Free Modeling Software Softimage Xsi 4.2 Mod Tool

lenbot

Jun 19 2006, 08:06 PM

Modeling software for free is hard to come by, it literally doesn't exist I don't think except for some really poor version's such as Milkshape but even that has some restrictions. If you want proffesional modeling software lets' face it yours going to have to spend atleast $500 or more on a decent package. Now if you want some restriction's but don't really care about exporting importing, you just want to model and get experience. Plus atleast have some models to show to potential employers I would recommend Softimage XSI 4.2 mod tool. Created for mod developers, this soft ware package offer's plenty of proffesional tools. It really is great, I love it. It's a bit tricky to get used to but softimage definatly has the right idea and will if not already leading the way in modeling creation. Valve software made Half life 2 using Softimage's XSI tools, the professional one of course but the dumbed down version is basically the same. You can even create models for a Half Life 2 game, but it has a 5000 polygon cap limit when exporting it to .smd. Though 5000 is more than enough to create a decent character. I believe only a few models in Half Life 2 go over that mark.

You can download this software free via there website
http://www.softimage.com/downloads/
simply in the drop down box select Mod Tool, and download the file that is 202mb. The site also has plenty of tutorials to help out potential future modelers and animators. Though you can purchase tutorials for XSI 5.0 I believe from http://www.3dtutorial.com/xsi.php?detail=26 . The are few limitations of course such as certian character rigging that might be avialable in 5.0 that's not avialable in the 4.2 but for the most part there is tons of stuff to learn.

Hope everyone who wants to learn how to model or animate proffesionally finds this helpfull.

cheers
-Lenbot

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unimatrix

Jun 20 2006, 03:31 AM

Um...Blender 3D...It's free, Opensource, and can produce professional quality results these days and getting better all the time. Yes, the program has a steep learning curve, but did I mention it's free. I think the DL size these days for Blender and the full version of Python 2.4.x is about 30MB. Python isn't a requirement, but highly recommended if your on Windows.

Plus take your pick of OS's, it works on everything but OSX Intel (there are some test builds available though).