im new to the forums and am JUST getting interested in the 3d modeling [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] but i still am not sure what program to use. i tried using wings 3d but it confused me and i couldnt find a starter tutorial for it [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] if anyone knows a good started 3d program i could dload or if you could link me to a good starter wings tutorial that owuld be great. thanks in advanced.

There is no best, only which you find best for you. Once you've learnt on one it is much easier to use others though.

I'd suggest sampling each modelling app you can get you hands on (an boy are there a few of them [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]) then decide which one you prefer.

Do a quick forum search as there's a sticky thread holding a number of links to packages ppl like.

YES my dear friend. I can help! Let me introduce you to the wonder that is google. The colored type below is called a hyperlink. If you click it, your browser will be guided to a list of potentially good links for learning to use wings3D, which happens to be an excellent and FREE program for learning to model and I recommend you continue using it.
Good luck with the 3d modeling, in advanced!

wings3D tutorials
<font color="green">+2 bastard points</font>


edit: correction: the above is NOT a valid hyperlink in any way shape or form except when I "preview changes" on this board. What the..

There is also Blender! It's what I use! It can do alot! Omg!

http://www.blender.org

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php...;gonew=1#UNREAD

that should get you started

"alot" is not a word. Shame on you cheapy.

Wings 3d is a very good package to get started with, as is Gmasx. And both are free.

If Wings3D confuses you. You're in for a world of pain and suffering. You just need good guidance and a start for a good workflow. It's an awesome program and most likely the easiest to learn overall Find those tutorials, or simply learn from the ones that teach modeling in general terms.

Gmax is outdated and crippled, I wouldn't recommend it for starting out. Better chance it'll just slow you down like it did for me. After you get your appetite for more, check out Blender, or put down a few hundred for XSI and have everything at your fingertips.

[ QUOTE ]
If Wings3D confuses you. You're in for a world of pain and suffering.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why? Personally I've found Wings3D as one of the most user unfriendly packages for someone to start using.

This is why I don't hand out advice on which I feel is best because obviously my experience (going on what 15years) in Maya is going to be a tad bias. That's just not helpful to the end user.

Give them the options of what's out there and let the discover them for themselves. Then they learn which is best for them to use while learning terminology. Once they know that they can move on to other applications.

Best you can really do is offer help once they've chosen. Else they'll end up picking the wrong one for them and it puts them back months even years. Last thing you want to do is push a product on someone they don't feel comfortable with. They hate it, which turns into hating what they're doing. It also can often stifle thier abilities.

Maya, Max, XSI... each of the major products I've had to used over the years are aimed at very different creation methods. They each have roughly the same tools, but they're quite obviously aimed at different things.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

If you think wings3D is more confusing than maya, then indeed, you might be just the tiniest bit biased.
If you've been using something for a while, you start to think it's the easiest thing ever, and you sort of forget that you also had to struggle with it at first.
And god, blender... i really want to like it, but every little thing about it irritates me to no end.
Getting a texture on a model was a struggle, whereas i opened max for the first time, and within 2 minutes i had my model imported, and set up the diffuse and specular.

I definetly prefer 3dsmax, but that's because I've been using it for 6 year now. Gmax is also a good starter tool.
I personally started off 3D by learning Lightwave, which is actually quite easy to learn. You'll need to customize the UI right away though, since there is a plethora of useless commands there (unless you're doing CG instead of game art, that is). Once you do that though, it's quite simple. This also paths the way to using Modo as well. Modo can be setup to run identical to Lightwave in terms of commands and layout.

IMO, I've found both Maya and XSI to be extremely non-intuitive to a beginner. Even as a seasoned pro, I have extreme difficulty with those apps.

If you are really new to 3d then I don't think it matters a whole lot which application you pick to learn it with. All have their ups and downs and when you learn it you use a fraction of the functionality anyways.
Just pick a tool, get some tutorials and lock yourself in your room for 3 months [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
But then again I have only worked with 3D Studio, 3ds max, Maya and some older DOS modelling &amp; raytrace tools and have never tried some that were mentioned here.

