3D Modelling Apps For Mac

[kelticwizard]

A very funny poster on another, (non-audio), website asked the following question. The fellow doesn't even know I'm passing the question along, but the guy is a laugh riot on that other site and I thought I would do him a favor. I know there is a lot of interest in Macs here. I realize this is a little unusual to do it this way.

Forgive me, I know this belongs in the tech forum, but there nobody will see it.

We have some artist-types here and I wonder if any of you use 3d apps. I have a Mac and have been playing with Cheetah3d & Cinema4d. Cheetah is cheaper, but it doesn't import stock file formats very well. The C4D interface looks as though Cheetah was emulating their design. Is C4d a good app to have?

My planned usage is just for design mock-ups of devices I'd like to advertise. Perhaps an animation or two. (The ability to use it as the CG app for film-video isn't out of the question though)

[lowpoke]

It's difficult to advise which application to go for until we know how much of a budget is being devoted to the exercise.

A good place to start however, is this site that shows everything that's available for the Mac. The nice thing about this info is it's broken into different sub categories like modelling, rendering, animation, textures etc. so you can instantly see each apps strengths and weaknesses.

I personally use Lightwave 3D. Although the learning curve is perhaps greater than some of the other options, the results can be well worth the effort required to master it. (However, I'd say that about most of the apps at the higher/more expensive end of the scale.)

[kelticwizard]

Certainly looks like a good place to start. Much obliged, I will pass this info along to him in the morning.

If anyone else has some specific favorites, (I admit he didn't go into detail on the specific application), feel free to post.

[planet10]

There is a wealth of 3D modeling software for the Mac. Cinema 4D is very capable, particularily for photorealistic work, and animation. Not so great if you need to get the data to an engineer.

This image was done in C4D (on an ancient LuxoLamp iMac by a local i've worked with)



Home

dave

[planet10]

Originally Posted by lowpoke

A good place to start however, is this site that shows everything that's available for the Mac.

Thanks for that. It is not a complete list thou. It is missing quite a few CAD oriented packages that are very capable at 3D, Vectorworks, ArchiCAD, and Architrion to name a few... this site may fill things in somewhat Architosh - Welcome to the #1 Mac CAD / 3D / AEC Website

dave