I'm a graphic designer (InDesign, Photoshop, After Effects) who wants to be able to use 3D imagery in my work but I have little to no interest in modelling things myself. I'm very interested in animating in 3D space and playing with lights and cameras. No supercomplicated Pixar-like stuff (no characters), just moving around still (buildings etc) or almost still (flowers etc.) objects. For instance: right now I need to make an animation of some playing cards flying/falling away from the camera. I want to do this in 3D space and would like to be able to 'bend' the cards to exaggerate the movement. Is it possible for me to buy a stock 3D model of a playing card somewhere (where?) and add my own design to them? What 3D software would be most suitable for my purposes? I'm thinking it might be wise to pick the software that has the most enthusiastic modelsharing community...
posted on May 31, 2008 - 4 answers

Is anyone aware of a general-purpose 3D renderer built with Flash? Sort of like a Flash version of those VRML plugins that were all the rage in 1997, only without the suck? I'm creating a browser game, and I'd like the main viewport to display 3D images. I could render images on the server and feed them to the client, but the demand on server CPU and bandwidth would be prohibitive. I'd love to find a client-side solution. [more inside]
posted on May 18, 2008 - 6 answers

A couple of years ago for an art project I made a couple of four foot long geckos out of conduit and fence wire. It was a lot of work and the end result, while pleasing, wasn't quite as finished looking as I would have hoped. I got the idea from looking at beaded wire frame animal shapes you can see for sale in artsy stores. How can I make a frame for animal shapes that represents the original more accurately with less guesswork? [more inside]
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - 2 answers

3D cross section software? is there such a thing? [more inside]
posted on Mar 17, 2008 - 9 answers

Simple 3D and 3D Text Plug-ins or Apps? [more inside]
posted on Mar 1, 2008 - 2 answers

Photographs → 3D Model of Landscape? I've seen software demos of 3D information extrapolated from photographs — so how can I use this tech to map my house-on-a-hillside into a relatively accurate Sketchup 3D model? [more inside]
posted on Feb 24, 2008 - 8 answers

Fractal creation/generation within Maya? [more inside]
posted on Feb 7, 2008 - 2 answers

A non-technical friend has some CAD drawings of a widget he's making. He wants to make pretty pictures (renderings?) of the widget, with a background, texture, that kind of thing. [more inside]
posted on Feb 7, 2008 - 12 answers

Does anyone have experience using DirectX in a server-side application? Is it practical? If not, what alternatives are there? [more inside]
posted on Jan 4, 2008 - 10 answers

A few years ago I came across some cool OpenGL 3D physics demo programs. Basically, they gave you a surface with various objects on it, and you could click and drag the objects around, and watch them bounce into other objects - knock down bowling pins, roll along the floor, all that stuff. I want to find them again, or possibly something much cooler or newer - any ideas? [more inside]
posted on Dec 26, 2007 - 5 answers

Disneyworld Epcot's "The Seas with Nemo & Friends" ride: Near the end of the ride, as we travel by in our clamshell wagons, we look through a large window to see various animated Nemo characters projected in 3D into an actual fishtank containing living, respiring denizens of the deep. How did they create that illusion? The illusion doesn't seem to falter with the changing viewing angle of the moving wagon.
posted on Oct 25, 2007 - 4 answers

Recommendations for college-level digital art course : video on the industry/creative processes of 3-D animation? [more inside]
posted on Oct 21, 2007 - 4 answers

Please help me learn a few simple techniques in Blender. Including outputting an animation to video. [more inside]
posted on Oct 4, 2007 - 1 answers

Neeerrrrrrrrdfilter: I want to play Bioshock. Help me find the most economical way to upgrade my video hardware so that it will run the game satisfactorily. [more inside]
posted on Aug 22, 2007 - 20 answers

How can I learn Maya in two months? [more inside]
posted on Jul 10, 2007 - 15 answers

I have been tasked with creating a virtual walkthrough of an existing space, using some sort of 360º panoramas, with zooming, maybe audio. I am of familiar with QTVR and, VRML, and have heard of X3D, but wonder what the state of the art is for this kind of thing. [more inside]
posted on May 30, 2007 - 5 answers

What 3D Projection Systems Are Movie Theaters Likely to Install? [more inside]
posted on May 15, 2007 - 6 answers

Given a three dimensional triangular mesh M, composed of irregularly sized triangles, is there a program, plugin¹ or algorithm that will create a new mesh M' with the same overall shape as M but with regularly sized triangles (i.e.:all triangles having similar sizes)? 1: For 3dsMax, Rhino, etc. [more inside]
posted on May 15, 2007 - 8 answers

3D Trig question: I have a 2D square in 3D space (a Face). I know the positions of the four corner vertices in form x,y,z. How do I calculate the rotation in degrees (Euler angles) as relative from the center of the face? I want to end up with degrees of rotations around x-axis,y-axis,z-axis. Bonus if you can write it in pseudocode.
posted on May 9, 2007 - 7 answers

How do I get into 3D animation? Should I go back to school or can I teach myself? [more inside]
posted on May 3, 2007 - 11 answers

PC performance issues. 1) Is it a good idea to fill up all 3 of my DIMM slots, when my motherboard manual says that the max speed will be DDR 200 instead of DDR 400? The motherboard is an ASUS K8V SE Deluxe. 2) How do I best identify the bottlenecked hardware component that's causing framerate jerkiness e.g. when playing Oblivion (e.g. RAM, processor, AGP card)?
posted on Apr 26, 2007 - 14 answers

