[Jewelry making - Article 00372] - Re: [Orchid] Monarch CAD software

[John Donivan]

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>     While Maya and 3dmax are cool programs, there is reason most CAD
>     jewelers tend to use easier to the learn and more efficient to use
>     NURBS based program such as Rhino with or without TechGems or
>     Matrix. 

    There's a few parallel threads going on here....Maya and 3dsMax have
    been mentioned here lately a few times. Many people think they are
    equal in power, but I've heard Maya people say that they used Max
    until they ran up into it's limitations, and went to Maya. Maya has
    NURBS, polygon modeling and Poly sub-D modeling, which is pretty much
    where modeling is at, these days (The latest Catia has mesh modeling,
    but it's solids - very cool). It's all incredibly interesting. Maya
    is about as fascinating a program as you'll find, though it's
    difficult/complex to learn. The problem is also the interesting part
    - only 1/4 of Maya is modeling. The other 3/4 is animation and other
    things, which are of no use to a jeweler looking to make rings. You
    can make a ball, put a plane under it, make them both solid bodies,
    make the plane a collision object, insert a gravity field, and when
    you hit play the ball will drop onto the plane, all by itself. Cool,
    but I don't know what that would have to do with jewelry. It also
    does hair, fur, clothing, water and all manner of particle systems,
    and it's shader and render node system puts others to shame, plus it
    will take Renderman as a plugin - that's head and shoulders above the
    pack in rendering (Pixar). And it has a built in scripting language
    that is all powerful. That's not even getting into character rigging
    and keyframe animation, which it does exceedingly well. All of what
    I've said it can do it does in a very technical, very professional,
    and very learning-intensive way. It's really, really complex. All
    this means that if you have an interest in 3d graphics in general,
    sure, check it out - it's the Photoshop of the animation business
    (along with Photoshop itself and others), though it's 1000 times
    deeper than photoshop. If you're shopping for a solids modeling
    program to make jewelry with CAM, then no, it's certainly not going
    to fill your needs. 

    3d graphics sites with GREAT forums and GREAT galleries: 

    http://www.highend3d.com
    http://www.cgsociety.org

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com
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