[ QUOTE ]
IMO, I've found both Maya and XSI to be extremely non-intuitive to a beginner. Even as a seasoned pro, I have extreme difficulty with those apps.

[/ QUOTE ]

This all depends really. I can't stand Max, the application just ticked me off from day one. Not sure why, but the whole UI feels claustraphobic and just everything is there on display right from the get go.

The reason I find Wings3D confusing and just retarded to use sometimes, is because firstly the Camera movement.
Middle Mouse enter camera mode which Rotates, which requires you to have a 3-button mouse. Then let go. Bam it resets. Given there are no instructions on how to use the Mirai camera solution, you have to basically randomly hit things until you find the key to make it stick.

This in itself is just plain unfriendly. Just as unfriendly as the XSI where you have to tap S, then move, then tap it again to go back to edit mode.

As far as simplistic camera movements go, Max and Maya get this one really. Maya is slightly harder to handle given you have to hold Alt (although I have it setup to Mouse Button 4), Max has icons. This is best for the beginner because they can actively see "Ah that looks like a camera with a curved arrow.. must be rotate view" and ya know, it is! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

When you get into actual editing, again this is where Wings3D falls flat on it's face. You have 8 icons, which don't even have Tooltips to what they do. So the first hurdle is even to figure out how the bloody hell to put a cube into the application.

Only the right-click menu has the option. Honestly is that the first place YOU would look for it? It isn't even labeled anything useful. It just has the shape name, so your not even use if that's what you want or not.

So let's see how creating a cube in other applications is.
Max, you simply click 'Cube' from the 'Objects' Tab. It's quite obvious that it's in the creation menu, and it is plainly there to see.
Maya is a little more confusing, you need to select the 'Polygon' shelf, but from that point it's pretty simplistic to understand which one makes the cube.

What's more both Max and Maya give you the abilities to create these objects from the Menu System. If you enjoy hunting things down. Though when you can't find something instantly is the first place you'll look.

So next task, lets say you want to cut a diamond in the side of the box because you want to make some pipe or something.

Wings3D, we'll ignore the fact it's almost impossible to see the difference between selected (extremely dark red) and unselected (black) especially against light greys and concentrate on just cutting the edge.

So first select the edges, right-click. Now you'd think the tool would be called CUT or SPLIT. Oh no, let's forget what every other application calls this form of slicing up polygons. As you don't really have any control over the cuts at all, so the best you can do is Connect. Let's just make a nice house look so, right-click again Move-&gt;Normal and slide the mouse to the right a bit. That in itself is just a stupid feature.

Now from Max, to do this you'd go to the Edit Tab, and it's in Geometry Modification. Scroll until you find Cut and just chop away in the 3D view. To then lift it up you would select it with the 'edge' selection icon, then 'movement' icon from the top and get a widget that allows you to have much more visual control over what your doing. Just click and hold on the up-arrow of the widget and simply as pie to raise a roof.

In Maya it works very similar. Only you have PolySplit, which is in the same Polygon tab as the objects. You visually see what it does, but just in-case your not sure it explains it in the tooltip name. You can then click on the object and split the edge. To select this newly created edge, right-click 'Edge mode' then on the 'Movement' icon to the side. Again you'd move it like in Max.

As you go further and further into modelling into each application, Wings3D often forces you to learn a new way of poly modelling which is almost backward in it's design. Instead of making it easier, it makes it so you have to developed around the limitations of the application.

Many of the tools it just isn't intuative what your suppose to do or how they work. Every step of the way Maya in the statusbar will show you instructions. Further more even PLE comes with the Quicktime Introduction tutorials that explain how to navigate, and edit. 6minutes out of your time just to watch is better than searching through a manual or the internet for tutorials for several hours.

I can understand people going from App to App do have those 'transitional' periods, but applications like Wings3D are just built around confusing the end-user. Mirai may have been a good application, but only in the hands of those who had no other choice. Nowadays people do have a choice, and the likes of Mirai, Nendo and Rhino are being dropped because it just is useless to try and work around thier static pipelines.

