Rendering Programs

[AgentZero]

Arg! Had a big long lovely post written up, then my computer crashed and I don't have time to rewrite it in it's entirety. Essence of it was I'm looking for a new rendering program because the on I use (Bryce) doesn't export to anything that can be converted to .X so is no good for Starfury/SE5.
I prefer something similar to Bryce, which uses the 'Lego' approach, ie: taking basic geometric shapes and sticking them together to make whatever you want. Tried Doga but want more freedom. Oh, & there was a shameless plug for my new shipset so see above.

[Atrocities]

Maya, 3d studio Max. Both have a steep learning curve, and both cost a lot of $$$$$$$$$ and then some more $$$$$$$$ with additional $$$$$$$ and you had bette figure for even more $$$$$$$$.

[Aiken]

Blender (blender.org) with DirectX Exporter (http://projects.blender.org/projects/directxexporter/)
It's GPLed, btw

[Ed Kolis]

Art of Illusion doesn't export to .X, but it exports to .obj which can fairly easily be converted to .X, it has a procedural texture designer second to none, and it has a great built-in renderer, almost as good as Povray!

Wings 3D also doesn't export to .X, but it exports to .obj as well (also .3ds and a number of other formats) and has an insane number of commands for working with polygon meshes.

Right now I like to make objects in Wings, then export them to .obj and load them into AoI to put on textures and do the final render. Here's an example:


BTW, I think what you're looking for is a MODELLING program - a renderer is what produces the picture on the screen

[David E. Gervais]

Here's a different source for 3D Modeling that you might not be aware of. And at $69us, it's not a bad deal..

http://3dcanvas.thegamecreators.com/

Cheers!

P.S. I might be getting this for xmas, along with DarkBAsic Professional. It's been too long since I dove into programming and I want to get my feet wet. DarkBasic Professional looks like a good (and easy) programming alternative to 'C '

[AgentZero]

Right. I should have mentioned, money is an issue. That's the main reason I haven't strayed from Bryce already. Already paid for it, don't really want to fork out for another one. And the fact that Bryce is brilliant (just have a look at http://www.daz3d.com/galleries/index.php?cat=327 to see what I mean), it's just the exporting thing is a bit of a problem. And since work and so forth keeps me from really spending a lot of time learning a new program, I'd prefer something quite similar to the one I have now. Problem is, most programs seem to involve taking a cube or something and bending, stretching and twisting it into the shape you want, and I just have a lot harder time wrapping my head around that than I do snapping a bunch of pieces together to create something. Guess I'll just have to learn, if I want to keep up with the times...

[David E. Gervais]

I agree Bryce is a great program, I have purchased the Corel Version just prior to the franchise being sold to Daz. and when Daz got it and offered it for a low intro price of $59 I bought their Version too. THe funny thing is that the Daz Version still says 'Corel' when loading. LOL I guess they were too anxious to start selling their new baby and forgot to do some simple search and replace renaming.

Anyway, Like I said I'm planning on getting DarkBasic Professional for xmas. I took a look at their 3DCanvas program and it seems to have alot of functions similar to bryce,.. boleen oppersations, cloning (ctrl+D in bryce) and the biggest selling point is the list of import/export file formats. All in all very impressive. It looks like a better product than TrueSpace and that one sells for $399 or more depending on the time of the year. I'm a cash-strapped pauper myself (and a bit of a miser.) so I fully understand any hesitation on making purchases. But, I also find it hard to resist when I find a product that looks as good as the 3DCanvas and at a reasonable (compared to the compitition) price.

Right now I use Anim8or a freeware 3D modeling program to make any widgets or doodads. but it too falls a bit short in the file export options. Although it does export .3ds and .obj and most programs will import those.

Anyway, I'm not a salesperson, and only intended to share some info I found and thought might be of interest.

Cheers!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

DBP's rotation works weird IMO. And the collision sucks. There's expansion packs that fix that.