Suggested 3D Objects Program

I've been ready to move along to adding scenery to Nimbostratus, but Object Creator just can't cut it anymore Plus it's not working.

For those who work well and enjoy making objects, would you make any suggestions of preferably inexpensive/free 3D's program?

I want to make huge trees for my ride and I know I want them to be 3Ds. Catwalks and proxys and other ride technologies. Any suggestions may help!

the object creator is the best one for NL that's free. if you arent willing to spend a lot of money you wont have many good options. if youre a student you can get 3ds max freeeee, but if youre not use anim8or.

What about Blender? I downloaded it, and it's free. As far as I can tell, this isn't a demo version.

^ I go autocad and autocad arch series for free, you'd think I would've been smart enough o get 3ds max too. but yeah that works if you have a major that is in need of the program. But I remember you saying you're in engineering? If so you should be good. I really don't they actually check but just on the safe side

Blender has a ton of trouble exporting 3ds. Typically, I just use it for rendering and baking. The construction interface, though, is much more powerful than OC, and I've been able to create highly complex models in it (that unfortunately, can't be exported into NL).

Solid Works seems to be an awesome program for 3D objects. Costs a lot of money, though.

I think a student licence is $150 but Solid Works has the best and most intuitive UI of any of the 3D programs I've tried (3ds Max, Wings, Sketchup, Blender and a few other Autodesk programs).

I don't know about being more intuitive than Sketchup. SU seems to be more intuitive to people that draw.

Originally posted by richie5126

Blender has a ton of trouble exporting 3ds. Typically, I just use it for rendering and baking. The construction interface, though, is much more powerful than OC, and I've been able to create highly complex models in it (that unfortunately, can't be exported into NL).

You can, just have to know how. NL doesn't support certain .3ds features such as animation, particle systems, physical properties and lighting. If I had the time I would dedicate to creating some form of documentation for this but that's probably not gonna happen.

Here's an example of using particle generation an weight paint to populate the highlighted area with stuff. Replace the particles with brushes and prepare for GPU raping.







Got my hands on MAX but also haven't gotten the time to build anything in NL anymore

I take it Blender can export smooth shading and shrinkwrap env. maps properly? This is crucial if I'm to make the transition from 3ds Max to Blender in an effort to not need to worry about licensing in the future.

I do hope there's a decent export pipeline for both Blender and 3ds Max that'll allow all of NL2's new engine capabilities to be utilized. 3ds format won't work for multi-texture systems and what not though. so it seems to be up to how well all 3 programs handle the .low format. Perhaps NL2 will support .ase later?