A couple questions...

What are some good programs in OSX that you guys use to make Models/Skins for games?
(other than of course, Maya and 3DSMax)

What programs do you use to port them to your games?
(1st and 3rd person games)

How code intensive it is?

Quote:Originally posted by ThrottleMonkey
A couple questions...

What are some good programs in OSX that you guys use to make Models/Skins for games?
(other than of course, Maya and 3DSMax)

What programs do you use to port them to your games?
(1st and 3rd person games)

How code intensive it is?

Ah, you must be new to Mac? Why do I ask because 3DS isn't for Mac only PC. You can use meshworks to make models on the Mac. Lighwave is good also!! Photoshop would be good for skins, I think Painter is for Mac also? I don't know of any Mac libraries that allow you to load 3D models up? e.g. .lwo, .3ds, .obj, .md2, .md3?? You are probably going to have to code your own loader and thats kind of advanced!! I think someone has started a .obj loader here on idevgames in the downloads section but not sure if its complete yet?

There's also Cinema4D, at http://www.maxon.net, which is more along the lines of Maya; high-end, high-poly modeler.
There's also Art of Illusion: http://www.artofillusion.org. It's free, open source and, unfortunately, Java. It runs terribly on my G3 iMac 500, but it is free and can work for low-poly.

Finally, unless I misunderstand, your best bet in terms of models is probably to export in DXF format, which is AFAIK fairly easy to load and is an open format.

dalamcd

There are lots of options for modeling (especially if you're wiling to spend a few bucks) I've got a little list of 3D free/shareware here, but nothing beats BodyPaint (from http://www.maxon.net/) for UV mapping/skinning (on the Mac anyway).

yes, i am a big supporter of Cinema 4d XL, very very nice program for high and low polygon modelling. And bodypaint is a holy entity.