I can 't DECIDE

well considering that you've got everything for the entry level to the
professional and what is " ridiculous prices " HASH AM is a good price
with some very good tools and you don't need to take courses to really
learn the SW . TS4 is great for the price but worth a bit more ( if your
a student then it's much cheaper ) Bryce 3d is really a landscape only
tool ( you can make objects with it but it's very difficult and time
consuming ) also the import/export formats are very limited . MAX is a
great tool but it's more money for sure , take some courses and you'll
thank yourself for doing that . SI is a professional product only , some
warez monkeys use it and it's silly , they have no clue , I've been
using SI for 6 years and have taken what amounts to a 4 years of courses
, and I'm still learning nw stuff with it , the cost of the base SI has
dropped to $5000 now but you have to pay a $1500/year service fee to get
support and upgrades . SI is the deepest and biggest of them all , the
manuals consist of @ 6000 pages for the base version . This SW is
designed and assumed to be used to make money with ( as is MAX ) your
paying for courses and such but in reality you can make back the cost in
2 to 4 months when you've learned to use SI . If you plan to make a
carrier out of it then look at MAX or SI ( MAX is by far the most useful
for broadcast use ), however AM and TS are very good in their own rights
as well .. 

If you want to work in the industry then get MAX , as most entry ( Jr.)
animation positions consist of either MAX or LW work . then while your
employed , get them to send you out for SI or MAYA courses ..  

J & D Prince wrote:
> 
> I can't decide on what 3D renderer / animator that is best for me .
> Some people have suggested the following -
> 
> 3D studio Max
> Caligari True space
> Hash animation master
> Bryce 3D
> Softimage
> 
> I also want a program that has character animation and environment effects.
> I don't want to pay ridiculous prices , but pretty well priced
> 
> Well , which do you think is the best ??
> 
> Thanks , Rick

-- 
...IAN SKINNER
...EGO A.D.
...ON. CAN.
...Animation & Post Production 
...Output services available
...http://www.egoad.on.ca  
...egoad.on.ca 
**************************************************
...NOTICE TO BULK EMAILER(S) and Chiba Monkeys: 
...Pursuant to US Code,
...Title 47, Chapter 5,
...Subchapter II, 227, any and all unsolicited
...commercial e-mail & useless drivel sent to
...this address is subject to a download and
...archival fee in the amount
...of $500 US(yeah like that will ever happen)
...a boot to the head 
...caber in the skull	
...and other sundrie nastiness.....

I can't decide on what 3D renderer / animator that is best for me .
Some people have suggested the following -

3D studio Max
Caligari True space
Hash animation master
Bryce 3D
Softimage

I also want a program that has character animation and environment effects.
I don't want to pay ridiculous prices , but pretty well priced

Well , which do you think is the best ??

Thanks , Rick

In article <79m4fo$ohn$1...@gnamma.connect.com.au>,
J & D Prince <dee...@winshop.com.au> wrote:
>I can't decide on what 3D renderer / animator that is best for me .
>Some people have suggested the following -
>
>3D studio Max
>Caligari True space
>Hash animation master
>Bryce 3D
>Softimage
>

I don't know about these, I have used Wavefront TAV, Kinemation 
and number of other packages for years as well as Maya, and Alias..
Throw that out the window.. 

I use blender now.. It only works on Irix, Linux, BeOS, Solaris
 and FreeBSD.. Intel, MIPS or Sparc.. No Mac's yet (someone 
must scrifice a PowerPC to the great god of 3D programming, 
blender's designer..).

It does  IK, Lattices, NURBS, Polygons, Metaballs, 
Rendering only (no time consuming ray-tracing available,
though in V1.8 it will have motion blur and radiosity (baked 
into the polygonal models).. Back to V1.5 Particles, Particle Subtitution, 
Motion Paths, Vertex Parenting, Deformation of a Mesh with IK..
Reflection mapping, UV mapping, Texture vertices, mapping
according to the camera view, global texture mapping.. 
The mapping is indepedent of the element type: specular, 
color of specular, hardness, normals (bump mapping), transparency, 
color, reflectance (single step ray-tracing), 
procedural and image mapping.. Mapping of a movie to a surface..
Of course the image mapping is seperate from the mapping type..
Essentially infinite numbers of texture combinations, with 
upto 8 layers.. That's only one of the menus, I 
still haven't talked about painting vertices, paint-selection of 
vertices (Maya Artisan Touts this as a feature, Blender its just 
one of the things included), CV interpolation (via Bezier curves), 
pose to pose.. Etc., Etc.. If you really want to 
use it get the manual.. It costs 50 dollars, 312 pages long, 
60 in color, and very professional looking.. 

http://www.blender.nl/

FYI

I just saw a Visual PC demo with 3dMax running on it.  Not only was the
Visual PC an awsome tool........  3Dmax's fully loaded version blew away
anything that I have ever seen the maya do except the camera tracking Maya
Live has. I am sure that this is why you now see Maya sold at $7,500
compared to a fully loaded special effects package of 3D MAx R2 at
$5,800.00............Kinetix and Descreet Logic are One company now and they
have a Editing System out that blows AVID off the MAp all around and is Half
as much.    I am going down to see the another Demo of it Friday to see more
nesting effects.

