3D modeling - anyone?

I think you need to be more specific about the type of 3D modeling you want to do. For example do you want to create CAD/CAM 3D renderings, gaming graphics, etc.. You also might want to see if a college nearby has some graphics classes you can take.

Would your current MBP work, yes but it wouldn't provide the performance of more up-to-date computers like the new i7 based iMacs or a MacPro. However for learning purposes it should be OK.

Hello Nnemic,
First, rkaufman's suggestion about checking with colleges re their courses on 3D modeling is a good one. If you do get the chance, you might also try finding out what software is on the college's computers for those classes. Obviously, any college will offer a chance to use the "best" or "most used" software in the industry.

Of course: that may mean that a particular college will offer only Windows material.

As for your Mac's capability, telling my own experience may discourage you:
I bought my Mac Pro Quad Core Xeon in Aug. 2007. Since then: I have discovered that the factory installed graphics card (NVIDIA Geforce 7300) isn't even able to run software with 3D capability. That's because it's a mediocre graphics card. This totally astounds me: I believed I was buying a machine with a graphics card which could easily handle this kind of work and that WAS in fact a "3D ready" machine.

Because of this, I'm sorry I didn't try to find a group of Mac users who work with 3D graphics. I might have been saved a huge disappointment if I had. Which means that you should also try finding a Mac group which "does" 3D graphics and put your questions to them.

Message was edited by: macnoel

I have done a little work with 3D, but it has been awhile, and the software I had experience with is dead or dying (DAZ support for Bryce on the Mac is pathetic). As has been mentioned, we need to know a little more about what it is exactly you want to do. Is this the sort of thing you are interested in?

http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/gallery/art-gallery/

The application used to create those things is a free open source program called Blender. I downloaded and tried it very briefly in Leopard, haven't tried in Snow Leopard. It isn't exactly easy to use.

The really high end 3D program is Maya--which is VERY expensive and may not work all that well on Macs. Apple features a download of Cinema4D Demo, which is reputed to be one of the easier modeling programs to use:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/imaging_3d/cinema4d.html

It too is rather pricey, although cheaper than Maya.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

Luxology's Modo is by far the best OS X 3d modeling software, in my opinion.

http://www.luxology.com/

Solidworks and Inventor are the dominant products out there now. Unfortunately they aren't available for Mac as far as I know. Most community colleges should be offering courses in one, if not both of these. Other well known titles are Pro-e, Unigraphics and SolidEdge. Learning any of these will give you a solid, transferable 3D base.

These days I do a lot of work in Revit MEP which is quite complex.

More animation oriented is 3DS Max and Maya. I've done a bit with the 3DS Max and it's pretty cool.

I'm not familiar with any of the actual Mac modeling programs. Any recomendations?

1. you have an excellent Mac for doing any graphics, my first gen Intel MBP runs Maya no problem. Learn to work with what you have. 4Gb of RAM is ample to start out !

2. people were doing graphics 25 or more years ago with far less sophisticated hardware - its not about the tools but the carpenter who holds them

3. 3ds Max / Maya / SoftImage are probably 3 solid choices to start. I prefer Maya but have friends who prefer the other two. I would also investigage Lux from Modo:
http://www.luxology.com/

4. Maya ( company name: Autodesk) offers a FREE limited edition of their software, try it out if you like
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=13578047&siteID=123112

5. there's tons of online sites to get everything from advice, textures, models, scripts etc esp:
www.highend3d.com

hope this helps ! Read far and wide !

Hello,
take a look at Cheetah3D: http://cheetah3d.com/