Recommend a 3d modelling program

Soldato
Joined
11 Jun 2003
Posts
10,795
Location
Hampshire
Long story short most of the hobbies I enjoy I can no longer do, but I'm a chap who likes to keep busy. So I have a super cheap little PC project planned, and I'll need some 3d modelling to do it.

I'm looking for:
  • Free, or under £10 one off
  • Decent library of models
  • Healthy amount of tutorials online

It's also be nice if there was a PC community already behind the software.

My immediate thought was SketchUp, so before I take the plunge with that I thought I'd see if you clever chaps have any alternative suggestions.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
11 Jun 2003
Posts
10,795
Location
Hampshire
Yes. But it's open source and there's an enormous amount of resources online for learning it. Many game and animation studios donate to and use it.

Whilst it sounds excellent, it seems like this would be excessive for modelling a PC build no, especially given the initial difficulty?
 
Don
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
22,697
Location
Wargrave, UK
The learning curve for Fusion is quite gentle. I'd never touched any 3D modeling software before January last year. Now I'm building some quite complex systems with Fusion and building tool paths for my CNC machine etc.
And yes, they kind of hide that it's free for hobbyists.
 
Soldato
Joined
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UK
3ds Max. You used to be able to get a free copy for non-commercial use. Not sure if that's still the case though.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,821
Blender is obvious choice.

I dunno if it has changed in more recent versions but I found Blender kind of horrid to use (and I've used a lot of 3D modelling packages over the years). Not specific to Blender but I find most 3D design software to be pretty horrendous in implementation either making you go through wizard like steps repetitively even for basic tasks and/or having to go through 2-3 steps of advanced options whether you are trying to do something simple or advanced, etc. often with pertinent settings that control what you are doing hidden away 2-3 steps deep resulting in unexpected limitations/outcomes until you discover them, etc. etc.

Sketchup is reasonably good if you have limited experience and just want to throw around some basic shapes for things like case modding.
 
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