Open source and free software are changing the software landscape. For doing 3D work, there are in fact free and low cost alternatives to expensive applications.
Here are some of the free or low cost equivalent
3DS Max, Maya alternative. There is only one that we can think of. And that is Blender 3D
Zbrush, Mudbox alternative. Sculptris is a very nice free alternative. Blender also have sculpting option
Texturing software alternative. GIMP can be a viable 2D texture creating software.
Landscape and terrain generator. Vue is the best of such software in the market. But we will recommend Carrara as a low cost but excellent alternative.
3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) software for mechanical design and engineering are usually very expensive. The high end ones include very capable but complex software systems such as Pro-engineer, Solid Edge and Catia. One of the most popular of this type of 3D engineering software is Solidworks.
In the realm of 3D Solid parametric CAD system, there is a capable system that is surprising lowcost. This 3D app is known as Alibre. Alibre comes in various versions with varying degree of complexity and power.
All this parametric 3D CAD systems can also create 2D Technical Drawing that are dynamically associated with their 3D model versions. That means to say, if you make changes to the 3D model, the 2D drawings associated with it will be updated accurately and automatically. That is so intelligent.
What is Carrara ? It is a relatively affordable 3D application that can be used for modeling, rendering and animation. There are two versions of Carrara: the Standard and the Pro edition.
Carrara has a reputation for being easy and intuitive to use. Despite, its ease of use, it pack quite a lot of features especially the Pro version. Carrara rendering engine is very good and can produce very nice images.
DAZ 3D, which is the producer of Carrara is running a sale of Carrara at a discounted rate for a limited time period. Carrara has a large list of features, you can check out the features from the DAZ 3D website.
This is a Blender 2.5 video introduction. Blender is a powerful free and open source 3D application. It can be used to created 3D models, renderings and animations. This software is often compare to great commercial 3D apps such as 3DS Max and Maya.
There is a sculpting 3D application that is the hot news of the computer graphics world. It works like Zbrush which is digital sculpting and painting software. This newly appearing 3D software is known as Sculptris.
The good news is that Sculptris is free but not open sourced. It is developed just by one brilliant developer.. Mr Tomas Petterson ..how amazing ! This program is said to be very intuitive to use. Many users say that they can quickly make shapes out.
Check out the video below to see what this program is capable of creating.
