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I never heard of "soft selection".
Video tutorials are not my prefered method of learning. (Give me printed instructions, please. PDFs are just fine, thank you.) Ergo, what I can find classes in, or get to classes in so far have been Maya and ZBrush.
Both have educational versions, Maya's is free, but will time out on you. ZBrush is about 2/3 full price. Its limitation is that you aren't to build anything for sale with it. But for your own stuff...
Can't honestly say that I particularly *like* either. But I'm assuming the skills will transfer. (I swear, even though it probably never had anything to do with Metacreations, ZBrush has an interface that looks like it was designed by Kai Kraus.)
There is no such thing as easy. There is only the software you can figure out and use. Wings. I hear people say it's easy and I want to throw daggers at them. I hated it. It took me years to learn and understand ZBrush, but now that I do, I love it. There was not the number of tutorials available when I was first learning it. I hated Blender when I first tried it but had to use it. It changed UI with Blender 2.5 and all of a sudden, I understood it and now love it. I love things about Modo. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY.
When you hear someone tell you this or that is the easiest or best, remember it's a subjective opinion and based on their own experience. Your molecules make you different so YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY.
The one thing that can be true is that the more you understand a 3D program, the easier it can be when you try another, but YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY.
A good test of how well you understand 3D modeling is when you work in Blender and look at a tutorial for Maya and understand what they're doing enough to know how to do the same in Blender.
Being able to use what you make in Studio is a matter of understanding what Studio requires and making sure you work within those parameters in whatever 3D program you use.
Easiest 3d modelling software huh? IMO, it's definitely Blender!
It just clicks for me. I'm always pro-keyboard, shortcuts. I use keyboard much more than mouse.
I did give Hexagon, Carrara a try when I got them on sale and ... forget it, nightmare!
I think there's no answer for OP's question. Just try them all and find out what works for you.
I really envy those that can excel with Blender. I can model most any object in Max, Maya or even Rhino, but I can't figure out how to join primitives in Blender, LOL.
I hated Wings, too. I liked Silo, but the trial ran out before I'd had chance to finish testing it. I liked Metasequoia 3D enough to actually buy it and did make plenty of very basic things with it when I needed them, but the unreliable documentation (translated from the creator's Japanese and not all that well in places) and very small userbase eventually had me looking around for something else with a bit more support. Having already forked out for Metasequioa and trying to wring a bit more out of my usual budget of 'broke', I reluctantly turned to Blender. Again. Fully expecting failed Blender attempt MKVII, no one was more surprised than me when I almost immediately began to get it this time round and haven't looked back since. It's such a versatile program that I've yet to find anything it can't do, and someone out there who knows how to do it - unlike with Metasequioa there's scads of info and tutorials around. Not to mention a ton of useful addons too.
I agree with Cris in that what suits one of us won't suit another, and also that there is no such thing as easy. Even 'easiest' has quite a steep learning curve, and you're likely to outgrow that ease of use sooner or later. Once you're done with that you might find yourself wishing you'd saved yourself time - and maybe cash too - by biting the bullet and persevering with something that seems a bit trickier from the outset.
Might be more prudent to try one of the free modeling proggies first. Might like one and can't beat the price ;). Hate to see you pay money for something you end up hating. Personally, I despise Carrara....lol. But it does have a following. Silo also has a 30 day trial to see if you'll like it.
Laurie
Silo just released version 2.5 last month, it's great to see some progress on the program. The price is great, quite often on sale, and the learning curve if fairly easy, plus there are some really good tutorials for it on the site.
There is also these:
Nvil. Was started as VoidWorld and considered a replacement for Silo when it seemed the makers of Silo had lost interest in the program. It's very good and the creator is extremely dedicated and open to suggestion and listens to the users. It does however have a rather clunky interface even tho it works very well. There is a free version and a paid version. There is another version of it called Rocket 3F which also looks promising (in fact, I think I might try it myself). There are a couple versions of this one, and one of them is free so you can try before you buy. The interface looks cleaner and less "disjointed" than Nvil's does.
Edit: Just spent a few inside Rocket 3F and can report it's VERY easy...the UI makes logical sense, everything is in front of you, it's a subdivision modeler, has instances, arrays, splines and booleans, different selection modes, etc. Nice and full-featured, yet not overwhelming at all. The downside is that the free version, while a capable piece of software, is a real pain in the a$$ to set up and has to be connected to the internet and you must resubscribe every 30 days (though, you can do this indefinitely). As modelers go tho, it's cheap enough...about the same price as Silo. Also has bridges to KeyShot, MoI and 3D Coat (yay!).
Laurie
have you guys tried Moi3d?..in terms of simplicity I've never used anything like it,it has the simplest ui of any app I've seen...It's what I use for 'just for fun' modelling
Thank you for posting this! Can I ask you why you only use it for "just for fun" modelling? Why not for serious modelling?
