At the moment I spend a lot of time doing mod work in between my studies with student software (maya and max) now these licences prohibit the use of this software for commercial use and well I can't afford the commercial license in my current financial situation.
So I was wondering what software was a good alternative for doing things on the cheap.
So far the software I have seen that fits these parameters are:
Silo
3d coat
Blender (tried this can't get used to it)
Are there any others I should check out.
Replies
Modelling, texturing, sculpting, animating, rendering.. ?
If money really is an issue you should really take a serious stab at Blender 2.5. Get the latest builds from http://www.graphicall.org/builds/
Another good option might be to get any old job if you can spare the time and just save up for Max or Maya + Photoshop. If you are already working and living on the cheap then this probably isn't possible.
Have you looked into converting your student license of Max into a professional license? Autodesk used to offer that as an option, IIRC it cost about 1/2 as much to go that route than to buy a pro license outright. Contact some resellers and see if they can help you out.
Luxology Modo:
http://www.luxology.com/store/modo/
Zbrush
http://www.pixologic.com/store/
would come approximately $1500+SH
If you are looking for free ones, than Ben Apuna is right, download Blender 2.5 A2
http://www.blender.org/download/get-25-alpha/
If you get used to it *which takes only few hours* this tool becomes extremely user-friendly.
I have legit adobe cs3 master collection (one of the perks of my friend working for adobe is cheap commerical licenses).
Wait I thought modo used to cost $595 what happened there?
But $995 is a bit out of range at the moment (really quite poor).
I will give blender another shot.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Autodesk-Maya-2010-NEW-UNUSED-FULL-VERSION_W0QQitemZ170468323619QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item27b0b43123
http://www.luxology.com/store/education/index.aspx?contact=Education_Version
So I guess that works out to $149 X 2 = $298 + $395 = $693 spread out over 2-3 years. That's not too bad for Modo.
http://www.luxology.com/trymodo/
Carrara is another one. I got version 6 for free from a magazine. Its not that great for modelling with, but putting scenes together and rendering its ok for.
DazStudio is not often mentioned. You could do simple animations with this, the software is free, but you have to buy certain add on's, like for fbx export but the price I think is reasonable.
at least in germany it is 1/5 of the price, it costs 5000 euro here and 1000 costs the conversion from edu to full price
I still use Maya 8 to this day. :P
As for Photoshop, Adobe doesn't sell older versions directly, but there's nothing wrong with buying an unused (sealed!) boxed version online through ebay/amazon/etc. CS1/CS2 are still very reliable and capable versions, and you can find them cheap online.
FYI, 2.5 builds do not have a bevel operator, nor do they have the skin face/edges script. Appearantly both of those won't be redone until Bmesh is implemented.
Also I am covered on the photoshop front.
But I am trying blender at the moment. I will see how this goes.
Just wondering.
This used to be an option, but apparently with Autodesk's switch to packaging all their educational software in the "entertainment suite", there is currently no upgrade option from educational to commercial. I have been going back and forth with a reseller and Autodesk for over a month now... nobody there knows what's going on and they are incredibly reluctant to let me give them money, which strikes me as a tad ridiculous. I have never had to convince a company to let me become a customer.
That's lame
I hope you can sort it out with Autodesk. Converting to pro for a discount was a great deal and I hope they bring it back.
2D - Artrage
3D - Modo/Lightwave. You can find Modo or LW for less than $400 bucks from a user (I might be selling one of my lic in the future). But the ONLY problem with both of these apps is how they deal with smoothing. It sucks balls.
Now that you mention it Lamont, it seems to be a trend lately with the bad economy that people are selling thier Modo licenses. If anyone is interested they should keep an eye on the Luxology forum for more such announcments.
- BoBo
Also, Blender is a very capable app. Don't let the fact that it doesn't work the same way as maya color your efforts with it. It has a lot to offer if you have the patience to learn it.
Yes it is entirely legal to use it for commercial purposes. Pretty much all open source software can be used commercially.
Regarding bevel - yep 'selective bevel' is missing for 2.5a2, also the bridge tool is missing from 2.5a2 (it was ported to 2.5 but was removed from recent builds).
You might consider using wings3d for modeling or silo or hexagon if you need a cheap modeler and aren't comfortable with Blenders modeling tools or the specific items it is missing.
You can use Blender for everything else though with little loss compared to other 3D applications.
Regarding sculpting - you can actually get reasonably far with Blenders sculpt tools - on decent hardware it can do poly counts of 45 million quads.
http://eat3d.com/blog/metalliandy/blender-25-sculpting-45-million-polygons
The brushes are still clunky, and things like masking and hiding currently haven't made it in. It is also missing nicities such as layers, and some things like applying a modier to multires broke in 2.5x (should be back soon - there is a patch in the tracker).
By the end of summer it should be quite comparable to other sculpting software (right now it is behind in a number of areas, but there are patches and development code I know of that fixes many weaknesses).
Note that the 45 million quads you have to be aware of quite a few tricks such as turning on VBO, disabling double sided, starting with a model with real geometry (ie not just a cube with multires on it).
But at the moment I think I might go silo (if the bugs are fixable) + zbrush + blender. Then when I start to get some more money in modo.
Been using it in all my jobs now, lowend and highend.