Hacker News Reader

Comment by CyberShadow | Hacker News Reader

Question from someone completely unfamiliar with this domain - when would you choose to use this instead of Blender?

Speedy and intuitive workflow are important for 3D modelers. I had a coworker who swore by a $100 modeler called Silo because he hated modeling in Maya. Blender’s modeling workflow can often be...cumbersome as well.

I learned to 3D model with MilkShape3D, which was popular for making quake and halflife characters back in the day. I have bounced off blender a few times, I just can't grok the UI/workflow.

Milkshape! I loved that software. It was so intuitive for me. I was hoping clicking this link it’d look more like MS3D and less like blender… and I think it does. I’ll have to download and give it a try

There is also MM3D (Maverick Model 3D).[0,1]

[0] https://clover.moe/mm3d/

[1] https://github.com/zturtleman/mm3d/

I played around in Art of Illusion, it has quite sophisticated features and the help system/documentation was useful for getting started: http://artofillusion.org/

Bryce 3D is another tool that comes to mind with a UI that is easy to grasp, but more for generating awesome raytraced landscapes and floating mirror cubes :)

I couldn't grok it either until I found this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jHUY3qoBu8

I used to do hobby modeling with Wings3D http://www.wings3d.com/. The closest I can describe its UI was the Vim of 3D modeling software.

Wings3D's UI workflow is really nice for 3D mesh modeling (it was actually inspired by the Symbolics 3D animation system [1]).

Blender feels very cumbersome when you learned 3D modeling with Wings.

It's really unfortunate that they chose to implement it in a language (ERLANG) that severely limits the number of people that can contribute to the software, and as a result, the development of Wings sort of stagnates.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV5obrYaogU

Probably never, the purpose of this project is likely to learn how to build a 3D modeling software not to build an actual useful one.

Hi. I'm actually the creator of Gloss3D. It is true it started as a way to learn how to build a 3D modelling tool, but the ultimate goal was also to provide a full software package (modelling/animation/rendering) with its own community of users.In short, an easy alternative to Blender. I'm working alone on this project, so that's a loooong process. Feel free to join the team however :).

Blender is an abomination. I uninstalled it year ago and swore to never use it again (for mental health reasons). I'm hobbyist 3d modeler, I can afford not to have blender installed. I use mm3d daily and occasionally wings3d. Both are in Ubuntu repo. Using blender made me angry, even starting blender made me angry. Using mm3d makes me happy, it would be nice if it had more features and supported more formats but it's good enough for what I do.

Um...okay. Meanwhile the entire 3D world moves forward and uses Blender on a daily basis in professional and non-professional areas.

Blender when it first came out was pretty bad, interface wise. Now it's one of the best out there...bar none. But hey, you're a hobbyist. Use what you want.

It does answer your question why you would use one over the other: because of irrational non sequiturs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com