3D Development Software

Unreal Editor
Is 3D Design sofware for ingame level creation, Unreal Ed normally comes bundled with the games that use it, such as Tom Clanceys Rainbow 6 :3 Raven Shield and Splinter Cell Chaos Thorery. Unreal Editor is a subtractive-based 3D level design software, this means that the start of a level in Unreal Ed is a large mass in which you use brushes that can be shaped like standard primitives like speres and cubes to hollow out a space to play on, put into simpler terms its like having a tree and cuting into it with various tools until you have a canoe or like making an ice sculpture. However this method of 3D Design makes it very difficult to make articulate shapes and geometry, to get round this problem Unreal Editor utilises CSG or Constructive Solid Geometry and the use of Static Meshes, CSG is where you use simple geometrical shapes to create a more complex one by a series of boolean options.

CSG examples

CSG Tree

Other level design sofware such as Qoole (The Level editor for the Quake series) use additive-based 3D this is much more what people expect where you start with nothing and build up, kind of like painting a picture, you start with a blank sheet and the more you put on the more complex it becomes.

3D Studio Max (pending)

LightWave 3D

LightWave is 3D design software created by NewTek, inc. Compared to other 3D software such as Unreal Editor it is very high end visually and technically. LightWave or LightWave 3D has been available to the public from 1994, although up until now this program would only run on the operating system Amiga, the newest version that came out in august last year features cross compatibility with many other operating systems such as Windows including the x64 of XP, the Apple Mac operating system Mac OSX and even Linux.
It was one of the First 3D software programs to feature the Radiosity render option with full caustics light render support as well as the standard scalene render .
(caustics is the end result of what light rays look like when they have been reflected or refracted through and object I.e. water, glass, or both.
Most of the processes that occur in LightWave use multi-threading, and it also comes with an integrated SDK or Software development kit and LScript, these can be used to make things compatible with consol game platforms or other operation systems similar to C, however only programmers are likely to understand how to use this tool.
LightWave was used for special effects in the films Star Wars, 300 and Sin City, it was also used for the special effects of many TV-series such as Star Trek Voyager, Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5.
Unlike other 3D programs like 3DSmax and Maya, LightWave is mad up of two separate programs each being dedicated to its own specific task. These two programs are Modeller for surface building and editing, and Layout for advanced lighting and animation.

General Requirements:
System RAM: 512 MB minimum requirement, 1 GB recommended
Graphics Card: nVidia FX 5200 series (minimum)
ATIFireGL V 5100 (minimum)

Graphics support: Full OpenGL (OpenGL 2.0 support, or ARB_shading_language_100 OpenGL
extension in earlier versions, required to use GLSL features)

Driver: Latest from chipset manufacturer
Dedicated Video RAM: 64 MB per display minimum requirement, 128 MB recommended
Minimum Screen Resolution: 1024×768 minimum requirement, 1280×1024 recommended
Hard Drive Space: 230 MB for program installation (not including content)

Price (Full version) LightWave 9 = £1000

3D World Studio

3D World Studio is designed by Leadwerks and when compared to LightWave is very simple. It is a Constructive Solid Geometry modeller (CSG) and was designed to be “easy to use” requiring very little in the ways of technical skills to get a decent result from the program. It is used mostly by modders and people from computer game companies to show concepts of levels and missions within a game environment. It is also used by Architects who need it for walkthroughs of potential new buildings.
CSG is a form of Intelligent geometry that uses shapes called Solids. CSG solids are simple convex objects, made out of intersecting coplanar faces.
Co planar is when all the vertices’ of a Face are along the same path, and Convex meaning that all the Faces in the shape point away from each other.

Download Price £40

Disk Price +Extras £60

Rhino 3D

Rhinoceros 3D (Rhino 3D) was developed by Robert McNeel & Associates, originally it was only a plug-in used for Autodesk’s AutoCAD program (CAD = Computer Aided Design) but is now a stand alone program, it specialises in NURBS modelling (Non-uniform rational B-spline) NURBS modelling is modelling with highly articulate curves and rounded surfaces. These curves are obtained by moving control points that act in the same fashion as Bezier Handles in 3DSmax.To buy the latest version of Rhino 3D (version 4) from scratch, it would cost you £600To update to Rhino 3D Version 4 from Rhino 3D Version 3, it would cost you £300 To purchase the Flamingo add-on that enables raytracing and radiosity within Rhino 3D would cost you an extra £350And to purchase Penguin, a non photorealistic renderer addon would also cost you an extra £150

So if you were really serious about Rhino 3D and you wanted all its capabilities it would cost you £1100 to buy from scratch or £800 to go from Version 3.

System requirementsPentium4, CoreDuo or higher processor (or equivalent AMD processor)

512MB RAMNVDIA graphics card. The GeForce consumer cards work well with Rhino, for heavy users we recommend the Quadro cards.Scrolling mouse

Rhino 4.0 runs only on Windows XP Pro, XP Home, Vista and Windows 2000.

Windows x64 is not supported and will not be until the required development tools and libraries are available.

Rhino will not run on Mac OSX, Linux or any other operating system