3D Studio Max

3D Studio Max is a full fetured 3D graphics application developed by autodesk. 3DS Max runs on win32 and win64, to date it is in its 1oth version, caled 3DS Max 2008. It has strong modelling capabilites and a flexible plugin architexture. It is mostly used by video game developers, TV commercial and architectual visiual studions.

Cost $3,495.00

Blender

Blender is a free 3D animaion program. It can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulaing,non-linear editing and creating interactive 3D applications. Blender has a Feature set similar to other high-end programs like Maya and 3DS Max. Blender was used in the making of Spider Man 2 to make animatics for the story board department.

Cost $0.00

Rhino 3D

Rhinoceros 3D is a stand alone, Commercial NURBS based modelling tool originally developed as a plugin for Auto CAD. The Software is mostly used Industrial design, marine design, architecture, jewerley design, automoive design, multimeda and graphic design. There are several plugins avaliable including Flmingo, Bongo and Penguin which is also avaliable for CAD.

Cost $1,000.00

Bryce 3D

Bryce 3D is and animation, modeling and rendering program which specializes in fractal landscapes. Bryce Now in it’s 6th verion was originall made for macs but when the second verison was released it was ported to Windows. The Latest version now supports HDRi.

Cost $99.99

Vue

Vue Infinate is a professional level of E-on software’s Vue 3D which is a modeling program that aims to create realistic enviroments and landscapes. Vue Infinite which is now in its 6th version is used by the BBC, Walt Disney and boeing.

Cost $695

Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D, made by Maxon, is a high end cross platform 3D graphics application capable of procedural and polygon sub-division modeling, animating, lighting, texturing, and rendering. Cinema 4D is noted as being very easy to use and user friendly. The film Polar Express uses Cinema 4D and the ody paint feature.

Cost £1,200.00

Lightwave

Lightwave is a computer graphics program for 3d modelling, animating and rendering. The original program was ported to the AmigaOS, but in the mid 1990′s it was prorted to MAC and Windows. Lightwave was one of the first high profile industry standard 3D packages with a built in radiosity render engine. The program was utilized in 300, Sin City and Star Wars.

Cost $995.00

Shake

Shake is an image compositing program used in the post-production industry. Shake is produced by Apple and ported to MAC OS X and Linux. Shake produces visiual effects and digital compositing for film. It enables complex image processing sequencs made to be designed through the connection of effects “nodes” in a graphical interface. IN earlier versions shake was (v2) Shake was ported to Windows and Irix and cost around $10,000 per license. The newer version (4.1) was re-branded as a companion for FInal cut pro and subsequently the price dropped to $500. Shake has been used in ‘The lord of the Rings’ trilogy, ‘KIng Kong’ and war of the worlds. It has also been used in the Citeron adverts.

Swift 3D

Swift 3D is a tool used for making 3D vector and raster graphics. It intigrates with Adobe Flash. Swift 3D has been ported to Macintosh and Windows it is developed Electric rain and is in its 5th Version. Swift 3D costs around $30. Examples of work using swift 3D are ‘Tokyo plastic’s’ ‘Drum Machine’.

Houdini

Houdini is a high end 3D animation package developed by Side Effects Software. The diference between this and many other high end 3D packages is it has been designed as a procedural environment.

• Modelling
• Animation
• Particles
• Dynamics
• Lighting
• Rendering
• Volumetric’s
• Compositing
• Plugin Development

Similar to May, Houdini uses the popular Tcl/TK language and toolkit. Houdini also has it’s own CShell-like script language, HScript. Since version 9 Houdini offers Python script support. Houdini is bundled with its own production class renderer, Mantra, similar to Render-man in its application and scope. The bridge scene in X-Men 3 was done in Houdini 8. For the full Package of Houdini 9 (latest ver.) it would cost between $8000 and $10,000.

Modo

Modo, developed by Luxology, is an advanced polygon, modeling, animation, sculpting, 3D painting and rendering package. The program is ported to Windows and Mac’s and incorporates advanced features such as n-gons, 3D painting and edge waiting. For the latest package of Modo it will cost you around $1000.

MilkShape 3D

Milkshape 3D is a low-poly 3D modeling program. It is used primarily by people making modes for the game ‘Half-Life’. Due to efforts from its creator and community it is now able to be used to make models for a much larger amount of games, on the condition that there is an exporter available for the required file type. In total it has over 70 pre-set file formats. The package is open source and is available only for windows.

Carrara

Carrara is a general purpose modeling, animation and rendering package which is now owned and developed by DAZ 3D. Carrara is notable for its compatibility with other DAZ 3D programs like poser. It is also notable for it’s landscape generation tools and modelling features. The latest version costs around $600

TrueSpace

Truespace is a modeling, animation, render package. It features a plug-in architecture that allows the user to create tools to enhance the package. The latest version (7.5) features a real time renderer and costs around $600.

Microsoft X-box prototype show at SIGGRAPH 2000

Walking with dinosaurs released on UK television

Maya Ported to Macintosh

Mac OS-X introduced

• 2001

Side Effecs Houdini ported to Sun

AOL/Time Warner merge

Windows XP released

Final Fantasy, Monsters Inc, Harry Potter, A.I., Lord Of The Rings, Shrek, The Mummy Returns, Tomb Raider, Jurassic Park III, Perl Harbour and Planet Of the Apes released.

