Help me find an older piece of 3-D design software
January 8, 2009 3:27 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for a piece of 3-D design software I used to play around with three or four years ago. It's been driving me nuts that I no longer can find it. It had some unique qualities that I will attempt describe.
It's not Bryce or any of the big name rendering engines. It had a 'free' version and a 'buy it' version. The free version wouldn't let you save your creations but was otherwise fully functional. The interface was fairly sophisticated, fun, very stable and easy to use. You could begin with a white sphere (as well as other shapes. The sphere looked like a planet made of alabaster or white marble. The sphere was already rendered with shadow. You could shape, twist and stretch this '3-D' sphere into wonderfully sculptural shapes. (That's what I want to use it for...conceptualizing sculpture.) You could poke a hole in the sphere to make it 'doughnut' or' tire shaped'. You could overlay sophisticated and included textures and colors that would wrap perfectly on the object including the rendered shadows. You could 'airbrush' your newly rendered creations. Does this sound familiar to anybody? There is a faint reminiscense that the software may have been called Copernica or Copernicus or something similar but not sure about that and searches come up empty. Thanks for any help.
It's not Bryce or any of the big name rendering engines. It had a 'free' version and a 'buy it' version. The free version wouldn't let you save your creations but was otherwise fully functional. The interface was fairly sophisticated, fun, very stable and easy to use. You could begin with a white sphere (as well as other shapes. The sphere looked like a planet made of alabaster or white marble. The sphere was already rendered with shadow. You could shape, twist and stretch this '3-D' sphere into wonderfully sculptural shapes. (That's what I want to use it for...conceptualizing sculpture.) You could poke a hole in the sphere to make it 'doughnut' or' tire shaped'. You could overlay sophisticated and included textures and colors that would wrap perfectly on the object including the rendered shadows. You could 'airbrush' your newly rendered creations. Does this sound familiar to anybody? There is a faint reminiscense that the software may have been called Copernica or Copernicus or something similar but not sure about that and searches come up empty. Thanks for any help.
Alias|WaveFront's Maya? Now owned by Autodesk. You can see a tutorial to compare interfaces here.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 3:43 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by mrbarrett.com at 3:43 PM on January 8, 2009
Best answer: It sounds like Amorphium [warning: small cg boobies] to me. There's a free download here.
posted by lekvar at 4:09 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by lekvar at 4:09 PM on January 8, 2009
Gotta be a NURBS program. Probably Maya, ZBrush or Rhino 3D
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:54 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:54 PM on January 8, 2009
Doesn't sound like Maya to me; does sound like subD modeling. Amorphium sounds like it might fit the bill.
posted by shino-boy at 5:30 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by shino-boy at 5:30 PM on January 8, 2009
!
Just noticed that Amorphium DOES NOT run on Mac OS 10.4 or 10.5. :(
posted by shino-boy at 5:36 PM on January 8, 2009
Just noticed that Amorphium DOES NOT run on Mac OS 10.4 or 10.5. :(
posted by shino-boy at 5:36 PM on January 8, 2009
Response by poster: Amorphium. Thank you! I was way off on the name... no wonder I couldn't recall. And it was probably almost ten years ago. A great help. Thank you again.
posted by Muirwylde at 6:13 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by Muirwylde at 6:13 PM on January 8, 2009
Response by poster: For those curious, the 'wax' feature is the one that I found so interesting. You can mold an object in real time as though modelling a lump of clay. Uniqueness of the product is defined more clearly on their page of reviews.
posted by Muirwylde at 6:35 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by Muirwylde at 6:35 PM on January 8, 2009
Maybe Blender? (It used to have a different name, but I'm blanking on what it was.)
posted by dejah420 at 6:44 PM on January 8, 2009
posted by dejah420 at 6:44 PM on January 8, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by eisenkr at 3:42 PM on January 8, 2009