#Building engines vs lightwave 3d software#
#Building engines vs lightwave 3d license#

The Blender community at large hates it, apparently, but it felt quite nice when I took it for a test drive a while back. We were using VRay for Max before switching over to Redshift.īryan Ray wrote:There is also a fork of Blender called Blender for Artists that makes the interface less idiosyncratic. On the CPU side, Arnold and VRay are the engines I have seen most often in production. If absolute physical accuracy is important to you, then Octane is out there, but it operates significantly differently from other renderers-experience gleaned from Arnold, Mental Ray or VRay isn't likely to transfer as easily to Octane I've never seen it used in production, but my experience is admittedly narrow. Max, Maya and Houdini have access to Redshift, which is an extra spend, but it's incredibly fast and production-proven. Blender has Cycles, which is pretty good and faster than most CPU renderers.

#Building engines vs lightwave 3d software#

I'd strongly consider GPU rendering options-it's just faster and cheaper on both the hardware and software end. If your primary interest is motion graphics, then Cinema 4D is a good choice.

#Building engines vs lightwave 3d license#

It also has an inexpensive Indie license for $99/year, but it's limited to HD resolution if I recall correctly. It's not a great modeler, and it's behind the curve as a character animation tool, but its node-based workflow is quite similar to Fusion. Houdini, again, is a good choice for procedural work.

A couple of ex-Lightwave users have also said that Modo makes modelling fun again, although it's limited in features in comparison to Maya and Blender. If you're independent or a hobbyist, then Blender's a fine choice. That would usually be Maya for generalists or Houdini for FX artists. The choice you make depends on a few factors:ĭo you intend to integrate with an established VFX pipeline? That is, do you expect at some point to work in a facility or need to use assets built in a facility? If so, then you'll want to learn something that's in use in the companies you want to work with/for. We use Max, but I couldn't recommend it at this point unless you're into architecture. Granted, though, I was evaluating it against my experience with the main Blender a few years earlier, so it might not have been a fair comparison. There is also a fork of Blender called Blender for Artists that makes the interface less idiosyncratic.