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I’m faced with a choice; I used to use Max a lot but it was many years ago (10+ ?), I think V2 was the last full copy I owned. I now want to get back into “proper” 3D modelling but am not sure whether to go back to Max or to learn Blender. Obviously the key point here is that Max comes with a substantial cost whereas Blender comes with none at all. Since I’m unlikely to be pushing the bleeding edge of animation, it seems to me that Max, while likely to be easier to pick up again and undoubtedly a market leader, may be overkill for my needs.

Any opinions?

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I made my first prints with max bacause the unit Setup is super easy. But with the measurelt Addon in blender i switched. I’m now much fester than in max. But i have to admit… CAD toold are unbeaten for creating 3d printing objects.

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Hey cobnut,

Ive had little experience with max but have become very good at using Blender. I started with basic software like Google Sketchup and lrogressed to Blender. Without experience of Max it would seem obvious that I’d advise Blender, but you can gain a lot from it. At first it can be confusing or complex to start, but there are loads of videos and support site ready to assist your modelling demands. If you do decide to use Blender I’d recommend searching for your basic tools that you’d use and only look into features as you need them. I made the mistake of trying to learn everything there is to know to begin with which left me unable to model the basics.

Choose Blender, research basic features and those you’d need and make notes about it. Once your comfortable with the software then begin to look into the other features

Hope this helps

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Thanks folks, it will be primarily 3D printing uses that I’ll put the chosen tool to, though there’s always a chance I might drift off into animation again, so would you say Blender is better for producing object files?

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Yeah, Blender is good for producing object files. There are also many windows for different purposes. There include modelling, game logic, animation and I think architecture is there as well. There are all part of your Blender application meaning it is easy for you to move on to animation.

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I would suggest Blender. And… If you think it will help… Check the User Preferences under the File menu. You can set it to respond to commands as if it were some other program. Here is an image showing some of the presets that exist (this is a composite image showing two drop-downs open at once):

Have fun with it.
BlenderPresetsMax.png

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Thanks RCole, I’ve not noticed that in Blender before, I’ll check it out. Sounds like there’s a lot of votes for Blender here, so I’ll give it go…

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