3D industry standard???

sbaileymediaman

sbaileymediaman

Active member
Having had hardly any 3D experience other than after effects 3D (using 2D elements!) I am considering buying a 3d program for short film work.

I basically want to be using THE industry standard

e.g. avid to video editing, photoshop to photo editing.

Does anyone know what is the most comonly uses 3d program for everything from 3D characters (designing from scratch) to making 3D locations?

I'm sure someone knows!
 
Questions like these will always end up in Application X vs Application Y, while the truth of the matter is that they are both as applicable.

There is no standard as such, since most FX houses will:

(a) A combination of many different application within the pipeline

(b) Create a lot of custom "In House" scripts and code.

So learn the skill and don't get tied down to any particular tool.

Having said that the "top apps" are Maya, Max, XSI, houdini, the other 3d applications are also very capable too, but are not used as extensively as these ones.

Also the 3d world is ever changing, take for example Maya and Max, they were in direct competition, but now Autodesk the makers of Max have brought Maya. What will happen to these apps in the future is hard to know.

New apps will come and go.

Since you say that you have no experience in 3d, I would suggest that you first learn the basics on such free programs such as Blender, This application is extremly impressive for a free program, it can almost do what the "top" applications can do, indeed even short films have been made with it. It has a great online community that is always adding more code to it and expanding it.

Once your flying on that then I'd say you should start investing in the more bigger apps as mentioned above, these apps have massive learning curves and are very in depth.
 
Lightwave starts at just under $1,000, and the more sophisticated programs used in Hollywood can go up to $5,000 or more. Do you really have that kind of money?
 
I would suggest Vue 6 from e-on software. It is relatively cheap and you can get very impressive results after a short time using it. I recommend this mainly for matte painting, but having minimal 3d experience, you can't go wrong. from there Iwould work into the powerhouse programs such as maya or 3ds for building characters or whatever.
by then you will have learned the pain of render times, and come to realize that the industry standard is knowing how to integrate several programs together during the course of a project.
good luck
 
Thanks guys.

I have used one 3D program called DAZ 3d which is a free program but it wasn't that powerful, the images look okay but you cannot create your own objects which defeats the purpose.

So try out Blender and then if I like it, think about Maya?
 
yes, do try out Blender, once you feel that you have mastered it and have the urge to "graduate" then most certainly step upto Maya, however if you really want to learn Maya, you may do well to actually enrol on many University courses or similar VFX course that teach you Maya from the "ground up" and then enable you to make a demo reel at the end of the course (to help get your foot into the industry)

If you can afford and have time to invest then here is some places to look at:

Vancouver Film School (VFS)

http://www.vfs.com/fulltime.php?id=7

GNONMON school of Visual Effects

http://www.gnomonschool.com/

FX PhD

http://www.fxphd.com/

Visual FX MSc (master Degree) UK, Kent

http://www.ee.kent.ac.uk/postgraduate/pg_digviseffects.aspx

And probably a whole lot more that I missed..



http://www.daveschool.com/demovfx/
 
Maya also has a personal learning edition, which is free to download, and I think most of the major guys have free learning editions (Softimage XSI, Houdini, etc)

I agree with everyone's points about learning 3D, once you get the concepts it's all about learning how each package works, they're only slightly different. For the most part Maya is the biggest, C4D is gaining traction in broadcast quickly, XSI is very popular and more studios are using it...Lightwave is a strange bag...Houdini is very popular amongst the fx crowd, especially for it's procedurals.

If you learn an app and you're really good at 3D and have a hot reel then people will hire you, no matter what the app.
 
I could just never understand some of the different programs, the views and tools never set with me. It figures I liked the intuitiveness of a buggy program that died several years ago.
 
oneinfiniteloop said:
Maya also has a personal learning edition, which is free to download, and I think most of the major guys have free learning editions (Softimage XSI, Houdini, etc)

I agree with everyone's points about learning 3D, once you get the concepts it's all about learning how each package works, they're only slightly different. For the most part Maya is the biggest, C4D is gaining traction in broadcast quickly, XSI is very popular and more studios are using it...Lightwave is a strange bag...Houdini is very popular amongst the fx crowd, especially for it's procedurals.

If you learn an app and you're really good at 3D and have a hot reel then people will hire you, no matter what the app.
Click to expand...

Houdini is cool, from what I hear. That's what they used for the opening credits for Fight Club where the camera is doing the "extreme close up" that pulls out from Edward Norton's head - they start with individual cells, then they pull back more to reveal DNA strands, then more to show brain cells, then synapses firing, then back through pores, along strands of hair then back more through a gun sight then back to Ed Norton's face with a gun in his mouth :)

And as far as learning an app for potential work, stick with either Maya for films or 3d Max for games. There are exceptions to those rules, of course, but those are by far your best options.
 
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