Recommend a 3d modelling program

[WantoN]

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.

 

[WantoN]

Fusion360
Superb piece of software and is free for hobbyists. Tons of tutorials online.

Thanks mate, what's the learning curve like?

 

[WantoN]

Blender.

I've heard that's rather tricky to get to grips with initially?

All I'm after is to model a scratch build case, so I can generate appropriate drawings / dimensions for the parts. And fit-check my components.

 

[WantoN]

Says it’s only free for education.

This is what I've just come across, can't see a way I can use it.

 

[WantoN]

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?

 

[WantoN]

https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/fusion-360-for-hobbyists

Fusion 360 is available for free personal use for individuals who are:

• Using for personal projects outside of their primary employment.

You're a real gent, thank you mate. This looks superb so I'll give it a go and report back. Really appreciate the help thank you.

 

[WantoN]

I don't know how to use it myself, but I've seen a lot of PC builds modelled in Sketchup.

Thanks mate. I'll see how I get on with both, do a bit of research, and decide how to proceed.

Appreciate the support of the collective, thanks chaps!

 

[WantoN]

So everyone's clear on what I want to do:

• Recreate dimensions of watercooling gear
• Recreate dimensions of PC components
• Model a case for dimensions of scratch build

I don't need to faithfully recreate complex characters etc

 

[WantoN]

PS if you start using blender, 3dsmax etc then you'll never look at PC specs again the same and items like this will suddenly look very attractive

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...3200mhz-quad-channel-kit-black-my-4cj-cs.html

My days of lusting after hardware are over I'm afraid; 32gb will have to last me for the next decade

Appreciate everyone's input, thank you. For posterity, I'm downloading Fusion360 and I'll try it alongside SketchUp, I'll decide from there.

If something about the experience isn't satisfactory, I'll try Blender. Especially given @katie279 has good things to say about its latest release, and I'm a huge fan of OpenSource.

PC Building simulator, before you laugh have a look as it has workshop support and a load of mods on Nexus.

I'm not in the habit of laughing at anyone trying to be helpful, thanks mate. I don't have the funds to purchase a game at the moment, but it's certainly and interesting option if I struggle with the options provided.

 

[WantoN]

So a quick update. I've been watching SolidWorks Tutorials and it instantly clicked with me, the controls made perfect sense, in stark contrast to SketchUp.

So thanks for the recommendations, I'm going to focus on SolidWorks and see how I get on, will update accordingly.

Question: From reading Project Logs on Bit Tech, it seems people model in one program, export it to a common file type, and then render it in another program which applies the textures, lighting etc.

Is this right?

From what I can tell there was some discussion between Keyshot and PhotoView. If this is the case, is this something I should be looking into? Or is it more of a natural progression when you want to make things pretty?

 

[WantoN]

So a quick update. I've been watching SolidWorks Tutorials and it instantly clicked with me, the controls made perfect sense, in stark contrast to SketchUp.

So thanks for the recommendations, I'm going to focus on SolidWorks and see how I get on, will update accordingly.

Question: From reading Project Logs on Bit Tech, it seems people model in one program, export it to a common file type, and then render it in another program which applies the textures, lighting etc.

Is this right?

From what I can tell there was some discussion between Keyshot and PhotoView. If this is the case, is this something I should be looking into? Or is it more of a natural progression when you want to make things pretty?

I was being stupid here. I meant Fusion360!

Can anyone clarify on this rendering business?

 

[WantoN]

Yes, that's correct - fusion 360 leans towards modelling and simulation (cool stuff you can do in due course around simulating loads so you can see where stresses and weak points are).

Blender has a solid renderer if you want more photoreal looks - you can just export your model from 360 and import to a simple blender scene

Not saying you can do reasonable renders in 360, it's just not a geared towards it (bit like you can do tables of data in Word, but excel is much easier.... )

Thanks mate, much appreciated.

Been watching more 360 tutorials and I'm sold. Going to get it setup and model something basic.

Another vote for fusion 360.
There is a guy on YouTube called Lars Christensen who produces so amazing tutorials.

I've been watching his content. Thanks for the recommendation; some of the best tutorial work I've ever seen, really excellent stuff.

 

[WantoN]

Rather than start a new thread would Fusion 360 or Sketchup be recommended for designing some wood work projects? It looks a bit advanced when really I just want something to draw to scale and add measurements / angles etc.

Currently doing it in Illustrator but its not really designed for that.

I've found the 2d 'sketches' part of 360 to be excellent for drawings so far