3D software
3d software:
Shade professional, shareware
Free to try Powerful 3D Modeling and Rendering Software. Architects, interior designers, product designers and character modelers now can take advantage of the unrivalled
Manga Studio, shareware
Free to try Manga Software Worldwide, is the all-in-one solution for creating and publishing manga and comics.
Brazil-Rio Rendering System
Brazil Rio is a freely available, personal-use,non-commercial edition of SplutterFishs award-winning Brazil r/s V1.2 renderer for 3ds max and Autodesk
3D Bridge for Photoshop, beta
What if there was an easy way for you to include stunning 3D imagery and artworks in Photoshop? Take your first step into 3D with the free DAZ Studio 3D Bridge
3D Bridge Starter Pack for Photoshop
Perhaps you've had the notion that creating 3D art would be too technical. Or that you barely have enough time to create in Photoshop as it is. Well, a new day has come
Long running 3D animation design software
Lightwave 3D is NewTek's high-end 3D animation and rendering program. Available for both Mac and PC, Lightwave has long been a leader in it's field and is actually two products bundled into one. One part, 'Modeller', is responsible for building the elements of the job and the second, 'Layout', is where the animation project takes place. This is not as complex as it may sound for the beginner and in many ways is a very logical approach. Additionally, integration between the two programs is very smooth.
On the negative side, Lightwave has often been criticised for it's user interface - Mac users in particular might cringe it unix-like menu structure. Additionally, users have to be extremely careful about file locations - project directories have to be explicitly defined, or the program gets confused. Lightwave's strong-points include the richness of it's rendering. Although, it's animation may not be up to Maya's standards.
Maxon Cinema 4D
Easy to use 3D software
Cinema 4D by Maxon comes as a main program with a number of add-on modules. First developed for the Amiga platform, Cinema 4D now comes for both Mac and PC. Its strong-point is certainly its interface, with customised and pre-set layouts, as well as quick switching between modeling, animation and painting layouts.
Cinema 4D has excellent modeling tools, but some users have complained that its rendering can look shiny and 'artificial'. However, it is famous for having exceptionally fast rendering - even at a high quality - a feature that many users are happy to pay for. Cinema 4D comes in several bundled version, ranging from fairly cheap to very expensive. It's worth researching these well.
3D Studio Max
3D Studio Max. Let the games begin.
3D Studio Max is an acknowledged heavyweight in the 3D design world. It has a large user-base in architectural modeling and virtual walkthroughs, but is also the dominant player in 3D games development. 3D Studio Max is also the only major 3D product that has not bothered developing a Mac version. Probably thinking, not without reason, that the Mac market is already saturated.
3DS Max comes fully featured out of the box, but has gained a huge user base largely due to the enormous amount of third party plug-ins available for it. For example, it was one of the first packages to be able to export directly to Flash, as the result of plug-in development.