to index it and I chose to dither it.

[Tobias Reiper]

So have you made a decision yet? I found out that the Z axis in Blender being vertical is physically more accurate, so unless you plan on exporting DX models or just a single model for use inside of a program where the Y axis is vertical with everything else made in the other program it shouldn't be much of a problem.

[$cirisme]

Neither K3d nor Blender work on my computer... sigh.

Guess it's time to shell out for a new video card.

Thanks for the advice, everyone, though.