Milkshape 3D for example is the same way, it is now just to limiting in it's tool support. There is no reason for the application NOT to have a Cut-Tool, or even just 3D Editing. Hell we've seen a plug-in give you 3D Selection. Can't help but feel all of these reasonably tools are being kept for Milkshape 2.0 which currently users will have to pay for again, and no one knows when it'll be released.

I firmly see Milkshape, Aztec, Wings, Blender, etc. they are applications created by programmers for programmers. Not as cheap solutions to the professional level application, but with controls and interfaces that are quite frankly a design nightmare.

So I just don't see why not being able to get on with these budget applications or finding them confusing means much. I'm bias on my opinion of which is best, but not on my opinions when it comes to development pipelines.

Why take 4-steps on something everyone else takes 2-steps on?

[ QUOTE ]

This in itself is just plain unfriendly. Just as unfriendly as the XSI where you have to tap S, then move, then tap it again to go back to edit mode.


[/ QUOTE ]

You don't have to do that if you have sticky keys enabled- say you're moving points around and decide you want to move the camera, you press and hold "S", make your moves as you wish then when you release "S" you're back in whatever mode/tool you were already using.

Errm, sorry but what you are saying about Wings3d is plain wrong. When was the last time you actually used it?

[ QUOTE ]

The reason I find Wings3D confusing and just retarded to use sometimes, is because firstly the Camera movement.
Middle Mouse enter camera mode which Rotates, which requires you to have a 3-button mouse. Then let go. Bam it resets. Given there are no instructions on how to use the Mirai camera solution, you have to basically randomly hit things until you find the key to make it stick.

[/ QUOTE ]

You realize that there are plenty of different camera movement setting in the menu, where you can set the camere to behave exactly like Maya, Max and plenty of other programms?

[ QUOTE ]

When you get into actual editing, again this is where Wings3D falls flat on it's face. You have 8 icons, which don't even have Tooltips to what they do.


[/ QUOTE ]

Plain wrong, everything you move your mouse over is described down at the lower left corner of the gui.

[ QUOTE ]

So the first hurdle is even to figure out how the bloody hell to put a cube into the application.

Only the right-click menu has the option. Honestly is that the first place YOU would look for it? It isn't even labeled anything useful. It just has the shape name, so your not even use if that's what you want or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes that is what I would be looking for, because it says so in the lower left corner, and 'cube' (with the description in the lower left corner that is creates a cube) is pretty self explainatory isn't it?

[ QUOTE ]

Wings3D, we'll ignore the fact it's almost impossible to see the difference between selected (extremely dark red) and unselected (black) especially against light greys and concentrate on just cutting the edge.

[/ QUOTE ]

Something must be wrong with your monitor, since it is bright green (for mouse over) and bright red for selection on my computer. It is impossible to get to any better (except for red/green blind people [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] ).

[ QUOTE ]

So first select the edges, right-click. Now you'd think the tool would be called CUT or SPLIT. Oh no, let's forget what every other application calls this form of slicing up polygons. As you don't really have any control over the cuts at all, so the best you can do is Connect.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seriously, I had a hard time even trying to understand your line of reasoning there. If you select cut it cuts the edges into the specified number, all it doesn't do is draw edges between the new vertexes (but that would be pretty stupid for the normal cases where you use cut).
While connect does exactly that (and the name makes much more sense), and is precicly explained to do just that down in the left corner.

[ QUOTE ]

Let's just make a nice house look so, right-click again Move-&gt;Normal and slide the mouse to the right a bit. That in itself is just a stupid feature.

[/ QUOTE ]
You lost me there, what are you trying to do?
Building a house is as easy as it gets, select the edge and move it along the y axis up.
And having the option to move a edge/vertex along its normal, is for a newbie quite useless (since he doesn't know what a normal is) but very helpfull later on.

[ QUOTE ]

As you go further and further into modelling into each application, Wings3D often forces you to learn a new way of poly modelling which is almost backward in it's design. Instead of making it easier, it makes it so you have to developed around the limitations of the application.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that the volume based approach needs a bit of getting used to, for someone with experience in not volume based modelers. but:
1. This doesn't apply to newbies, exspecially since this approach is much closer to real world clay modeling.
2. Except for extreme low poly modeling it is actually a much better solution for modeling (exspecially for subD), since it automaticly guides you to make well build meshes.
And once you know the in and outs, it is also much faster.

