FREE 3D Modeling & Animation Software
Blender gets a lot of real estate on this site, because its an amazing Software that performs so many functions. 3D Creation & Animation, Video Editing, Image & Video Compositing/VFX...& its even got a Game Engine. Blender's a challenging software to master because of its range & versatility, but well worth learning for Film Making & VFX. Its got a huge community of international users & supporters, & an abundance of tutorials & educational materials in every language. Blender is by far one of the most powerful & sophisticated programs around for 3D, Editing, VFX and Animation. Best of all, Blender is opensource & completely FREE.
FREE: For Architecture, Engineering & integration with Google Maps check out the popular Trimble 3D program Sketchup. http://www.sketchup.com
Makehuman is a FREE & opensource software used to create human figure models that can be modified with other 3D programs. Free Download at Makehuman.org : http://www.makehuman.org
Sculptris is a FREE software offered by Pixologic, the makers of ZBrush. Sculptris is intended to be an introductory software to digital sculpting. Sculptris lacks the animation & scene creation abilities of the more robust ZBrush, but it is an excelent software w/ a simple & intuitive UI that will allow you to create incredibly intricate & detailed 3D forms immediately. Sculptris is one of the best & most advanced 3D sculpting softwares available. These models can be exported & imported into other programs for further modification, rigging or animation. Check it out at Pixologic.com/sculptris : http://pixologic.com/sculptris/
MARI is a 3D Texture Painting software developed by The Foundry. It is one of the leading tools in the VFX industry & the non-commercial version can be downloaded for learning & private use here: https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/non-commercial/
AutoDesk is the maker of many Top Notch, Industry favorite 3D applications such as 3Ds Max, Auto CAD, Maya, & Mud Box. You can Download Free Trials of all of these programs and for extended use you have to look at their smaller Program 'Fusion 360' which has a free trial that can be extended indefinitely for hobbyist & non-commercial use. https://www.autodesk.com/solutions/3d-modeling-software
Clara.io is a web based application to create & render 3D models & scenes online. Register & use for free at: https://clara.io/
**25 Free 3D modeling softwares that should not be missed, brought to you by Hongkiat.com : http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/25-free-3d-modelling-applications-you-should-not-miss/
***Links by 'Thefreecountry.com" : http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/3d-graphics-software.shtml
Free 3D Graphics Software: Create 3D Content for Games, Videos, Film and Animation
- Anim8or (Windows)
Anim8or is a 3D modeling and character animation program that features a 3D modeler with built-in primitives like spheres, cylinders, platonic solids, etc, mesh-edit and subdivision, splines, extrusion, lathing, bevel and warps, support for TrueType fonts including 2D and 3D extruded text, the ability to import .3DS (3D Studio), .LWO (Lightwave) and .OBJ (Wavefront) object files, the ability to export .3DS files, a 3D object browser, morph targets, anti-aliased software renderer, the ability to output 3D scenes and animations to .AVI movie files or JPG and BMP images, texture support, OpenGL shaders for realistic previews, scripting language, plugins, etc. This is a Windows program.
- Art of Illusion (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc)
Art of Illusion is an open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. It features a grid view and a realtime display modes (wireframe, smooth, textured). It has primitives like sphere, cone, cube, curve, tube, triangle mesh, spline mesh. Other features include a mesh editor, distortion track for effects like bend, twist and shatter, a keyframe editor, textures, a scripting language, etc. The software can import 3D file formats like .obj, .dem, .dxf, .geo, .lwo, .pov, .inc, etc, and export .pov, .obj, VRML, etc. For 2D file formats, it can import .ai, svg, etc, and export .jpg, .bmp, .png, .tif, .hdr, etc. (The feature list is too long to put here. Please check out their site for more information.) Art of Illusion is a Java program and so it works on any system with a Java runtime, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
- Blender (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, etc)
Blender is a 3D content creation software that allows you to model, shade, animate (etc) interactive 3D objects. Among its modelling features are its support for polygon meshes, NURBS surfaces, bezier and B-spline curves, metaballs, vector fonts (TrueType, OpenType and PostScript), Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces, multi-resolution sculpting with 2D bitmap and 3D procedural brushes, modifier stack deformers (Lattice, Curve, Armature, Displace), mirror modifiers with middle vertices clipping and automatic deletion of inner faces), non-destructive real-time Boolean and Array modifiers, Python scripting access, etc. If you are creating games, it includes collision detection, dynamic simulation, a variety of shape types (including convex polyhedron, box, sphere, cone, cylinder, capsule, etc), support for vehicle dynamics, OpenGL lighting modes, playback of games and interactive 3D content without compiling or preprocessing, multi-layering of scenes for overlay interfaces, etc. There are also numerous features that support rigging, animation, rendering, shading, UV unwrapping, image and composition, physics and particles (particle system, fluid simulator, hair strands support, etc), and so on, which are too numerous to list. The software supports a wide variety of file formats, including, for 2D: TGA, JPG, PNG, OpenEXR, DPX, Cineon, Radiance HDR, Iris, SGI movie, IFF, AVI and Quicktime GIF, TIFF, PSD, MOV (Windows and OS X); and for 3D: 3D Studio, AC3D, COLLADA, DEC Object File Format, DirectX, Lightwave, MD2, Motion Capture, Nendo, OpenFlight, PLY, Pro Engineer, Radiosity, Raw Triangle, Softimage, STL, TrueSpace, VideoScape, VRML, VRML97, Wavefront, X3D Extensible 3D, xfig, etc. Platforms supported include Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X (PPC and Intel), Linux (i386), Linux (PPC), FreeBSD 5.4 (i386), SGI Irix 6.5, and Sun Solaris 2.8 (sparc). The suite is licensed under the GNU GPL (an open source licence).
- SketchUp Make (Windows, Mac OS X)
This software lets you create 3D models of whatever you want, such as your house, your city, the Earth, vehicles, etc. You can import 2D and 3D graphics in a variety of formats (DWG, 3DS, DXF, DEM, DDF, etc) as well as export 2D raster, KML, Collada and animation export. You cannot export 3D and 2D vector formats though. Other features include the ability to print single page views of your models, include real world context such as ariel photos and terrain for your models, etc. This software works on Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X (10.4 and above).
- K-3D: 3D Modeling and Animation Software (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, etc)
K-3D is a cross-platform 3D modelling and animation program that runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, and Solaris. and other Posix-type systems. It allows you to generate "motion-picture-quality animation" using RenderMan-compliant render engines (as defined by Pixar). You can create and edit documents in multiple realtime OpenGL solid, shaped, texture-mapped views, as well as model, animate, and interact with animations while they play back. Camera modes include pan and tilt, zoom, dolly, modelling and tripod. You can hide and unhide the geometry. Where modelling (US English: modeling) is concerned, 3D primitives like cone, circle, cushion, cylinder, disk, grid, paraboloid, polyhedron, sphere and torus are provided. You can apply boolean modelling operations, create duplicates without adding geometry to the scene, animate any value with an unlimited number of animation channels, script your work, do basic 2D compositing, etc. (See their feature list on the site for more information.) The software is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), an open source licence.
