3D Modeling

Wil Burton

What is the best free/cheap 3D modeler out there By best I mean a good combination of capable and easy. I have used Maya while playing with UT2004, but the free version won't export .X files. I have a copy of 3DCanvas pro, but I find it lacking somewhat.

CodePfo

Wings3D is pretty nice, it's free, but it doesn't do animation. I model in Wings then use Milkshape for animation.

Wil Burton

Oh yeah URLs would be nice :)

Leaf.

The two free ones that I've liked are blender and wings3d. Of the two, wings3d is probably the simplest - it's focused on modeling. Blender does more (like animation) but some people find the UI hard to grasp. Wings3D exports to fbx now which is useful for XNA. They're free so you can make your own mind up.

Cheers,
Leaf.

Wil Burton

Also, what is an .FBX file

Leaf.

FBX is a 3D scene description file format originally designed for interchanging data between 3D applications like Max and Maya. It is an open standard and many 3D applications have FBX exporter/importers. Microsoft have provided an FBX importer so that you can import FBX scenes into the content pipeline. Autodesk also have a free FBX SDK so that you can easily write your own exporters/importers for FBX.

Cheers,
Leaf.

Rob Hanz

For straight modeling, I prefer Silo. Not free, but relatively cheap ($150, I think). It's fast and streamlined. I don't know if it supports FBX directly, but has decent .obj support. Once you've got an obj, it's pretty easy to turn it into any other file format you need.

It, like Wings3D, doesn't do modeling. If Silo's price tag is out of your range, Wings3D is a good choice as well. I just prefer Silo's interface.

Milkshape is supposedly pretty good for animation, as is FragMotion. There's another pretty good one, but I can't remember what it is and I've got it installed at home. I'll look it up when I get there.

Depending on your price range, you can also look at Project Messiah for animation/static renders ($300, you can often pick up a license second-hand (totally legal) for $200). If you want to go for one of the 'all-in-one' programs at a reasonable price, XSI Foundation runs around $500. XSI is definitely professional software. So are Silo and Messiah, by the definition of 'used at least somewhat frequently in commercial projects. Wings, FragMotion, and Milkshape are probably more in the 'hobbyist' category. That's not necessarily a bad thing, btw.

I've tried Blender as well, but the interface is very non-Windows-standard, and will definitely take a bit of learning curve (on top of the typical 3D art learning curve).

FBX is a 3d file format that's designed to be a general purpose format, much like OpenDocument is for word processing. 3D file format conversion is pretty much a fact of life that you'll have to deal with :)

zircher

One of my favorite combinations is D GA CGA and Metasequoia (all free depending on which versions you get.) D GA CGA is a dirt simple to use 3D modelling tool based on a parts bin metaphor. Metaseqouia or Milkshape (shareware) can be used to convert the D GA models into a game mesh.
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TAZ

D GA CGA English page

Bill Reiss

I have been using AC3D because it is easy and relatively cheap, you can download a 14 day trial. You can also look on TurboSquid and see if any of the models you need are already avaiable for free/cheap.