[ QUOTE ]

Many of the tools it just isn't intuative what your suppose to do or how they work. Every step of the way Maya in the statusbar will show you instructions. Further more even PLE comes with the Quicktime Introduction tutorials that explain how to navigate, and edit. 6minutes out of your time just to watch is better than searching through a manual or the internet for tutorials for several hours.

[/ QUOTE ]

I get the feeling that you are just so used to one application that everything else is a annoyance, even when actually better.
As I said everything is explained in Wings3d, and it is actually much more intuitive than it is done in Maya, exspecially since it doesn't have that buttons overload Maya/Max/Blender etc have.
And there is a very quick 'getting started' tutorial under the help menu in wings, and there is an even better tutorial linked on the Wings3d page.

[ QUOTE ]

I can understand people going from App to App do have those 'transitional' periods, but applications like Wings3D are just built around confusing the end-user. Mirai may have been a good application, but only in the hands of those who had no other choice. Nowadays people do have a choice, and the likes of Mirai, Nendo and Rhino are being dropped because it just is useless to try and work around thier static pipelines.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, but I absolutly disagree. And I even heard from quite a few professionals, who do all their polymodeling, even though they have access to Maya etc, in Wings3d (or similar) just because it is plain better for that task.

[ QUOTE ]

Milkshape 3D for example is the same way, it is now just to limiting in it's tool support. There is no reason for the application NOT to have a Cut-Tool, or even just 3D Editing. Hell we've seen a plug-in give you 3D Selection. Can't help but feel all of these reasonably tools are being kept for Milkshape 2.0 which currently users will have to pay for again, and no one knows when it'll be released.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, Milkshape is plain outdated, and features are kept for 2.0, but how does that relate to Wings3d?


So to put it in a nutshell... you obviously never really tried Wings3d, and you are overly overbiased by beeing used to Maya [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]

Something must be wrong with your monitor, since it is bright green (for mouse over) and bright red for selection on my computer. It is impossible to get to any better (except for red/green blind people [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] ).

[/ QUOTE ]

I am partially r/g colourblind and even I can see those colours, they are pretty bright.
[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-Steve

Oh my eyes, my eyes! Raven &amp; JKMakowka what a long post, you two should write books instead




If your a starter go and get Gmax, or/and Maya PLE. (google those 2 names) both are free of charge.

should keep you busy t'ill next spring.

[ QUOTE ]
You realize that there are plenty of different camera movement setting in the menu, where you can set the camere to behave exactly like Maya, Max and plenty of other programms?

[/ QUOTE ]

So your just starting out and you have ~10 different Camera control settings. Whoopdy-freaking-do. That's really helpful given the user HAS NO IDEA HOW ANY OTHER APPLICATION WORKS. I have mine set to Maya, my point wasn't that you can't change it, my point is the default camera isn't user-friendly.

[ QUOTE ]
Yes that is what I would be looking for, because it says so in the lower left corner, and 'cube' (with the description in the lower left corner that is creates a cube) is pretty self explainatory isn't it?

[/ QUOTE ]

R: Menu ... yeah the descriptive nature of the application is astounding me. All of the Menu's are damn contextual, while this isn't a problem in itself, the issue is keeping everything either on the Main Menu or on your Context Menu is just stupid. I'm not expecting to right-click to create the cube, the right-click again and follow the menus just to move the bloody thing.

How many people new to 3D do you think will realise that all of the menu's change constantly? Hell I wasn't expecting this.
Maya changes context only based on the type of model it is over, but you have the same controls in the same places no matter the selection mode.
Max has a set context menu, with one quad changing for the context.
XSI uses the same context menu.

When you click the button you know what will be available rather than having to learn which menu has what.
I'm trying to create a mesh, not play peekaboo with the menu system.

[ QUOTE ]
Something must be wrong with your monitor, since it is bright green (for mouse over) and bright red for selection on my computer. It is impossible to get to any better (except for red/green blind people ).

