Modelling/Animation Apps
Commerical
Maya - http://www.aliaswavefront.com - the workhorse for most productions.
houdini - http://www.sidefx.com/ - good for effects work.
Other apps to explore
Blender - http://www.blender3d.com/ not quite sure if its OSS, but they have released source.
- k3d - http://k3d.sourceforge.net/ has renderman output and a scripting interface via javascript.
- I looked at k3d many months ago, and decided not to use it. There were nice attempts all around at a framework that a full 3d app could be built, but (at least at that time) there was no scripting interface anywhere close to Maya has with MEL. --DrewP
2002/12/07 08:41 PST (via web):
blender is open source now ;)
2002/12/25 10:59 PST (via web):
I would like to point out that as of 12/2002, Perl and Python scripting extension projects are in development and should be available (in alpha release) by the beginning of 2003. Development in general on K-3D has ramped up considerably in the past couple of months, with a goal towards stability and extensibility.
2002/12/25 11:00 PST (via web):
Heh, the above comment refers to the K-3D modeller, if that wasn't clear. :-)