I have been teaching 3D software to art & design students for some years.
As an introductory package I have used Modelshop extensively, but am now
switching to Alias Upfront (Alias Research, Toronto) which despite an
unfortunate
name is an excellent 3D surface modeller which produces shaded drawing very
fast
can generate cast shadows in seconds - you can place your model at any place
in
the world and at any time and date and generate flybys with ease.The package
can
export to most formats incl.renderman, and is extremely cheap (#75 UK)
Form Z is an excellent solid modeller but is polygon based with the rendering
limitations
this brings. If you want a complete spline based modeller, renderer, animation
programme
you should evaluate Presenter Pro (VIDI Inc.) which is 4 window based, like
infini D
(The others are single window) Hope this helps.
Best wishes
John Law
As an introductory package I have used Modelshop extensively, but am now
switching to Alias Upfront (Alias Research, Toronto) which despite an
unfortunate
name is an excellent 3D surface modeller which produces shaded drawing very
fast
can generate cast shadows in seconds - you can place your model at any place
in
the world and at any time and date and generate flybys with ease.The package
can
export to most formats incl.renderman, and is extremely cheap (#75 UK)
Form Z is an excellent solid modeller but is polygon based with the rendering
limitations
this brings. If you want a complete spline based modeller, renderer, animation
programme
you should evaluate Presenter Pro (VIDI Inc.) which is 4 window based, like
infini D
(The others are single window) Hope this helps.
Best wishes
John Law