The world is 3D, so why isn’t your work? Here are two ways to work in 3D.

Today I have been really busy trying to keep my life together and still maintain a semblance of normality for my children. It’s tough when your next infusion of money is uncertain, and the regular bills still keep coming, there is also the uncertainty of should I stop that insurance policy that costs 100/month or will I have a job in the next two months or not. This is a situation that friends of mine face everyday, since they are independent contractors, construction contractors, or shop owners. How they deal with it I currently do not understand.

Enough of my moaning on to this days work, Graphics work that is. Today I introduce two programs that have helped me in the past, and have grown up very well. Both of theses programs are for creating 3D images, but are definitely not going to replace AutoCAD, or some other program that is used for CAD. These programs allow you to use triangles, polygons, surfaces or meshes to create a 3D image and then apply textures to the surface for a process called skinning, or texture mapping. Now for the first surprise Blender which can be found here, is written in Python! Don’t go into shock they provide a Windows installer for those like me who have no idea on how to setup a python based system. The other app is called 3D Misfits and can be found here. This application is more normal in that is written in C++, and the author provides a binary Windows Installer, as well as source code with compilation instructions.

3D Misfits also provides a plugin mechanism so that you can add your own Misfit to the mix, and create your own special twist. But of course you will be able to find plugins on the various community sites as well. Not everyone wants to deal with quaternions, or 4×4 matrix math, just to get a particular look. But if you have a special way of applying a texture, and don’t want to build a framework yourself just to debug, and show off your method then 3D Misfits is the shortest line to your goal. Blender does not appear to offer this capability.

A short list of features for 3D Misfits includes.

Create Skeleton, and animation of joints.

Grouping polygons, merging models into a single model, frame animations, and convert skeletal animations to frame animations.

A Short list of features for Blender includes.

NURB Surface (Nonuniform Rational B-Splines) based surfaces, animations, fast Catmull-Clark subdivision of surfaces, and metaballs. Blender provides a complete set of tools for post production as well. Diffuse Shaders, and Reflection maps. Frankly I have no idea what half of the list is about, what is UV Unwrapping?

If you work in 3D animation, 3D construction, and don’t need CAD capabilities then these applications will serve you very well, and can work on multiple platforms. Linux, OSX, and Windows can all feel the goodness of 3D imaging capabilities, and animations!

Blender

3D Misfits

K3D  From Chris Pirillo Picks !!!! Take a Look now thee are Windows Installers
[tags]microface, open source, 3D, Graphics[/tags]