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First of all: I'm coming from a 3D Cad background (I'm an engineer), so I'm experienced in using software like Catia, Solidworks and so on ...

Now I'm also really interessted in 3D animated stuff for things like short (TV) ads, 3D logos for brands or any other fancy cool stuff on webpages.

Really short question: Can you give me some tips on which software to learn? There are too many to choose from! :(

  • 3ds Max?
  • Maya?
  • Cinema 4D?
  • any other software I may not know?

What would you recommend?

P

Patrick DaVader
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  • I recommend going to a 3d website like http://forums.3dtotal.com This site is for coding and it is also not a discussion forum, but an answer site. – Ben L Jun 11 '12 at 20:20

3 Answers3

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Maya is most commonly used for 3D ads, shorts, and movies. If you're looking for the single most relevant package for your stated question, Maya is what you want. I believe they have a free trial version.

For game development, 3ds Max is the most popular package.

Blender has an idiosyncratic user interface, but it is open source and free to use; it is good enough to do professional-quality work.

comingstorm
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  • Hmm is any of those a bit CAD like? most important for me is getting really good rendering results very quickly. maybe even photorealistic if I want to. is maya and 3dsmax maybe a bit overkill? had a look into tutorial vids on youtube. ^^ – Patrick DaVader May 11 '12 at 23:25
  • Any one of them could be overkill, depending on what you want to do with it. There is a wide range of skills necessary to generate a photorealistic animation, though -- so maybe not. At any rate, I will note that Blender is associated with YafaRay (a free, open source ray tracer) so you should be able to pursue photorealism that way, as well. – comingstorm May 12 '12 at 00:20
  • The Blender UI is less idiosyncratic than it used to be - they redesigned it in version 2.5 (although I had actually gotten used to the old one :)) – Stuart Golodetz May 12 '12 at 08:46
  • Thx for your answers again! I'm more looking into static renderings (meaning: pictures), which should look like as photorealistic as possible. So (photorealistic) animation is not that important for me. Already found a lot of good tutorials for blender and actually I like to GUI more than maya's if I'm honest. So I think I will give blender a try! :) – Patrick DaVader May 12 '12 at 10:49
  • Teensy addition - 3DS max is also heavily associated with the Architecture/Visualization space (most shops here in Au in Arch/Viz are Max shops it seems..) and from the guys I know who use it, a more CAD-ish mindset than Maya.. – tanantish Oct 06 '12 at 05:13
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You could do worse than try Blender (http://www.blender.org) - it's free :)

Stuart Golodetz
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Another great package is Luxology Modo http://www.luxology.com/

Really great rendering as well.

cameracode
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