• 2002

HP and Compaq merge

• 2003

Atari goes out of business

• 2005

Abobe Purchases Macromedia

• 2006

Disney purches Pixar

Apple instigates the intel chip

AMD purcheses ATI technologies

Microsoft releases widows 3.0

• 1994

SGI and Nintendo team up to release the Nintendo 64

Windows 95 is developed

Linux 1.0 released

Facetraker used to create facial expressions in the game Super Mario

• 1995

Sony Playsation released

• 1996

Macromedia buys FutureSplash Animator from FutureWave technologies which later becomes flash

Windows 95 gets shipped

• 1996

Flash 1.0 released

Bryce 3D introduced

• 1998

Titanic becomes the highest grossing film in US history

Alias maya released

• 1999

Star Wars Episode I uses 66 digitally created characters compositioned with live action

Side Effects Houdini ported to linux

Toy Story 2, Stuart Little and fantasia are released.

Donkey Kong introduced by Nintendo. Hanna-Barbera, largest producer of animation in the U.S.,begins implementation of computer automation of animation process

• 1981

REYES renderer written at LucasFilm. Penguin Software (now Polarware) introduces the Complete Graphics System

• 1982

Tron released. Sun Microsystems founded .Skeleton Animation System (SAS) developed at CGRG at Ohio State .Adobe founded by John Warnock

• 1983

Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) introduced. Autodesk introduces first PC-based CAD software

• 1984

Wavefront Technologies is the first commercially available 3D software package

• 1985

Perlin’s noise functions introduced. PODA creature animation system developed by Girard and Maciejewski at Ohio State

• 1987

Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design founded at Ohio State

• 1988

Solid Texturing introduced

• 1989

mental ray renderer released

Watkins algorithum for visable sufaces was developedPascal programmig language developed by WirthPierre Bezier from Renault develops Bezier freeform curve representation.

• 1972

8-bit frame buffer developed by Dick Shoup at Xerox PARC.The video game, Pong, created by Atari.Graphics Symbiosis System (GRASS) developed at Ohio State by Tom DeFanti.

• 1973

Westworld’ (1973) was the first film to use digital image processing. John Whitney Junior and Gary Demos of Information International Incorporated created pixelated versions of motion photography to simulate the android’s vision.Richard Shoup creates the PARC raster displayPrinciples of Interactive Computer Graphics (Newman and Sproull) first comprehensive graphics textbook is published

• 1974

Future world the sequel to westworld uses 3G CGI

• 1975

Catmull curved surface rendering algorithmBill Gates starts MicrosoftAnima animation system developed at CGRG at Ohio State (Csuri)

• 1976

Jim Clark’s Hierarchical model for visible surface detectionEd Catmull develops “tweening” softwareJim Blinn develops reflectance and environment mapping

• 1977

Frank Crow introduces antialiasing

• 1978

1st CGI film title – SupermanBump mapping introduced
http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/tree/images/blinn-orange.jpg

• 1979

Disney produces The Black Hole using CGI for the opening

William Fetter of Boeing invents the term “computer craphics” in order to describe his new design methods.John Whitney Sr. founds Motion Graphics, Inc.

LISP was invented by John McCarthy whilst working for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• 1961

Steve russel , working for MIT creates the first computer game, Space wars, for the PDP-1.

• 1962

The Sketch pad system for interactive graphics was developed by Ivan Sutherland of Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Lincon abs

• 1963

Ivan Sutherland of MIT invents the Sketchpad.
http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/images/pages/ivan-sutherland_jpg.htmWilliam Fetter of Boeing creates “First Man” digital human for cockpit studies.

• 1964

Ruth Weiss introduces drawing software that performs hidden line elimination.Charles Csuri experimented with computer graphics technlogy. http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/profile/csuri/artworks/plot/plot9.html

• 1965

Charles Csuri begins creating computer animated films.

• 1966

Odyssey, home video game developed by Ralph Baer of Sanders Assoc., is 1st consumer CG product.IBM awards Artist-in-Residence to John Whitney, Sr.

Charles Csuri creates the first of example of computer generated representational animation called Hummingbird.

• 1968

The film “2001: a space oddesy” is released, John Whitney Sr. created the ‘into the monolith’ scene using a technique called slit scan.

• 1969

Ron becker creates the gensys animation system.

French mathematician Rene Descartes first developed the Cartesian coordinate system in 1637. He did so in an effort to merge algebra and Euclidean geometry. 

X and Y are the two axes commonly defined in the 2-dimensional Cartesian system.  

The Point where the two axes ( X and Y) is know as the origin. 

Early in the 19th century, the third dimension of measurement (z) was added,this axis is called the depth axis. It is this third axis that allows us to locate any point in three-dimensional space. 

59 units along the negative x-axis, 100 units along the positive y-axis and 50 units along the negative z-axis would be represented as :               (-59,100,-50)

Most 3D software applications give us multiple views of the coordinate system at the same time. In 3DSMax, these views based on the Cartesian coordinate system are called Viewports. The standard 3DSMax setup gives you 4 views;

•  
  • Top – X, Y plane
  • Front – X, Z plane
  • Left – Y, Z plane
  • Perspective – X, Y, Z plane

The Top front and left views are known as orthographic views viewports because they display 2 axis at the same time.