[wimver]

My brother starts his own business (somewhere else than where I am, no competition

he has experience with 3d modeling, and DEFINITELY wants MW as output. so basically he can work with anything, and Mac or Windows is no issue, he uses both. he hasn't made a choice on which soft to buy, so he wonders what other people think, especially those MW users who have 2 or more modelers as input to MW and thus can say which one suits best for the job.
he will be mainly in product design, no animation, not much organic stuff, more technical and interiors.

LOTS of input please!!!

thanks

Wim

[glypticmax]

I use Rhino 4 and C4D 10, but mostly Rhino. Both offer speed, ease of use, good Forum support. Both have MW plugs, but I use Studio. Very easy to move my scenes into Studio.

Edit- Since adding TSplines to Rhino, I use C4D less. Also look at SpaceClaim to use in conjuction with Rhino. I do not have it.

[Bubbaloo]

...

[Maximus3D]

Who needs 3D Studio Crash when you can have Maxon Cinema 4D or a pure modeling application it's either Rhino and Moi3D for nurbs work and Luxology's Modo 302 for polymodeling. That's all you ever need to survive!

/ Max

[Bubbaloo]

..

[wimver]

please guys, don't spoil my thread...

also, I forgot to mention, it needs a smooth link with MW for animation.
so FormZ (which I use) is out...

Wim

[Maximus3D]

Hehe i knew you would reply to that Bubba. I'll probably upgrade my old C64 when hell freezes over.. hehe btw, C64 kicks butt compared to all other computers, maybe except for Amiga 500.

No wonder it never crashes for you Bubba, you have a much better computer than NASA could ever have.

/ Max

[Fernando Tella]

Looking at the Maxwell plug-ins list I would propose Rhino or Maya which have very strong plug-ins and also I think they deal well with accuracy plus free form modelling (though I don't use any of them).
(By the way... what's wrong with Formz and animation with Maxwell? I'm lately digging a bit in Formz but haven't reached animation yet)

[yanada]

Moi3D + Modo

[big K]

just to inform you wim, that juan said they are working on the formZ animation. have a look in the formZ section.

i am using formz and cinema by the way and am very happy with the combination.

i havn´t looked at rhino yet. still interested though.
modo is a nice package also. their material system needs to get used to. a complete different approach.

michael

[wimver]

Fernando,

animation is not supported (yet) by MW. they are working on it (dixit Juan) but not shure if they can support all functionality (like motion blur etc).

btw, did I put this thread in off-topic or has it been moved there? my intention was to put it in Maxwell Render...

Wim

[Becco_UK]

Cinema4D which also includes the excellent BodyPaint. Try the demo - http://www.maxon.net/pages/dyn_files/dy ... ome_e.html

The Cinema/Maxwell plugin, while far from perfect, is useable and supports motion blur.

[polynurb]

if product design is the target, I recommend a nurbs modeller as
a nurbs format is often needed for prototyping models;
only nurbs and solids meet the requirements for accurate technical drawings that are derived from 3d geometry.

budget wise I can point out Rhino and MoI.., but Rhino makes a good base package to start with, it has been around for a while and has many I/O formats; Mesh support and STL creation is also pretty decent by now.

I can also recommend T-Splines along with rhino, especially for product design;

It also depends a lot on the type of modelling he wants to do-

there are some SolidWorks people around, maybe they can point out the benefits of the true solid approach!

I would say MoI and Rhino are more for the concept/prototyping stage and the parametric stuff more for construction/production part of the designs,
so maybe sooner or later he might need both!

[wimver]

Thank you all so far for your most valuable input. Yet I hope more users add their experience thoughts.

I understand that MW developers cannot take a point of view here, but maybe they are willing to send me a private message about their experience? Tom maybe?

if I may make an intermediate conclusion, it seems that Rhino gets most votes... which might explain why this group of users has most entries in the rhino forum. or is it the other way around?

I wonder if there are any rhiino-maxwell animations online?

Keep posting!

tnx
wim

[wimver]

does rhino provide the same level of integration as what I can see in Mike Verta's video's with Maya? like interactive material changing and the like?