good 3d apps for OS X?

Discussion in 'Software and Applications' started by 584_deleted, Jul 22, 2008.

  1. 584_deleted
    584_deleted Member
    I'm interested in what apps everyone would recommend for use in developing objects for shapeways under OS X.

    I see that Blender can export X3D... does anyone have any good alternatives?

    Thanks,

    laurie
     
  2. 128_deleted
    128_deleted Member
  3. keebOo
    keebOo Member
    Hi,
    I work with many modelers,
    in my opinion some good choice are:

    MODO (www.luxology.com),

    and (only for Mac OS X) Cheetah3D (www.cheetah3d.com).

    Cheetah3D is simple light and full-featured 3d application, there is a full demo version, and is cheap solution, make a try.


    bye,
    keebOo.
     
  4. pzich
    pzich Member
    I love maya unlimited, however it is rather expensive and still not cheap if you're a student or teacher.
     
  5. Whystler
    Whystler Member

    I really really love Cheetah3D. I used it on my Mac for making environments in the virtual platform Unity 3D. It's amazing!

    -Whystler
     
  6. MickLang
    MickLang Member
    Blender has come a long, frigging way. I remember what it was like back in the mid-nineties. I gave it up and went with 3DS Max (obviously a cracked version as the damn thing was too expensive) and with all of it's application crashing and slow start-up, went back to Blender this year.

    My only issue, is when exporting to X3D, it isn't recognized as a valid X3D file when I attempt to upload to shapeways.

    BTW, the "Introducing Character Animation with Blender" book by Tony Mullen is a good resource to learning the interface. I was up and modeling in just a couple of days and now the weird interface seems completely natural to me.

    Mick Lang
    (I've weaned myself off of Bill Gate's teat for a while now)
     
  7. Fingers
    Fingers Member
    I also looked at Blender a few years ago and didn't like it, but I've recently downloaded it again to give it another shot and actually quite like it now.

    At first the UI feels unfriendly, but now there are *great* tutorials around explaining everything and walking you through any process you can think of. For example, learning how to rig a character model in Blender took me less time than the classes I took for Maya. BlenderWiki is a great resource.
     
  8. bartv
    bartv Member
    Strange - I just did a couple of tests with the latest version and it seems to work fine for me. Could you do me a favor and mail one of those X3D files that don't upload to bart(at)shapeways(dot)com? I'd like to check them out and see what's going on.

    Cheers,

    Bart
     
  9. 6023_deleted
    6023_deleted Member
    Just kicked Cheetah 3D around for ~30 minutes, and I was able to render the two things I wanted to (although I do need to scale it correctly).

    Not bad for a ~$130 app...

    Thanks for the tip.

    Jonathan L.
     
  10. philatkin
    philatkin Member
    Yup, Cheetah3D is awesome. As a 'hobby modeller' who has attempted to use every version of 3DS for the last 20+ years, Cheetah is way more intuitive and way cheaper, and remains the only modeller that makes any sense to me. I've been developing little 'game models' on it for about 8 years now, am now building the occasional physical thing on Shapeways, Cheetah - in combination with the netfabb cloud service - have never let me down.
     
  11. bvr
    bvr Member
    Hexagon is available for the Mac, and it's free until the end of the month.
    I generally use TurboCAD for my mechanical development, and Blender for most other things.
    bvr