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loki74 · 02:15 PM

oops. silly me, not SDK, i mean IDE.

OK. I am crazy, overly ambitious, probably will crash and burn, but hey nobody ever got anywhere not trying...

Basically, I have not found an affordable 3D Modeling/Animation/Rendering software package that was built first on Mac. I don't use NURBS or Polys or Subdivs. I am still a beginner, and I use primarily the spline/patch modeling system which I've only seen in Hash Animation:Master, written on Windows and ported to Mac. It runs very poorly on Mac, and still has a crappy Windows interface.

I have had programming experience in the past, but my best thing is not coding, but interface design. I am an artist and less technical, so please bear with me.

I have REALBasic 2005, as well as Xcode 1.2. I am running OSX 10.3.9 Panther. I have heard on this forum that on Mac, its probably best to use Objective-C. From what I see, it looks like Obj-C is tied to Cocoa. Cocoa seems much more simple than Carbon, but there are some controls (namely scrollbars) that I cant seem to get to in Cocoa. Carbon looks very confusing/intimidating, and it doesnt seem to be object-oriented. I have never done something not object-oriented in my life...

REALBasic looks very cool, and is very familiar since I have only used VB6 and VB.net in the past. It's pretty easy to use, but I cant seem to specify mini or small controls except on buttons. hmm. Also since OpenGL is meant for C, I have to port it over (there are projects that I can download that do this) but I do not know if that will slow down the application, and in 3d stuff time is everything...

What is the best path? 3D Modeling, Animation, and Rendering, OpenGL-based. Primarily for Mac, but maybe one day port to Windows.

PBG4 User · Jul 1, 2005, 12:06 PM

Have you checked out Blender at all? www.blender3d.org <-- is the link. It's a completely open source 3D modeling/rendering/animation program that uses an OpenGL interface for easier portability between different OSs. The source code is available for you to peruse as well.

You might want to check that out. This was an open source project that produced a commercial product as well for a period of time then went back to being an open source project again.

loki74 · Jul 1, 2005, 02:07 PM

yeah I've seen blender... downloaded it for a while, but was very unimpressed w/ the interface. and as a fairlt n00b programmer, tacking that source code would be... ugh... very intimidating. but I'll take a second look at it

Gelfling · Jul 2, 2005, 03:55 AM

Perhaps not the best sort of project to tackle for a newbie. I'd imagine that a 3D modeling package (let alone rendering and animation!) would be chock full of very complex math.

loki74 · Jul 2, 2005, 02:57 PM

yeah math aint my strongsuit either... but I happen to have some "math geniuses" to fall back on. You know, the type of people who just... get it. But I really think I can do it. In REALbasic anyway. There are tons of OpenGL examples/tutorials out there, and if I make it an open-source project, that may help too. But im not sure if I will.

I guess this thread is kind of irrelevat, seeing as how I've kind of got my heart set on REALbasic

but if anyone here has good reason that I should change my mind, please tell me....

Millennium · Jul 3, 2005, 05:03 PM

Keep in mind, RealBASIC is not known for its performance, and performance is something you will need for rendering. You might be able to cheat with this a little bit by exporting to other renderers, but that has other problems, such as having to figure out file specifications in the first place. POV-Ray, for example, is probably going to be the easiest file format to implement, but that format is a programming language all its own, and you will have to be able to translate your program's objects into that language.