3D Modelers and File Formats?

TDaxGav asks: "I am in the process of setting up an animation shop, but I'm stuck as to what format should be used for 3D formats (as well as others, but that is a different story), with all the software out there such as 3D studio, Povray, Maya? What would be the best format to use these days for models?" Considering that the iRender project is to be collaborative, it might be good if the formats were cross-platform. It seems to me, though, that this is the wrong question to be asking. The working creed of the iRender project is "if the tools [work], then use it", so rather than asking "which format" maybe the question here should be "which tool"? So which 3D modelers out there would be decent for a project like this?

Personal Choice...

[Goose In Orbit]

When it comes down to it, you have to try them all, and use what feels best for you

a reply fFor you.

[skotte]

holy nuts, this topic is up 40 minutes and not a single reply; not a troll in sight!!!

but as it happens, there is a reason fFor this. the article's accompanying editorial (It's not 'what fFormat', but 'what tool') says it all. right there we have every bit of an answer you could want. honestly.

and the answer is as individual as a fFingerprint.

fFor example. pixar uses renderman, and other stuff. but they use it fFor a reason. it's mondo fFlexible and expansive, and they can use it fFor anything.

contrariwise, i have a fFriend who does animations fFreelance fFor commercial advertising. he uses 3-D studio cause it's pretty simple and he can maneuver easily around it. (and it was easy fFor him to fFind a warez copy, the bastard.)

I am involved in a project hero6 [hero6.com] and we use a lot of poser to handle character animations, because thats what poser is fFor and it does them well.

or maybe open source is your thing. blender all the way.

get the idea? so i'm afraid the question isnt just "what should i use?" the question is really "I'm doing X; what tool(s) is(/are) built fFor that purpose?"

Re:a reply fFor you.

[Thornae]

or maybe open source is your thing. blender all the way.

Blender is not open source. Blender was a very nice, free-as-in-beer modelling app. Definitely not open source, and if you wanted some of the really cutting edge features, you needed to pay for a license key. But if all you wanted was a really good modeller/renderer for free, it was great (although the interface took a while to learn).

However, NaN, the parent company of Blender, recently went belly up [slashdot.org]. Aside - the linked article has lots of calls for Blender to release its code to the OS community... Which lead to some rather interesting commentary [slashdot.org]...

So in conclusion, Blender ain't open source, and isn't even really around anymore. Be nice if it was opened up, but it would (IMO) be nicer if NaN got back on its feet.

BTW, personally, I like RenderMan as a format - but that's because it's really complicated, and more like a language than a file format. (=

No single answer

[inkfox]

There's no single answer. The RTF of 3D formats is DXF, however I don't think that's even been extended to support NURBS or complex texturing.

If most of your people will be using Maya, stick with the Maya format. 3D Studio people need to stick with 3D Studio. Hash, Hash. Any time you move between formats, you're going to lose data; you'll have to find the least common denominator format between two packages and find clever ways of shuttling the other data across.

If you can reduce the features you need out of the format, saying "Polygons are important, NURBS aren't, not worried about texturing at this state," etc then we can probably give a better answer.

Lightwave.

[krs-one]

I also work in an animation shop (www.epicsoftware.com [epicsoftware.com]) and for the past 7 years, we've been using Lightwave. We started using it in 1995 with version 4 (or 5 I believe). It cost something like $2000, which blew me away back then that software cost that much. I had always thought MS Office for $99 bucks was steep.

Anyway, we've been using Lightwave ever since and never looked back. It has all of the features that all of the major packages have (last time I checked, anyway) and its a ton less money.

I think a seat of Maya base price cost around $12,000, while Lightwave is only $2500. Its an awesome deal. The Lightwave 6.x file type is pretty much an open standard, and you can find translaters written by third parties out there (there might even be some on sourceforge). A

At anyrate, my vote goes to Lightwave.

Hope this helps.

-Vic

lightwave & maya reduced pricing...

[Miska]

sorry if offering further choices is cause for confusion but, both lightwave and maya have had their price reduced recently

Lightwave costs $1595 (and $900 for a competitive upgrade)
(http://www.newtek.com/buynow/swproducts .html)

Maya has 2 different prices
$2000 for maya complete
$7000 for maya unlimited
(http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/news/ maya/mayafo r1999.shtml)

... and softimage costs aroun $1500 as well these days
(http://www.softimage.com/corporate/press/pr essrel eases/020606_3D_Legend.htm)

and I believe cinema4dXL is somewhere between $1500-$1000,
but I can't find their URL at the moment.

Good luck choosing!

Re:Lightwave.

[Vyyper]

Alias|Wavefront just changed the price down to $2,000 for Maya Complete... he might not have realized this; especially since he doesn't use Maya.

I'd say that with the substantial decrease in price for Maya, that could be the way of the future. But then again, I guess it all depends on who you work for.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Tool Chioce

[Sharper]

Choosing a tool is definately the important question, but it's an interesting question (assuming it doesn't degenerate into a war of tastes but rather a discussion of featuers or something)...

