Which program???

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

Our school is currently considering buying a few liscences of a new 3d animation program for educational purposes. Since NaN is not selling any copies of Blender publisher (sob), and we already have a few copies of 3dMax4, we are considering:

XSI
Lightwave 7.0
Maya

I have looked at XSI, and it is an interesting program with many functions (it’s got my vote right now) for a reasonable price. For those of you who have never heard of XSI, it’s a fairly new Softimage package, and is known for the new Blockbuster commercials with the rabbit and the guinea pig. Maya is very specialized, so it likely isn’t a good program for an introduction into modelling and animation, plus its bloody expensive. Lightwave is a bit strange in it’s interface, but it seems to have withstood the trials of time and is still going (it also happens to be very inexpensive, 5 liscences for $1499). Which program do you think would be the best bet?

2

Not that I care that much for one or another but Maya’s price has gone down quite a lot lately and I really don’t think that you’ll find XSI at a cheaper price. Second, if anything, XSI is even more specialized than Maya.

3

LW 7 is less expensive than your other options and has a relativly easy-to-learn interfase. I took a look at LW and was able to start makeing things within a few minuts, took a look a Maya, I managed to make a messed up sphere after a half-hour of fiddling.