You don't know me or what I do. I do this for a living as well.

In regards to what he was asking

he was asking for modeling packages. thus, I gave him an answer that was legit.  He didn't ask which program was best for doing vfx.  I know many guys in the industry and they are humble to the core. you my friend arn't.  We didn't ask you to come on here and try act all big stuff to people who don't know what they're doing. Asking for a lil help.  I don't care what credits you have.  I know people with credits that are totally useless at what they do. Just got lucky and landed jobs.  Show us your reel and we can decide from that

In a week with lots of experience in another package you can learn a lot. I didn't say a week into doing 3d you'll be a pro, that's not true at all.  Im a modeler by trade too.

I was just comenting on the fact that you said all packages are on the downturn, which was totally untrue.

     I'm also learning how to work in 3D space. I have Blender and to me it isn't as difficult as most people believe regardless. Those other programs are fine as far as they go but and herein lies the rub...if you can afford to spend the heavy bucks for 'em fine. I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I can't afford a thousand dollars or more for a 'professional' program. In my opinion having to pay that much is ludicrous. I understand a lot of work goes into the coding and such but there are free programs out there that CAN do just as good as any professional. You may not agree and that's fine. To each his or her own. I'll use the ones I like, ones I feel comfortable using. I don't need to spend tons of money. Programs I have are 'freebies' and there's nothing wrong with that.

     Don't get me wrong. I have a lot of respect for the pros who do this kind of work. The animations I've seen are truly awesome. Pixar is a good example. If you've the talent then by all means flaunt it. Here on WC there are some very talented artists. Take the time to view some of the works in the galleries. But keep this in mind...it is what you feel is right for you. Pick and choose. If you want to use the freebies or spend the money. Whatever you want is what's important. All the advice in the world is right here as you can see by the other posts. Take advantage of it. You can't go wrong dude.   

From the perspective of the high end film industry, I am 100% correct.  That's all I ever said.

And all I did was state my credits so that any readers could understand from where my recommendations were coming from.  It's the only way they'd know if my advice was useful or not.

But I'm not breaking my anonymity here for some infantile pissing contest.  If you'd like to see my reel, just take a good look at your favorite movies and TV shows on your DVD shelf.  Odds are, I delivered more than one of them. 

Cheers.

Nor should you! 

Those packages are all priced for BUSINESSES not individuals.  This is why they have cheap student discount versions of all of them.  NEVER pay full price for any of these professional tools until you are a freelancer working for real money, or until you are working professionally at a company that does this work. 

Adobe, Autodesk, etc. all price their software so that they make the same amount of money supporting a thousand high paying business customers as they would with ten thousand low priced amateurs.  Tech support is their main cost, so they minimize that any way they can.

Fair enough.  Sorry for that, think we were both in the wrong.  Misunderstandings and all.  Ya, I know high end film is heading toward maya.  I don't know of any film studios that don't actualy use maya or a maya hybrid. Other than your smaller ones still stuck in lightwave.  Only reason I flipped about the credits is cause I'm tired of people thinking they're God's gifts to 3d throwing their credits around then when it comes to showing their work they really arn't very good.  Know a few people like this and I'm sure you do too.  I do appologize if I offended you too

Just the question was about modeling and this is a games forum So I answered based on that.  In gaming. get familiar with 3d space, building objects with polygons and a general workflow.  They can be adopted to others pretty easily (modeling wise).  As far as jobs go. Most jobs nowdays are for very specialised positions.  The 3d Generilst is unfortunatly a dying breed.

Try any demo you can get.At the end of the day you will find a program that has a tool set that you are comfortable with.

Its like anything you wont know till you try and practice practice practice.

I like Rhino it has a tool set i can get around without much problem and i like the program.

It does come down to personal choice in program.

The pro has the option to use a variety of programs as they have a high level of training and its usually a requirement of there job to be able to use a variety of 3D software.

Make your own choice

Fair enough. 

Note that Digital Domain still uses LightWave with Maya for their major pipeline and they remain one of the majors.

Also, every television series with FX uses only LightWave and most smaller films are also done entirely in LightWave now.

But we both agree that Maya is the leading package amongst the major players. 

So...post some of your work for download already.

Ha, no. I'm going to be working in the creative design (models/story/etc.) of video (pc) games so don't really want to post anything yet since it's not copyrighted ...no offense...

I did however make an awesome 25 second animation of a spaceship.  It shows two (heavy) turrets firing twice as they turn and then it proceeds as a flyby of the ship....750 frames Good times...took a while to render all the frames lol (on a laptop)

-Phal

heh - IMHO it's pretty insane to pay more for a piece of sofware than for the computer you're running it on . . .

More professional than any other piece of freeware I know of. If you don't want to blow away more money than you did on your last two computers, then Blender is as professional as you can get for free.

Blender's good enough that they've made a couple of movies with it.

. . . but that being said - he did want ease of use - and for that I'd go with Wings3D as others have suggested for modelling.

If you go the Wings3D route, though, keep in mind it's primarily for modelling - it can do rendering and texturing, but they are better done using other software.

I also use AOI (Art of Illusion), an open source software that is easier to use than Blender but does a good job at rendering and texturing.

That's one thing I absolutely love about Blender. It has it's own texturing and render engine; it even has animation (although I haven't gotten that to work yet). You can make a passable texture without any real experience, although I'm sure there's more you can do than I've accomplished. It also supports UV texturing. I did a school project with it and it turned out fairly well. Of course, this is nowhere near the pro level.

Sorry for showing off so much of my stuff in this thread, just wanted to give examples.

Looks good.  I ahve yet to be able to figure out any of the 3D programs I have tried. I just can't seem to wrap my head around them. You seem to be getting a knack for it. Keep it up!

I still say Maya...the $200 student edition haha

OKAY, I'll bite. WTF is up with all the 'ha-ha's'?   Maybe it's because I have to try to interpret your tone, but it's coming off as sarcastic and immature. If I am wrong, I apologize. If I'm right, please take it somewhere else.

I'm leaning towards you're just being sarcastic since you're coming up on your one year mark here and your karma is so low. .

The poster is looking for some advice. Post some shots of what you have done with it. SHow him why it might be worth the investment. However, I think it's been made clear that there are very few here that can afford the 6k asking price, and less than that have access to the 'student version'. SO maybe you could stop pushing what is inaccessable to the poster and talk about an alternative that would be more reasonable.

One more piece of advice,,,cut out all the 'ha-ha's'. It makes you sound like every pain- in- the-ass- little- sister- stereotype I've ever run across.

LOL!!! That is worth a "haha"...you think I care about Karma on a video game's forum? "Haha"
And you probably shouldn't talk about Karma since it says you have 0 Karma from 0 Users...and your user number is about a million less than mine...

I got my student edition bundle pack (has ~4 programs) from Studica.com...and I didn't expect anyone to want a $6k program...I know I wouldn't...waste of life.

Also I know Blender is good (but hard) as many people have said, free too.  I haven't tried it out yet...

And fine, I'll post one...this isn't my best but it just shows that Maya is flexible and has great textures (Hypershade window) and effects:

(Image Deleted)[Sorry]

Enjoy!

-Phalnax