ROTFL!!!!
Fauvist..might just be that i'm so familiar with 3dmax as that's what I use for work..so when just mucking around I can use something different and go at a different pace,it's the simplicity of the UI that makes it such a breeze to work in.
this is the UI http://www.k4icy.com/_art_3d_handle_final03.jpg
to get the most out of Moi you'd probably want some existing knowledge of 3d modelling,it's all boolean and nurbs based which is quite different to the standard poly modelling techniques most of us use.I've found it most impressive when doing hard surface objects.
if I were starting over and only needing a modeller I'd probably be looking into Modo.
I looked at Modo just now. It's really expensive. I'm just want to make models for myself - I don't make any money doing it - so I could probably never justify spending that much. Although - if was REALLY REALLY easy to learn how to use it - making models would be a breeze and I'd make a fortune. Moi3D looks great, but it's still $300 - so - maybe.
If cheap is the priority then probably Blender or Wings are worth looking into
Thanks for the advice! I'll look into those two.
Modo is the one that I find easiest to use but it is certainly not at the cheapest. It's one big problem though is that there is no UI scaling so on anything above a 1080 screen the text becomes increasingly tiny!
I would strongly suggest you stay away from expensive programs if you are just learning. Try the free programs, find something you like. Here is another one. http://www.formz.com/ . There quite a few tutorials on Youtube. Try the free version.
I started with anim8or (still available but not developed it seems). Very easy UI for box-modelling.
Then I tried Hexagon 2.0 - a step up in terms of power and also difficulty but still easy enough.
I tried blender a couple of times with the old UI and never got it to click. With the newer UI though and a couple of tuts I find it really easy - and if there's something you want to do but don't know, the community has lots of resources for finding out.
So try wings, try blender, then see what you want to do. The thing is, like anything else, you need to spend a bit of time getting to know it. Give it 20 minutes every day just doing simple things (rather than just an hour at the weekend) and it's amazing how quickly the muscle-memory kicks in.
The nice thing about Blender, aside from it being free, is that it can be used for making morphs, has physics for cloth, a particle system, animation, among many other things. Also, check out mCasual's threads as he's done many scripts for using Daz models etc, in Blender.
This is a good resource thread for Blender as well. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/8736/who-said-blender-was-hard/p1
...Modo used to be relatively affordable when I played with the demo, priced not much more than Photoshop. Again, back then it was primarily a modelling programme rather than a "does everything but make the coffee" application.
...the downside of Blender is its UI alone has a learning curve that is much steeper than Hexagon's, WIngs3D's, SIlo's or Carrara's. If you are a a beginner at moddelling, it is extremely frustrating to deal with (and in my view gets in the way of the learning process for modelling) which is why I gave up on it.
...nice, I'll have ot play wth it.
...I'd go with Wings3D. Not the best UI but far easier and less frustrating to deal with than Blender's
I've tried a few of the demo ones but I always come back to Silo. I find it easy to use.
Actually, with some of the scripting possible, you probably could get it to make coffee...now.
I started off with Carrara. Actually, I started off with Blender, but dumped that very quickly for something that didn't tie my brain in knots. Carrara served me very well for a good few years, and still does. It has the advantage that it can natively read .duf files as well as Poser files, and can also handle Genesis & Genesis 2 (and Genesis 3 with some effort and a third party plugin from another site). Carrara is a Daz product, and can often be got for $20 or less in the sales, with PC+ and stacking. (go for the 64 bit Pro version rather than Standard)
I've moved since to Modo, now that they have a subscription model. It's still &*%$ expensive, but it's like climbing into an Aston Martin after getting out of a Renault 11. Both will do the job at the end of the day. Big downside with Modo though (especially considering the price) is that you're restricted to a single machine and only one change allowed per year. So no bunging it on the laptop for the weekend.
Go with Nendo!
Stefan:
I love MOI3D, and play in it once in awhile (lifetime PLE), but I decided against purchase due to export topology. When I used the savable demo, everything that I exported I had to remesh, because of the grid structure topology (boarder edge anomalies). Other than that, it is an incredible modeling program with lots of support.
Silent Winter:
Anim8or has been recently updated with a revamped, updated "darkside" UI a few months ago, before anyone saw anything of Silo's recent update...
Nobody mentioned Autodesk Mudbox rather then Zbrush. Much more intuitive and you can subscribe to it for $10.00 a month or $80.00 a year.
I believe you can start and stop your subscription at anytime on the monthly basis.
If I can ever get my art income to stop skidding at 0, Mudbox is probably the product I'd most consider moving to.
The UI is pretty comprehensible and the price is incredibly reasonable.