GameFlood - Forums - Search and Comment in the GameFlood forums to discuss games and game development.

I'm new on this site(great work designers) and i just want to ask is Maya used for modeling (if it isnt thats a lot of wasted time) or some other program and where can i download that program(s)?

Maya is made by a company called Autodesk, which also makes 3DS Max.  These are professional level tools, and will set you back around $350, I think.  Blender and Milkshape, if I'm not mistaken, are both free, and can help you learn some of the basics.

Thx. i have Maya 6.5 and i don't want to svitch on another program.
In what format should be models made for games and coul i post models of my weapons on this site or i must make them to work in real games?

  Would any modeler that exports .3ds also work? or is there a different file extension needed? (that might also depend on project, if im not mistaken)

For ease of use, I recommend Maya, and Modo.

The XSI Mod Tool, is a free version of the high-end animation package, XSI. 
The XSI UI is not as nice as Maya, but much nicer than many other 3D animation packages which cost real money.  Also, it has some nice animation tools.

I love 3ds Max and am loyal to it. It's expensive but totally worth the money. For those that can't afford 3ds Max (like me 2 years ago) I suggest Gmax, which is basically a crippled version of 3ds Max. There are several plugins and scripts available for it. For example, the SimCity4 building architect tool is designed solely for Gmax.

Milkshape (costs roughly $30) and is a useful tool for assigning vertices to their respective joints for Sims2 creations and for other games too. However, I find Milkshape doesn't have nearly the modelling capabilities that both Gmax and 3ds Max have.

A nice list:
map-craft forum post

I would suggest taking a look at Blender3d. It is free and quite powerful.
Free Blender training videos: Click Here

Totaly free and since the new version with scripting people have been making importing and exporting scripts  Anim8or.
Steve hasn't added animation or boning scripts but they are coming.

@ThePza:  $350 is actually a bit light when you consider that Maya and Max really cost thousands of dollars. Now  I use Autodesk Gmax (based on 3DS Max). It's rather an old program, but it's free and can cover most modding demands.

@pharseid379:  Gmax was discontinued, but it can still be obtained from sites like turbosquid.com.

   Thanks Starfire. I doodled around with Gmax once and I thought it was a very solid program. At the moment I'm modelling with GameSpace.

-phar

i used a 30 days trial-version of 3Ds Max and i think it's the best program for modeling you can find, it is easy to use, has many many functions and is used by many combines, but with a price of 5000€ it's the most expensive too and because of that it is impossible to use it for private tacks or you must get it on an illegal way
an alternative to 3Ds Max is GMax, it has the same handling as 3Ds Max and nearly as many functions as 3Ds
the worst thing on GMax is you can't render with it (make pictures, films....)
another alternative is blender, blender has as many functions as 3Ds Max and with some plugins you can also export your models into .3ds, but the handling is much harder than in 3Ds and you find less tutorials for blender as for  3Ds Max
My Opinion: if you only want to make models for games you should use GMax but if you want to make Pictures and little Films you have to use blender, but making models is also possible with blender

I use Blender, and I love it. People say it's hard to use, but I find that's not true. Just takes getting used to, like any 3D modeler. Very powerful, full of features, and totally free.

I'm using Blender now, and it seems ideally suited to modding, though not as powerful as Maya or Max.