3D software on the Amiga

[jeffimix]

I'm looking at 3D software on the amiga. Before you tell me how slow it is, I know, I'm looking at it entirely for modeling, not rendering. I'm wondering what you people suggest? I have only 68040, no PPC. I've looked a little at Aladdin 4D, Lightwave, Imagine, is Real3D out, and are there other good proggies.

Jeffimix

[PPCRulez]

Both Lightwave and Imagine are very good. And for modelling only Lightwave is a good choice.

But I would suggest looking at Tornado3D which is an  excellent 3D program that supports PPC (although, you have no need for that). Also T3D is quite fast even on a 040. There is a few drawbacks though. Even though T3D has lots of great features there is a few irritating bugs in the latest version. If you learn how to stay away from them.. it is a truly impressive 3D rendering program.

[Framiga]

Hi jeffimix

so you want to modelling with Amiga and then?

Rendering on PC with the same program? (PC version)

My choise:

Lightwave= for:

-flying logos (with the help of WaveMaker)
-videogames and demo

Real3D=

-photorealistic enviroments

and yes Tornado3D for modelling

POV for its radiosity (never used)

Ciao

[lempkee]

real 3d and lightwave is the best ones..

tornado 3d looks cool and its fast , but i cant get it to work properly on my machine (dongle BUG) , and i use WOS+pup emu and tornado 3d doesnt like that.

[selco]

IMHO Lightwave is the best.

Cinema4D is however fast, amiga-conform and stable too-

I would not recommend T3D att all. As Lempkee wrothe, its very unstable.

PPCRulez:
Do you have any "rules" how to work with T3D without rebooting every few seconds?
Wich version do you use, wich Amiga do you have exactly?

[Aegis]

LightWave 3D is excellent even though the Amiga version is pretty old now (5.0 was the last release) - the interface has changed a lot but the skills you learn will be useful if you switch to 7.5/8 on the Mac or PC at some point - NewTek even offers an upgrade path from the Amiga version to the latest release!

[PPCRulez]

I'm using T3D v3, although v2.1 was 100% stable on my machine and never crashed. I really like the interface and the new stuff in v3.

I've rarely had any "real crashes" with T3D v3 either, but I've run into the "Do you really want to quit"-bug quite a few times (where the quit requster pops-up and you can't get rid of it). Also I've run into some error requesters which were impossible to get rid of.

I just avoid some of the modelling tools (the more advanced ones) and then it works pretty good, sure you should save once in a while when modelling just to be on the safe side.

The bugs I've encountered is mostly when using the modelling stuff.. when staging or making animation it's stable and also when rendering. I've made several animations with more than 800 frames with no real problems.. and the results
are very good.

Another important thing to keep in mind with T3D is to have quite alot of free memory available, if it runs out of memory you're facing a reboot. With more advanced scenes you should have at least 32MB ram free, preferrably 64MB or more when you start rendering.

My system is a A3k CSPPC 604e@200Mhz + 060@50Mhz with 96MB of Ram, a CVisionPPC and some other nice goodies

On this machine it often takes between 20-60s for a frame at 800x600 resolution... it churns out animations really fast. And if you want fast previews without anitalias you can get a frame rendered in 1-5s... ideal for previews of long animations.

Also regarding the dongle. I've never had any problems using T3D becasue of the dongle. But I've had problems with playing Payback (the game) with the dongle connected.

Another thing to note is that the cracked version of T3D v3 that was floating around is/was very very unstable... and doesn't reflect to real product's stability.

[JaXanim]

I started out on my 3D adventure with Imagine 2 (the old coverdisk). Then I bought version 3 and version 4. Even so, with six interfaces to manipulate, Imagine is a tough nut to crack.

Later, I bought C4D and couldn't make anything out of it. I find the C4D experience very disenchanting. It can produce impressive results, but the interface is quite horrible!

I never tried Tornado, and probably never will reading the above comments. I only dabbled with Real 3D on an old coverdisk, but I wasn't drawn to it at all (excuse pun!).

For me, getting hold of LightWave 3.5 about ten years ago was a revelation! ALL the Amiga mags placed it head and shoulders over all the other 3D software and there were right! It's superb!

I upgraded to v4 and v5 and now produce a website dedicated to LightWave, the Amiga's best 3D package. Check it out and see.

For me, then, nothing but LightWave will do.

Cheers,

JaX

[jeffimix]

Hmm, aye the Amiga side would be entierly for modelling. I have a much faster PC, with an old version of Truespace, and Bryce 4, and Animation Master '98, so it'd handle renders easily...

It's sounding like tornado is nice, but rather crashy, and that Lightwave is all out nice...

[T3000]

Lightwave.

There are a lot of documentation and tutorials available for LW.  I belive it's interface and tools are cleaner and easier to work with.  Like any software package, there is a bit of a learning curve to produce satisfactory results.

[selco]

@PPCRulez:
Hm, so nothing special on your Amiga . You are really lucky then

BTW, I was not referring to a cracked version. I know Eyelight said that the crack were very unstable. I bought all Tornado versions and stability became worse with every version.

I also bought C4D when it was new. It was quite fast and has a very nice interface.

The best by far is lightwave however. The GUI looks very old and unflexible first, but it is in fact very functional and easy to learn.