[/ QUOTE ]

There is nothing wrong with my monitor. Vertices and Edges are Black, Selection is Red, Mouse Over is Green.

While sure Objects and Faces are alright because it's Grey vs the Other colours. Black and Red especially on such small areas against a bright background is bad. You can't view it at a glance and know exactly what is selected. Sure you have the numbers in the corner (to a point) but how the hell are you suppose to know what Edge 12, 45, 92 are?

Look at the colours used in other applications. They're used to complement and stand out clearly from each other.I don't want to have to try and inspect my mesh just to try and figure out which edges are still selected.

[ QUOTE ]
Seriously, I had a hard time even trying to understand your line of reasoning there. If you select cut it cuts the edges into the specified number, all it doesn't do is draw edges between the new vertexes (but that would be pretty stupid for the normal cases where you use cut).
While connect does exactly that (and the name makes much more sense), and is precicly explained to do just that down in the left corner.

[/ QUOTE ]

No Cut simply sub-divides the vertices along a face, and your selections for it are limited. Connect simply divides the face in 2, neither is exactly useful.

Cut/Split should be able to be used however the user sees fit to cut faces into thew shapes you want without loosing it's current shape. If I were to 'connect' 2 edges at an angle apart from the annoyance of having to manually make sure they're the only edges selected in the first place, comes the fact that one it is selected and setup I'd have to manually move that new edge into position by eye, rather than editing it from that position.

It just adds unecessary work.

[ QUOTE ]
You lost me there, what are you trying to do?
Building a house is as easy as it gets, select the edge and move it along the y axis up.
And having the option to move a edge/vertex along its normal, is for a newbie quite useless (since he doesn't know what a normal is) but very helpfull later on.

[/ QUOTE ]

You happen to forget the name of the commands in the program your trying to defend here?
You right-click the Menu is Move -&gt; Normal ("Move each edge along it's normal") .. why normal? Because there is no way in hell I'm manually moveing something X, Y, Z. And doing it in free mode causes VERY unwanted results.

I don't see how it's wrong to believe that you should be able to edit all three axis without having to constantly reopen the move-&gt; menu.

[ QUOTE ]
I agree that the volume based approach needs a bit of getting used to, for someone with experience in not volume based modelers. but:
1. This doesn't apply to newbies, exspecially since this approach is much closer to real world clay modeling.
2. Except for extreme low poly modeling it is actually a much better solution for modeling (exspecially for subD), since it automaticly guides you to make well build meshes.
And once you know the in and outs, it is also much faster.

[/ QUOTE ]

No Solidworks and Cega are like modelling with clay, Wings3D is a step backwards in Poly modelling. You can call it whatever you like, but it is quite clearly a limited poly-modeling tool, just as Milkshape is a limited box-modeling tool.

Saying that "this really doesn't apply to newbies" is just retarded. Given this is literally the ONLY way to model in Wings3D, as such if it doesn't apply to newbies then you've just gone an proven my point.

[ QUOTE ]
I get the feeling that you are just so used to one application that everything else is a annoyance, even when actually better.
As I said everything is explained in Wings3d, and it is actually much more intuitive than it is done in Maya, exspecially since it doesn't have that buttons overload Maya/Max/Blender etc have.
And there is a very quick 'getting started' tutorial under the help menu in wings, and there is an even better tutorial linked on the Wings3d page.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a feeling you don't know anything outside of Wings to be able to comment, on who is more used to what. This isn't a simple case of me disliking how it works because of how long i've used something, this is a case of feeling like it's taking a huge step backwards in the design of poly-modelling. What's more it doesn't even have the core tools that make it quite and simple enough for new users, which in-case you've forgotten is my entire bloody point.

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, but I absolutly disagree. And I even heard from quite a few professionals, who do all their polymodeling, even though they have access to Maya etc, in Wings3d (or similar) just because it is plain better for that task.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like who? Because I can't think of a single task made easier by Wings3D over Maya. I'd guess those who do, do it because the community is smaller so they can get more people saying thier work is awesome, rather than being part of a larger community where the same work is 'yawn'. Or because it makes them feel nostalgic for Mirai (it's never comming back, get over it. Wings is a piss-poor subtitute.)

