3d Rendering...
 

has anyone ever done any 3d rendering, making models and such. What is a good easy to use program that would be great to make 3d models of a product?

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

I use ProEngineer Wildfire 2.0 for a CAD class at school. It is pretty easy to use and has some pretty cool features. You can make assemblies of different parts and test stress points with given loads. It has a huge catalog of bearings/bolts/nuts/retainers/pins/etc.. so you dont have to create everything on your own. The cheapest I have found it is $149 for the student edition, so it isnt very cheap but worth it in my opinion. My text book came with a 90 day trial version and I will definitely purchase it when the trial runs out. I have also used Mechanical Desktop but it is not as advanced.

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

3D Studio Max, Maya, and LightWave are the programs I see and hear being used the most. ZBrush and Blender3D (open source) are a couple others that work, too.

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

Yeah zbrush looks really good in the tutorial videos, and im looking into Pro/Engineer.
Thanks for the advice guys.

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

I use Pro-E at work. Can't imagine using anything else.
What are you looking to have done?

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

Pro-E and Solid Works are the 2 big ones out there. Both are extremely expensive though. We use Solid Works at work and it is about $3k plus $6k/yr per seat.

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

the program they are teaching with here now is SolidEdge, if that says anything.

http://www.solidedge.com/

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

Nope

Solidworks is the shit

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

No matter what program you decide to go with I would look at the differences between the student and professional editions. The student edition of ProE that I have does anything I would ever need it to do. Plus the professional editions prices are more than likely in the thousands like Jet said.

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

Maya is very flexible and SOOOO deep and feature filled that it can do it all! Physics to exporting shaders in Avi's to global lighting and displacement mapping. Super program but it does have a pretty Steep learning curve though.

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

What are you trying to do with it Tom?

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

I have used Solidworks 2003, ProE 2001, ProE Wildwire, ProE Wildfire 2.0, AutoDesk Inventor R5, and FEMLab (now Comsol Multiphysics) 3.1.

Solidworks 2003: Definitely user friendly and powerful however I do not believe it is as heavily used in industry as ProE.

ProE 2001: Only briefly used; Seemed very similar to Wildfire & Wildfire 2.0; Like every ProE I've used, I do not feel it is as user friendly as Solidworks.

ProE Wildfire: Good program; Widely used in industry; Very powerful.

ProE Wildfire 2.0: Very similar to Wildfire(see above); I purchased Advanced ProE and ProE Mechanica tutorial books which I am hoping to run through over Thanksgiving & Christmas break.

AutoDesk Inventor R5: First CAD program I ever used; Very easy and simple however I haven't touched it in 3 years.

FEMLab 3.1: Incredibly powerful and widely respected however I have not not used it enough to really build an opinion of it.


The Iowa State Mechanical Engineering Department is pushing SolidEdge quite heavily and I have heard nothing but horror stories about it: Very difficult to learn & sparsely used in industry. The only reason Iowa State even has the program is because the SolidEdge owners needed a big tax write-off a couple of years ago so they donated it to Iowa State. I have yet to see any company at any of the Iowa State Engineering Career Fair(the largest engineering career fair in the country) request students with SolidEdge experience, only ProE & Solidworks.

Re: 3d Rendering...
 

well that explains the sudden change