How would you render a 3d image like this?

Duffman

I have a reasonable amount of experience with 2d design software but have never touched anything with a third dimension.

I was just curious to find out whether an image like this would be difficult for a someone like me to render and what tools might be used to achieve this kind of result.

Thanks. Here's the image:

5uspect

Theres a plethora of 3D apps that can do that fro you.
There's 3Ds Max, Maya (there's a free Personal Learning Edition) and even Google sketch up which has rendering plugins. Another free app is Blender which is quite good.

3D apps tend to be very messy and cluttered IMO. For a basic and intuitive CAD package I often use PTC Pro/Desktop. Its a light version of Pro/Engineer with a half decent basic rendering capability. Its parametric tho so its difficult to implement complex geometries like in Maya or Max where you can easily manipulate meshes.

So Pro/D could easily do the lamp post say but would give a less organic looking blobby man! Maya PLE and blender are the best options I'd say.

thegloriousend

From a beginners viewpoint I'd definitely go with Google Sketchup. The easiest 3D app by far. If however you are intending to primarily create organic forms then sketchup will not be for you. Blender, Modo or maya are excellent for organics, but much more difficult than Sketchup.

p

Sketchup is good fun to play with to get started, but it's not suitable for the above image. It's very basic and does architectural and geometric objects only.

I've used Cinema 4D before, and it's often recommended as a good tool that's a quite poerful, but has a decent learning curve. I certainly found it more intuitive coming from something like illustrator and other 2D apps. I think Maya etc... are more powerful, but the initial learning curve is quite high.

NeVeR

There is also 3DS max and Maya to design it in, But they are not cheap. Theres a free software called Blender, Have a look http://www.blender.org/

Hank_Scorpio

They is just basic shapes with just a bit of shading. You could redo those in minutes using Illustrator and the gradient mesh tool.

For full 3d effect and being able to rotate the angle you'd need a 3D application, like mentioned earlier.

But the basic drawing of it could be done in illustrator without too much hassle.

Setun

You could do that in Maya relatively easy, in terms of rendering I'd be using mental ray with final gather/global illumination checked on and play with a spotlight until you get the lighting effect you want. The geometry itself is very manageable though, could be done in blender if you want to go the freeware route. Maya is good to know if you want to get in with the industry though.

DenMan

Nice shapes I have to say. They look very much like moulded, sculptured characters. Try this program, I am using it at the moment. It is called ZBrush (from Pixologic)

http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/features/01_UI/