In support of Maya (disclaimer; I worked for Alias|Wavefront at one point), while it's expensive (for small-scale production use) and has a hella-learning-curve, it has become much easier/cheaper to learn lately, and once you get past those two points many people believe it's technically superior to most of the other solutions - at the very least because it's flexibility allows you to duplicate any techniques or effects from elsewhere.

Finally, refering back to the issue of file formats, it's pretty easy to get either one of the converters (the previous post mentions a good one.. psuedo-mod to them :), or write/download a Mel plugin/script to export whatever format you want.

Gavin

Perplexed

[a2800276]

I am in the process of setting up an animation shop

What's an "animation shop"? Scientific Imaging? Games? Movies? What kind o background do you have? What market do you want to cater to?

Who are you doing this for? Yourself, a customer, the company you work for? What all is entailed in "setting up a shop"? If you're really setting up a professional shop from top to bottom, don't you feel totally unqualified not even having an idea what file formats you'll need?

Any clue as to what market, what customers you'll be serving? What file formats are they using, that might be a good place to start.As mentioned above what tools will you be needing, what are the people working at the "shop" familiar with?

Or is it that the question could be rephrased as: "I've always dreamed of doing computer animation, but I have no idea how, but I'm going to start a company that does stuff?"

I'm afraid I'm a bit grumpy today, sorry, but the question as asked can't be answered.

Re:Perplexed

[IRender]

Hmmm, let me rephrase it slightly then, I want to see if we can get enough people together in order to make a movie combining skills or a lot people off the internet. As far as doing the actual 3D stuff goes, then yeah, I'm COMPLETELY unqualified, well maybe not, in that I've managed to make a cube in 3D studio once *grin*. I was trying to get a feel of what would be a good base format to use, given that lots of people will use lots of different tools. As somebody said previously, looking for a RTF format for 3D which aids multi-platform support but not at the cost of features (The usual goal). There will not be any customers, this is simply just an experiment to see if it can be done. Hope this clears it up. Gav

1D+2D Dept

[Sharper]

No-no silly, 1D x 2D = 3D ;)

Lower-cost choices (slightly OT)?

[DrCode]

For those of us doing open-source, can anyone recommend a lower-cost ($100 or less) choice, preferably one that runs on Linux? I've been looking at the shareware AC3D, and have also played with Blender.

Different Strengths and Demos

[Geckoman]

All of the modeling/render/animation programs have different strengths, so aside from personal preference, it depends a great deal on exactly what you want to do.

Also several of the big name products have started offering free trial editions, which would be a great way to get a feel for them. Maya [aliaswavefront.com] has one, and I know there have been others, although I don't know which are still available.

The program that I use at home is trueSpace [caligari.com]. It's very robust for the price ($595 for the latest), which might make it a good solution for a project on a budget, especially considering the low-end pricing on the older versions. For instance, tS3 is only $99, and it was pretty good.

.3DS and .DXF

[ktakki]

It may be my bias as a long-time 3DStudio user (dating back to R2 for DOS), but my opinion is that the .3DS file format [wotsit.org] (not.MAX) seems to be widely supported (e.g., Lightwave, Rhino, Multigen Creator, Sense8 WCT, ElectricImage, etc.) as an import/export option.

DXF is supported by more packages, but isn't as feature-rich (no textures, hierarchies, smoothing groups).

k.

...not the program that matters

[Arrghman]

"The working creed of the iRender project is "if the tools [work], then use it", so rather than asking "which format" maybe the question here should be "which tool"? So which 3D modelers out there would be decent for a project like this?"

The thing is, pretty much every 3D model format goes hand in hand with a particular program, and with rather cheap software you can convert back and forth really easily (at least the geometry). And thus, no format is really better then any others... what it comes down to is the program you want to use.

In terms of all the choices... well with any of the big available programs (Maya, Max, LightWave) you're going to be able to do whatever you want to do. The only real difference between any modeling program is just the way that it approches modeling... so go out there and try all the programs (they pretty much all now have free demos or the like) and see which one you're more comfortable with... and thats the one you want.

If this project you're setting up has different people using different programs, well, you can't go back and forth between formats without having to do manual conversions in pretty much every program. So if you have a guy using LightWave and a guy using Max they each need to work in their own format... you'd have to convert back and forth no matter what.

Re:...not the program that matters

[froGGee125]

Polytrans will do what you're talking about. I would think this project, if different 3D applications are going to be used, would benefit from this program. Find out more about it, here: http://www.okino.com/conv/conv.htm For my vote, Maya is now the most cost-effective, yet incredibly robust all-around 3D application commercially available at this time. The price is now incredibly reasonable and there are so many people making quality plug-ins for free (http://www.highend3d.com) that it would be the best purchase. The users of this application are also very liberal with their knowledge. 3DS Max,my bread-and-butter application, is a good program too, but I like Maya better, personally. It's more elegant, stable, and doesn't have many of the leaky performance problems of Max. - froGGee125