Just curious, what tools are available for creating models and what not? 3DS seems to have a good marketshare, but I happen to have truespace3 on CD here (came off a magazine cover last month), and I’ve seen the doc specification for it, anyone know if it’s worth working with?
While 3d studio max is probably a fine tool, its price range puts it out of the range of most indie developers 
A while ago I was looking for a free/cheap modeler, and initially tried Blender but I personally find it to be unintuative and unweildy. Having its own gui toolkit that refuses to follow many standards (or even common sense) doesn’t help matters >:(
Theres also QuArK, which is nice and free, but unfortunatly outputs to Quake .map files (not the most friendly of formats). Theres work going on to support other formats, but they’re still in beta… A very nice editor for worlds though. I’m keeping an eye on it…
Eventually I settled on buying Milkshape ($20 is amazingly good price 
) which is easy to use and exports to almost every file format known to man. I’ve got a milkshape mesh loader class that you can have if you’re interested.
Milkshape: http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/index.html
Blender: http://www.blender3d.org/
QuArK: http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~quark/
I’m a Blender fan myself. Yep, it is totally non-intuitive, but once you get the hang of it, it’s very fast to use, but YMMV. I definitely needed a book to get me started, as the online resources tend to ignore the fact that the reader hasn’t worked out how to save or quit yet… :
Blender has an… errr… “interesting” file format, which is to all intents and purposes unparsable. There are Python scripts around the place that handle exports, so you’ll want to look at them if generating 3D models.
If you’re after platform independence (like me) and enjoy learning something new and off-the-wall, go with Blender.
If you’re only on Windows or you’re got deadlines and can’t waste time learning a new UI, or want a large range of import/export formats, go with Milkshape. I expect Milkshape is what you’re looking for.
For those who want to know exactly how screwy Blender’s UI is, have you ever seen a button that behaves differently depending on which side of the button you clicked on? How about activating a popup menu with the space bar? Mouse-gesture-activated object transformations? :o
Marvellous! 8)
Indeed, Milkshape is what I’m looking for. Thanks!
BTW: Tried blender years ago, hated it. Very difficult to just figure out and I think the only documentation around was the stuff from the site ($20? $40?) Platform independence isn’t really that important to me (I use both Linux and Windows 2000… Don’t think I’ll go back to Linux for awhile). I just like stuff that works…
Thanks and I’ll check it out some more later.
-Shane
For an open source, easy to learn 3D-Modeller look for ArtOfIllusion.
It’s a pure (not even Java3D) Java Projekt, quite fast and under constant development. The manual is good and modelling is easy and runs on win, linux (and recently macOS ?).
It’s geared toward raytracing but since 1.4beta Release can export to OBJ and VRML format.
Have a look:
Homepage: http://aoi.sourceforge.net
1.4beta download (recommended): http://aoi.sourceforge.net/AoI14beta.zip
regards
Martin
I have found a really good modeling tool and its called AC3D. You can export to a bunch of differnt formats - it also have a j3d loader as well. Its a basic tool - where you can’t do very complicated things but it has its uses.
You can find it at
http://www.ac3d.org
It runs on windows and linux and its only $50 bucks - this entitles you to both formats as well as any new versions that are released; meaning you get the latest releases for free.
O yea, so there is also Maya which is the leading modeler for 3d models and animation. You can download the free student learning edition (windows only) here.
Since maya is complex - you might want a good book. Maya 4.5 Savvy is a very good resource. It also includes the learning edition for the linux, mac, and windows version on CD. Not to mention - one of the authers of this book is a professor at my university (Clemson Unv). You can find the book here.