3D Modelling Tools

I have recently started working on a game, mostly inspired by Ikaruga and Sonic Colors, and I've been designing the assets and working on the design.

While I am a decent spriter, this game is going to have an aircraft ast one of its main graphical assets, and it's much more difficult for me to draw machinery and make it look good. Organic elements, being squishier, give me more of a margin of error when it comes to their presentation.

I would be more than capable of creating a static sprite, but I want to depict this aircraft rolling when it moves to the side. And that's where this goes beyond my skills. I don't get the same leeway I'm used to, and it's very easy to screw up the perspective.

I thought of a solution. It's one that ha been used many times before by other developers. Make a 3D model of your asset, then use that as a base for the sprites. By taking shots of it from all the angles I needed to complete the roll animation, I'd have a good guide.

Here's my problem. I have almost zero experience with 3D modelling. I don't know what I should use, and some of the programs I see seem complicated to use. Those of you who have more experience in this, could you please recommend a free program that is easy to learn and use?

P.S. - I took advantage of that insane offer DAZ did a while back, so if any of you want to say Hexagon, go ahead, I have it.

I can strongly recommend you blender from blender.org

It may seem complicated at first glance but thats only because its a very mighty tool, which you can do about everything you can imagine.

If you focus on learning modeling it should be very easy to get nice results quickly.

There might be more blender tutorials out there than for any other software and the community is great too.

try

blenderguru.com

blendercookie.com

blender.org/education-help/tutorials

for some proven basic tutorials.

+1 for blender. It is weapon.

you can take a look at this site and see if you like any of them: software4free.org/3d.html

You can also try google's sketchup.It's the easiest way of creating 3d models.The latest version has a dae export function so that you can import your models into daz3d.

Blender rules. At the first moment maybe a bit tricky to handle, but it`s worth it.

Just to say you use a magic word for me ... Ikagura ... so all dreamcast lovers like me will certainly help you to realise your project ;-p

It could take 6 months of dedicated work to lean a 3D modeling program. My suggestion is since you are a good spriter it would take you much less time to go the 2d route.

As a second thought why not make your game with simple graphics blocks and when it is done I am sure a 3d artist would add his skill to the final game.

In other words don't spend all your time to learn a complex 3d package (unless you just want to) when you are not at that point in your game.

But I want to know how to handle 3D. If I happen to land a job as an animator, I'm going to need those skills. I'm killing two birds with one stone.

Oh, and by the way, I've decided to go with Blender. It's not often that you see a free program of enough quality to compete with commercial packages.

Best of luck CyberDagger.

If you are going for a a job dealing with a 3d program most likely you will need to learn 3ds Max for video games, or Maya for video. There are student discounts for both of the packages. But Blender is a nice way to get your feet wet. Though it's interface is very different may not help you lean other 3d programs. That said Blended is a very nice package and you can make video games with its built in scripting language.

Also if you are planing to go to school for game creation the first 2 semesters will include heavy pencil and paper drawing. So start to practice now.