Your 3d toolbelt

So what's in your wallet? Deciding what tool to buy when you are getting started in incredibly frustrating if you don't already know what is out there. Want help? Two things can be plugged into a formula below to yield a perfect first tool.

Which of the areas above interests you the most right now?
How much you got?

Answers are broken down by budget. NOTE The amount you pay for a 3dtool is NOT equal to the amount of thrills you will get from the tool.

Nothing, nada zip

Fear not. Open source to the rescue! Tons of tools are available out there for free!

Meshing - Your keyboard is the oldest and most powerful mesher in the book. Two main languages come to mind: PovRay and VRML. Both offer open source ways to create shapes in 3d and render/look at them. VRML is especially nice because you can interact with the shapes you make. PovRay is fantastic for realistic photo-quality ray-tracing, shadows and more. You could make a full-length feature film with the PovRay renderer. However, no gui interface exists for shapes meaning all of your creative work will be done with a keyboard and typing. If you want a gui interface for free, maybe try out MilkShape 3D. I have not used it but it looks fun and you can't beat the price.

Posing - If you look hard, you should be able to download a free copy of Poser 3. Otherwise, VRML will let you pose shapes but it requires more programming than you may want. Also, the deeper in VRML you get the harder it is to take your work out of it and into another program you may want later. Bridging your work is crucial. Technically, any 3D polygon editor is a posing program in the sense that you can reshape your objects into different poses. But only Poser focuses solely on this craft. I think you can find Poser3 for free somewhere.

Landscapes - PovRay again. You can specify an image to turn into a mountain, add trees, clouds the works.

Physics - Again the scripting. VRML scripting looks like javascript. There is a builtin collision system in most VRML engines. Or you can override the engine with your own rules.

Birthday Gift Zone

If you are really good, maybe someone will spring for a tool for your birthday. If you are in this category. Here's some recommendations.

Meshing - Ideally you need a nice GUI program to help you edit meshes. A tool with the ability to select and move your vector points in realtime. The ability to create new faces with ease. Pull and twist and scale certain areas with ease. A meshing tool has gotta be in your bag if you are going to be a modeler. Sadly, i have yet to find a GUI mesh program in a birthday gift price range. I'm sure they are out there. Personaly, i went without a mesh program for a long time and dived into posing instead. All the while saving my money for the next step up from this one.

Posing - Perfect time to get Poser. I recommend Poser 4 ProPack but sadly, Curious Labs seems to only be selling Poser 5. I know have Poser 5 (as a birthday gift by the way). It is much more powerful than Poser4. My preference to Poser4 was specifically for postability reasons. I had a Max plugin which imported Poser4 files directly.

Landscapes - Bryce is a great gift. I wish i could say more about Bryce. I am only speaking from the art i have seen it produce.

Physics - Microsoft VisualC++ Your first industrial Power tool. Program your own world with physics. OpenGL and DirectX and two main ways to dive into 3d programming. Books are a must too.

Serious Investment

This is the OK, stop playing around, i want to work at Pixar someday category.

Meshing - Maya Unlimited (NOT Maya Complete!!!) $7,000.00 or StudioMax 7.0 $3,055.00 If you have either of these, you probably won't need anything else.

Posing - Keep a copy of Poser around for old-time sakes. Have fun trying to import your figures into One of the above programs. Do NOT buy the Reiss Studio tool!!!

Landscapes - Learn how to import your landscapes into your mesh tool

Physics - Explore the incredible world of Maya for realtime physics and dynamics rendering. Incredible to say the least.