Anyone know a fast, low resource model viewer?

Jeff Parrott · Feb 2005

I've got a laptop that runs Photoshop fine and the wacom works nicely with it. A full 3d app like Maya doesn't work so hot though. Basically I'm looking for something that I can export my models out of Maya into and load up the textures on them to see how they look. Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

KMan · Feb 2005

Hmm. Milkshape and Deep Exploration (maybe) would be my picks. I don't know how fast Blender is, but you can always look into that.

sinistergfx · Feb 2005

Wings3D

jzero · Feb 2005

I've had good results using Ultimate UnWrap 3D, the descendant of LithUnwrap. You can download the demo version for free, and it has nice model viewer functions, but it's still a small utility that shouldn't be a resource hog.

It supports a bunch of model formats. You can load texture maps and switch between renderings like wireframe, smooth, outline, etc. It has pretty much all I need to do texturing, including making the texture self-illuminating. You can't save any work you might do to the UVs (unless you pay), but if you're generating stuff with Maya you won't need it. I do have to set up an object's texture every time I load it since I can't save, but I found that it does automatic updates on the texture. I set up an Action in Photoshop that saves it to TGA, and Ultimate Unwrap will see that and update as soon as I switch to it.

This sounds like the kind of thing you're looking for, so check it out!

/jzero