>
>
>

nicolas.deldo wrote in message <79qodj$io2$1...@platane.wanadoo.fr>...
>3DSMax is the best way !!
>
>

FYI

I just saw a Visual PC demo with 3dMax running on it.  Not only was the
Visual PC an awsome tool........  3Dmax's fully loaded version blew away
anything that I have ever seen the maya do except the camera tracking Maya
Live has. I am sure that this is why you now see Maya sold at $7,500
compared to a fully loaded special effects package of 3D MAx R2 at
$5,800.00............Kinetix and Descreet Logic are One company now and they
have a Editing System out that blows AVID off the MAp all around and is Half
as much.    I am going down to see the another Demo of it Friday to see more
nesting effects.

>
>
>

the new MAYA will include Digital Fusion for MAYA plus the Hair & Cloth
plugins as well .... a much better package then MAX ... 

Datamavrik wrote:
> 
> FYI
> 
> I just saw a Visual PC demo with 3dMax running on it.  Not only was the
> Visual PC an awsome tool........  3Dmax's fully loaded version blew away
> anything that I have ever seen the maya do except the camera tracking Maya
> Live has. I am sure that this is why you now see Maya sold at $7,500
> compared to a fully loaded special effects package of 3D MAx R2 at
> $5,800.00............Kinetix and Descreet Logic are One company now and they
> have a Editing System out that blows AVID off the MAp all around and is Half
> as much.    I am going down to see the another Demo of it Friday to see more
> nesting effects.
> 
> >
> >
> >
> 
> nicolas.deldo wrote in message <79qodj$io2$1...@platane.wanadoo.fr>...
> >3DSMax is the best way !!
> >
> >

-- 
...IAN SKINNER
...EGO A.D.
...ON. CAN.
...Animation & Post Production 
...Output services available
...http://www.egoad.on.ca  
...egoad.on.ca 
**************************************************
...NOTICE TO BULK EMAILER(S) and Chiba Monkeys: 
...Pursuant to US Code,
...Title 47, Chapter 5,
...Subchapter II, 227, any and all unsolicited
...commercial e-mail & useless drivel sent to
...this address is subject to a download and
...archival fee in the amount
...of $500 US(yeah like that will ever happen)
...a boot to the head 
...caber in the skull	
...and other sundrie nastiness.....

the new SUMATRA will include composition, radiosity, hair, cloth, interactive
rendering, and like SI the
best character animation tools out there.

fine... now we talking about the same topic like one year ago called "ALIAS vs SI
vs MAX"
if i am right there were 500 messages about this (really sucking) topic..........
maybe we should
stop talking about an old business.............

    --caveman

Ian Skinner wrote:

> the new MAYA will include Digital Fusion for MAYA plus the Hair & Cloth
> plugins as well .... a much better package then MAX ...
>
> Datamavrik wrote:
> >
> > FYI
> >
> > I just saw a Visual PC demo with 3dMax running on it.  Not only was the
> > Visual PC an awsome tool........  3Dmax's fully loaded version blew away
> > anything that I have ever seen the maya do except the camera tracking Maya
> > Live has. I am sure that this is why you now see Maya sold at $7,500
> > compared to a fully loaded special effects package of 3D MAx R2 at
> > $5,800.00............Kinetix and Descreet Logic are One company now and they
> > have a Editing System out that blows AVID off the MAp all around and is Half
> > as much.    I am going down to see the another Demo of it Friday to see more
> > nesting effects.
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > nicolas.deldo wrote in message <79qodj$io2$1...@platane.wanadoo.fr>...
> > >3DSMax is the best way !!
> > >
> > >
>
> --
> ...IAN SKINNER
> ...EGO A.D.
> ...ON. CAN.
> ...Animation & Post Production
> ...Output services available
> ...http://www.egoad.on.ca
> ...egoad.on.ca
> **************************************************
> ...NOTICE TO BULK EMAILER(S) and Chiba Monkeys:
> ...Pursuant to US Code,
> ...Title 47, Chapter 5,
> ...Subchapter II, 227, any and all unsolicited
> ...commercial e-mail & useless drivel sent to
> ...this address is subject to a download and
> ...archival fee in the amount
> ...of $500 US(yeah like that will ever happen)
> ...a boot to the head
> ...caber in the skull
> ...and other sundrie nastiness.....

--
============================
Stephan Haidacher
----------------------------
cav...@netway.at
www.media-force.com/caveman
----------------------------

    I think the best way for you to decide is to find the shareware versions
and try them out. This is sure the best way to test them out! Else you should
test them on a friend/s pc or at work or somewhere!

    Hope this helps!

3D Studio Max !!