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Originally posted by blackhole:
**As for your question, I would recommend Cinema 4D, that's what I use when I am doing 3D modelling (no, I'm not making an EV plugin) and find it quite intuitive. It costs US$300 on academic discount, somewhere over US$1000 normally. Be prepared to spend several years learning the program before you get to EV:Nova quality. That goes for any 3D graphics program, they take a lot of learning.
I don't know EVNEW, but the EV:Nova bible is a good place to start when trying to understand everything. Open the Nova resources and look at how they're put together.
**
I found on a site that did an interesting review on 3D renderers that while most of the information is quite advanced, the bit at the end might help a bit (there was an image that I had posted that doesn't allow external linking, so I'm getting rid of it)
(url="http://"http://www.zaon.com/company/articles/3d_rendering.php")here(/url)
This will hopefully give you an idea of where to look for the high-end modeler/renderer for you. Of course, these all are very pricy programs, so it's best to get a demo first. Maya has Maya PLE, 3dsmax must have a demo too, XSI has the XSI Experience, Lightwave has a demo, Cinema 4D and Houdini I assume have demos as well. For mid-pricerange programs, there are Strata and Carrera. For something free, go for programs like Mechanisto, Blender, Wings 3D, and POV-Ray - These tend to be harder to learn, don't have as many features as the others, and usually don't use file formats that are easily compatible with the others.
I'm leaving Bryce out of my list because it really isn't a modelling program. From what I've seen, people work far too hard to make models in Bryce that they could easily have done in a cheaper modeller.
As for EVNEW, try reading the EV Nova Bible, it will tell you everything you need to know about what everything means. It won't tell you what to do with the information.
Matrix
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(This message has been edited by what_is_the_matrix (edited 03-11-2004).)