[ QUOTE ]
So to put it in a nutshell... you obviously never really tried Wings3d, and you are overly overbiased by beeing used to Maya

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps, but your seeing it in some golden light it isn't simply because you've not given any other tools much more than a glance to say. "It looks to complicated."

Heard enough of that crap from Uni students claiming they wanted degrees in 3D.

[ QUOTE ]
You don't have to do that if you have sticky keys enabled- say you're moving points around and decide you want to move the camera, you press and hold "S", make your moves as you wish then when you release "S" you're back in whatever mode/tool you were already using.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not ON by default.

When your learning you figure how the program works by default, is the best way. After all these people who made it are professionals and your not.

So we're not talking about what is 'possible' to change, we're talking about without altering a thing.

I'm pretty sure that stickies are on by default actually.
I'd go and check but I don't have XSI on this PC, maybe one of the resident XSI ninjas can clear this one up?

-Steve

Sorry Raven, but I am not going to respond to that, since I am trying to keep this on a professional level (calling me a retard isn't helping either).

Sure I see your points, and generally I would agree to most of them, but the majority of it simply does not apply to Wings3d.

But I guess we arn't going to agree anyways, so what's the point?

yay, software war!
Anyway, I think pretty much any 3d app would be good, because at first all you need is to learn the major concepts. XYZ coordinates, polies, edges, these kind of things

[ QUOTE ]
I have a feeling you don't know anything outside of Wings to be able to comment...etc...etc...which in-case you've forgotten is my entire bloody point.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do, and your point is full of false assumptions and poor attempts at learning new workflows.


[ QUOTE ]
Not ON by default.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are a complete idiot. I'm not biased in that opinion.

I was also going to quote and correct all the other bullshit you wrote about Wings, and XSI, etc, but JKMakowka already handled that. I have a much younger brother who was able to learn most of the functions within Wings3D in a week. And to read all those things you criticized it for makes me laugh. Out loud. For several seconds. 15 years, huh? Wow. I'd think making a cube would be easy after that long. I used Wings3D for a while. It was fun, and made up for the years I spent using outdated, non-functional, and broken "learning" apps.

I'd also like to take this moment for thanking the creator of Wings3D for making an app that gave me the chance to get well adjusted to the skills of 3D modeling in a user-friendly environment, and also implementing Maya's camera controls. It was a much better experience than many of the other over bloated apps I was not prepared for.

what's all this argument above

Blender &gt; Wings3D

it's got an awesome workflow once you know how to use it.

Tab switches between current mode and object mode quickly so you could quickly select other objects, right click select vertices, left click is confirm change/gesture movement (for those who prefer to model with one hand IT'S NOW POSSIBLE), and the middle mouse button rotates and zooms the camera, and moves the camera with shit held down. The modeling commands are pretty much one touch - push R to rotate, strike S to scale, hit G to move, hit E to extrude, etc etc.. all in an easily controlled view.

Personally I find it much more intuitive than Wings3d and Milkshape 3d [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Well wow. A thread begging the 'which 3D app is best?' question turns to shit?! Shurely shome mistake!

Honestly, this is exactly why ( a la CGtalk ) we need to ban these kind of discussions. Clearly they're as explosive a topic as the Bush administration, and that's because as soon as you start along the lines of 'you shouldn't be doing that in x package, it's much easier in y. OMG you use THAT?! ' then you begin to question and moreover insult the intelligence of who you're talking to.

Use whatever the fuck you feel most comfortable with. There is no such thing as the best or easiest 3D app to learn. It all depends on what angle you're coming at it from.

what sucks is this turned into a "best app" discussion, instead of the "free starter app" discussion it should have been. talks of "development pipelines" don't belong here.

i mentioned Blender, cheapy :P
more and more people are using it these days, and it deserves the support. very capable software.

But the sad truth is that the original poster never posted anything back.

My guess is, he probably copy pasted this post to several internet forums in wild excitement, honestly you dont have to look further if you want to create avoc online. Now he's probably thinking " should i go Mac or Pc ? " and wether or not should he post this question here or in the Pimping and previews section of this board.