i do a lot of 3D work and renderings, and i was just wondering what other programs other people use for 3D their work. list anything and everything you use. is anything especially good that you'd recommend?

i use:

AutoCAD
Solidworks
Bunkspeed Hypershot (strictly for rendering solidworks files, just got it, AMAZING)

3dsmax obviously, with vray renderer if you can.
Maya i found obsolete, but you can try it.

how is maya obsolete, its industrty standard in video game design

the 3d programs u use depeind entirely on the application

theres cad work that op is into (audocad, solidworks)

theres technical hard surface modeling for mass production (alias, rhino)

polygon modeling and animation for video games and movies (maya, 3dsmax)


architectural renderings (google sketchup, archicad)


and so on

I worked with 3D Max long ago, but found Maya more straight forward in it's work flow.. but now, 3D Max and Maya are almost the same, except for few things here and there. I rendered with Mental Ray and it worked fine. Never needed to use V-Ray though, cause Mental-ray was already there with the installation.

Later I worked with blender, really nice open source and free software, latest source I used was only 7MB it was very simple with particles,hair and fluid dynamics, had radoicity, bones for rigging, sculpting and everything else. I used with YAF Ray (1.4MB)with Blender and came out with great results.

There are couple more open source renderers out there that work really fine too.

Zbrush I can actually use. All other programs are all the same and don't make sense. I don't know how these people do such complex models in those programs.

--Cr@sh

Lawl, Maya is the most used 3D programme in the world, followed by 3Dmax and then Cinema 4D

__________________

3ds max is pretty good. I found it easier to use then Maya.

I have zero sculpting skills though. This is about as advanced as I got:
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6058/trainsketchtv1.jpg
http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/5274/fanrv9.jpg
http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/5481/houseim0.jpg

http://picasaweb.google.com/trumpets.../StarredPhotos

this is the farthest i got in 3dsmax before i lost my harddrive. oh and the key point of my comment on maya is I find it obsolete.

edit: forgive me, direct links dont work with picasa

404 not found

I used to use Blender, it's really complicated though, just having it up on your screen makes your workspace look like a plane's cockpit.

It's open source and free I think.