What are the odds...

[Kitiara]

...Of me being able to convince my manager and the IT Department that I really need 3D Studio Max for my work?

[Marz]

Well.....

:pope:

The magic pope smilie says....

"Most likely not..."

Stupid thing... *kicks the magic pope smilie..

The magic pope smilie says....

"Most definetly kind sir!"

That's better :)

[andr.in]

I think you should show 'em, some stuff you would be able to do with it!
I doubt it though...

[Kitiara]

Me neither, I've just seen the price of this thing. Three grand once you include VAT. Ouch! :o

[SureShot]

I thought you did mostly web Kitiara? From my experience, the files that you make with 3dStudio are pretty damn big....

[Kitiara]

I am web based, certainly... But I wouldn't mind being able to make 3D objects too. :)

Basically I'm in the process of designing a website for the Churchill Group, which has a whole load of little companies in it, as well as some big ones. We thought of the idea of making a jigsaw for the homepage, with each company having a piece of the jigsaw. Trouble is, I've been struggling to draw a 3D chunky jigsaw in Photoshop. <i>Really</i> struggling.

I've attached what I've done so far, and this has taken me literally hours...

If I could make the thing is a 3D program then grab it and convert it to a web based format.. I don't know. Seemed like a good idea at the time. :)

[SureShot]

that looks pretty damn good - but how about using swift 3d? thats a great little program for 3d flash animation. All you would have to do is draw the shapes in illustrator and import them to swift and then you can control the sizes and everything from there...

[eyeinfinitude]

Kit, I just looked at that jigsaw gif you created and that could easily be made with Swift3D which costs way less than 3D Studio Max. Maybe you can convince your company to get Swift3D if they won't get 3DMax for you. =)

EDIT: oops, I didn't realize that sureshot just said the same thing...hahaha :P

[lava]

hmm... what about solidworks? I've used that for some Mech Eng projects, and I'm sure you can get some student to buy it for you for student price...

[SureShot]

if you get a student to buy it for you at student pricing, you can never sell anything made with that product - unless you call the software delveloper, get a new licence and pay more money.

At least that's how it works with Adobe and Macromedia software.

[Ryall]

Good call sureshot.... glad someone pointed that out. Getting software cheap is one thing when you're talking about sitting at home being an "upcoming" designer, trying to start....blah, blah, etc. Once everything is corporate, those piracy laws (and educational software ones too) take on much more importance.

Peace

[.soulty]

you could even give 'plasma' a go, its basically 3dstudiomax for web.:smirk:

[mdipi]

kit that looks REALLY good! but yeah 3ds is really hefty. but why not try for C4D? its 995USD for R8, but cheaper if you go XLS...