I do not know the first thing about 3D animation. help! [more inside]
posted on Apr 4, 2007 - 18 answers

3D Video Project: I am trying to work in three dimensional video just like people do 3D photos. Any advice? [more inside]
posted on Apr 2, 2007 - 4 answers

Astronomy-n00b question: Let's say I wanted to make a somewhat accurate 3D model of the major visible stars of the Pleiades cluster (say for, oh, i dunno.. an art project?). How would I go about acquiring the appropriate data? [more inside]
posted on Mar 2, 2007 - 6 answers

LegacyVideoCard Filter: Can I get video drivers off of the other computer? (or do you know where to get them?) This is an ATI 3D Rage II+ . [more inside]
posted on Feb 23, 2007 - 7 answers

Does anyone know where the cow that appears about 2/3's of the way though this (otherwise crappy) YouTube video is from? My 3-year-old son absolutely loves it and I'd like to see if there's more from the same animation, or even by the same studio that produced it.
posted on Feb 16, 2007 - 5 answers

3D-filter I need to know if there is some sort of web plugin that can show full 3dsMax creations on the web. Spin, Zoom and Tag, more info after the link... [more inside]
posted on Jan 15, 2007 - 3 answers

How can I work out if a point x,y,z is contained by a cone ? [more inside]
posted on Jan 14, 2007 - 15 answers

Help me help my students design video games. [more inside]
posted on Jan 12, 2007 - 13 answers

How to create a real time 3D simulation of an industrial plant ? [more inside]
posted on Jan 1, 2007 - 10 answers

I want to teach myself 3d modeling and am looking for the easiest package to learn that is closest to Adobe Illustrator. [more inside]
posted on Dec 19, 2006 - 8 answers

In this collection of clips of Rube Goldberg machines for NHK's Pitagora Suichi, was CG animation used? [more inside]
posted on Dec 17, 2006 - 18 answers

[Beautiful Shipwreck Filter] Two or more years ago I saw an incredible high-res 3D rendering of a ghostly old shipwreck stranded on ice. I vaguely recall seeing the pic on an online forum for 3D artists and I recall many of their comments were simply "Wow." Trying to locate that image and have had no luck. (more hints inside) [more inside]
posted on Dec 7, 2006 - 9 answers

Help me create awesome 3D graphs/charts in OS X. [more inside]
posted on Oct 27, 2006 - 6 answers

Vector Geometry Filter: I'm working in matlab and need to transform a surface to match an arbitrary angle. I have the unit vector of the new normal (and the original normal is in the Z axis (0 0 1))...however i'm not sure how to rotate one normal to another (i know, i know, it sounds very simple really...) [more inside]
posted on Oct 23, 2006 - 5 answers

Where can I find old DirectX SDKs, or archives of the included samples? [more inside]
posted on Oct 15, 2006 - 2 answers

My girlfriend is looking to buy powerful laptop to use Autocad software on in it for work. Any suggestions? [more inside]
posted on Oct 9, 2006 - 15 answers

I am starting work on my MArch thesis that revolves around the development of 3 dimensional spatial analysis software (basically, Space Syntax in 3D). I am not sure yet what language to write it in. [more inside]
posted on Oct 8, 2006 - 6 answers

I can visualize complex 3D objects in my mind, and give them arbitrary rotations. Why can't I do long multiplication in my head? [more inside]
posted on Sep 1, 2006 - 21 answers

Best way to rotate an image or text into 3d space? [more inside]
posted on Aug 19, 2006 - 6 answers

Is there a 3D scanning service? [more inside]
posted on Aug 17, 2006 - 7 answers

My Windows 2003 PC with a Matrox Parhelia randomly hard-locks when I'm running any 3D application. Does anyone know what might be the cause? [more inside]
posted on Aug 7, 2006 - 9 answers

Can I grab the 3-D buildings from Google Earth and play with them in Google SketchUp? [more inside]
posted on Aug 2, 2006 - 3 answers

How do I convert a .ZGL (compressed binary) file to a .XGL (uncompressed ASCII) file?
posted on Jul 12, 2006 - 14 answers

Looking for a crash course in "lighting" as it applies to photography. [more inside]
posted on Jul 10, 2006 - 10 answers

Thinking about buying a NuView camcorder adapter (discontinued product, shoots interlaced 3D video) and I would like to see some content before I buy...if there's any way someone could point me to an MPEG/AVI/QT/any type of movie so I could watch/convert it, I'd greatly appreciate it.
posted on May 25, 2006 - 2 answers

Advice on digital asset management/version control for a baby Pixar? [more inside]
posted on May 5, 2006 - 9 answers

3dFilter: I'm interested in making a short 3d animation of a Martial Arts form (or kata). Not really sure how I'd do this. [more inside]
posted on Apr 28, 2006 - 7 answers

I'd like to learn basic 3-d modeling. Right now I have 3-d studio max r4. Are there any good online tutorials or guides that go over the basics. [more inside]
posted on Apr 25, 2006 - 6 answers

How would one create a web page showing a 3D rotating cube, with sides of the cube displaying arbitrary visitor-supplied images as their faces? [more inside]
posted on Apr 19, 2006 - 27 answers