3D program switcheroo

[Wilshireblvd]

I "grew up" on 3DS MAX, and still use it from time to time. But in the past year I have switched my entire operation to Mac. I am looking at 2 programs in particular: Lightwave and Cinema 4D. Mostly, I use 3d animation for digital matte painting, so as wonderful as Maya is, I'm not really considering it ($$$). I am curious to hear opinions on which (LW/C4D) is possibly going to give me less of a headache. I love the MAX layout and can work fairly quickly and economically in it... and I have started a trial of Lightwave and, upon first glance, am intimidated by the structure. I plan to check out C4D's trial, but I'm open to hearing what other people think.

Whichever the case, I am also planning to purchase Vue 7. Any opinions on that program? Thanks!

[triplej96]

For matte Painting C4D is one of the best. Its been used a lot for matte painting on films. I'm just starting to get into matte painting/camera mapping with C4D.

[Dli151]

I'm more of a video guy but ivde dabble in 3d doing some cad work and wanted to pick it back up butwhen I tried all the diff 3d programs that tried I had the most ease just picking up cinema 4d so if ur good with max ull love cinema 4. The movie surf up was done maily with it and the maxon show reel is amazing take a peek at it.

[Raptor365]

I've never tried LW but C4D is pretty easy to get started with. The workflow is quite different than max so that may take some adjustment. There's a ton of free tutorials out there though.

I started using Vue6 Infinite recently. The enviroments are amazing and the render engine is really good. The program is a bit buggy. I had a lot of crashes when I first began but now it's just the odd time. I've read 7 is better. Render times are pretty long though for animations but if your just making still mattes it won't be a problem.
GeekAtPlay.com has many free tutorials for Vue including the new Vue7.

Vue Xstream has a plug in to allow running both C4D (and other) programs interactively with each other. I tried the trial version of that one and hope to pick it up in a year (or 2).
the Vue6 Xtreme version had a lot of problems I've read but maybe 7 is better.

[insanityfw]

check out MODO by www.luxology.com

The interesting thing is that you can also do very simple modeling in Sketchup, which is very fast and easy and then import into MODO. The render is also pretty amazing.

They are still working on enhancing animation, but it's a great product to watch. Many discussions comparing it to LW and 3DS.

The price is certainly right.

J.

[oneinfiniteloop]

Cinema 4D is definitely the way to go if you're doing matte painting. It's a great, easy to use all around 3D program too.

With the latest release you get Projection Man, which is the matte painting/projection system that was built with Sony Imageworks and until recently has been a proprietary tool that the general public could not buy. It's been used on practically every film that Sony Imageworks has had a hand in, so you can imagine.

Regarding LW, I've never liked the split modeler/renderer approach. Not very intuitive for me. Modo is great, but seriously lacks in animation and will take years to catch up. It's powerhouse is modeling.

The best thing about Cinema is that you can buy in modules, so you can start small and build up. It costs more than buying one of the two packages, but depending on your needs you may only need the Core, although the XL bundle is not a bad deal for what you get with it.

[Capt Quirk]

Hehehe... I'm still using Infini D 3D :)

[Sad Max]

I'm a Lightwave fan, but the graphic artist with whom I'm working just started playing around with C4D, and is already using it effectively in his workflow. So ease-of-use and a shallow learning curve seem like obvious benefits.

I'm not planning to pick up C4D myself, but that's mostly because Lightwave/Maya/Rhino/Sketchup already pretty well cover the full range of stuff I have to do.

[NoahK]

I've tried both as a reasonably techy type and found the C4D interface way easier to pick up and do stuff with than LightWave. One thing that always drives me nuts about LW is that it was originally an Amiga application and still sorta resembles the original interface. C4D is much more of a native system app whether on PC or Mac.

Noah

[Sad Max]

I'm not sure what iteration of Lightwave you last used, but any resemblance to the Amiga interface vanished with the LW7 recoding.

Although a resemblance to one computer's interface or another hardly seems relevant, to the software's utility.

[TowerFan]

I'm a LW user and it can handle anything I can throw at it. Despite the negativity you might hear it's still in wide-spread use in the industry. Although LW is the only package I've used so I can't compare it to anything. TONS of on-line community support and tutorials for LW too.

As for the LW interface it's one of the best I've ever seen. I like it when UI buttons have a text description of the function instead of some wierd, abstract icon. I have enough trouble learning the program itself without having to memorize icons too. Just my opinion.

[Sad Max]

In further praise of Lightwave I'll add that while I have worked on a number of large projects where Maya/Solidworks/Rhino/AutoCad and FormZ were the predominant tools, and I was a minority Lightwave user, C4D and Max were not even on the radar.

[Wilshireblvd]

I appreciate all the great input! Thanks!

I've gotta say I'm leaning C4D. I'm impressed with LW, but I think I'll have a quicker transition with 4D. We'll see I guess.

[Everts]

C4D,
sometools are just the same as max, workflow is different but C4D will get you there.