[Mitovo]

Hello,

So, I've been a Blender user for a while. Pretty comfortable with it, can create stuff fairly fast. Thing is, to me, it's turning into something of "everything and the kitchen sink", as they keep throwing more and more fancy tech into it. I need a screwdriver and a hammer, and Blender is giving me the entire 500 piece tool kit.

I'm looking for something leaner and more purpose-designed.Milkshape 3D is a lot closer to what I'm looking for, but it's outdated, is no longer updated, and a bit clunky and limited in its functionality. Also, it doesn't work with quads or ngons. Working with tris is kinda annoying to me, even if that's what everything reduces down to anyway.

Specifically, I'm looking for:
Good polygon modeling tools
Quad/Ngon support (or at least Quads)
Solid UV/Texture-mapping
Animation tools
A solid, intuitive Material system - preferably not node-based (I hate node-based systems)
Import/export support.for the more common formats (Collada, OBJ, etc)

Don't need a lot of extra whizbangs and doohickeys. Just something that I can model, texture, animate (if applicable) and export into T3D with.

Would love if someone branched off the current Blender, stripped out all the extra stuff and just made it a solid polygonal modeler with the above features. I don't expect that to happen, though.

If I need to do any kind of sculpting, I can do that in something like sculptris.

I'm fine with purchased software, but not in the $100s or $1000s.

I've tried Anim8or, AC3D and some other free or low-cost options that just don't quite cut it. Looked at Silo which is reasonably priced, but I'm not a fan of its interface, either. Perhaps there's some I'm not aware of.

Anyone know of any other possible options that fit my criteria? I'm okay if it goes a bit beyond what I listed, just not too much.

Any suggestions or ideas are appreciated!

[Duion]

Try his: https://dust3d.org/

[Mitovo]

Try his: https://dust3d.org/

Interesting looking tool.
It's like some hybrid of metaball and polygonal modeling. Looks like it needs a bit more refinement, though. The models come out a little rough looking.

Thanks for the suggestion, though. I hadn't seen that before.

[Duion]

It is still in beta, I'm just following it, did not use it myself yet, otherwise I can only recommend you to stick with Blender, it is the best tool, sure it is complex and hard to learn, but in the long run you will get the best results, I use it even for level design. Regarding paid software I have no experience, I don't even think they are better, but they often come with libraries of pre-build stuff, that may help you speed up development.
From experience I can say it took me 2 weeks to learn how to model a human character, unwrap it, texture it, rig it, animate it, create LOD, collision, set it up for the engine, create scripts and make it work flawlessly in the final game, I had prior experience in Blender, but not in character modeling, rigging, animating etc. Just to give you a rough time frame you can be expected to get the things done you want, it is a rough learning curve at first, but once you are done everything is much easier, so I can recommend just deal with it, use Blender and do it the old fashion way. You can use a model from Makehuman, Dust3D, a pre-made one or whatever as a base, so you don't have to create everything from scratch.

[Mitovo]

It is still in beta, I'm just following it, did not use it myself yet, otherwise I can only recommend you to stick with Blender, it is the best tool, sure it is complex and hard to learn, but in the long run you will get the best results, I use it even for level design. Regarding paid software I have no experience, I don't even think they are better, but they often come with libraries of pre-build stuff, that may help you speed up development.
From experience I can say it took me 2 weeks to learn how to model a human character, unwrap it, texture it, rig it, animate it, create LOD, collision, set it up for the engine, create scripts and make it work flawlessly in the final game, I had prior experience in Blender, but not in character modeling, rigging, animating etc. Just to give you a rough time frame you can be expected to get the things done you want, it is a rough learning curve at first, but once you are done everything is much easier, so I can recommend just deal with it, use Blender and do it the old fashion way. You can use a model from Makehuman, Dust3D, a pre-made one or whatever as a base, so you don't have to create everything from scratch.

Yeah looks like I'll just be sticking to Blender. I've used it for a while now, since the pre-Open Source days. But I've never used it beyond a purely hobby level. Still, I've become used to it, am comfortable with many of the hotkeys, etc. Other lower-cost or free options out there are really pretty clunky.

It's not the end of the world for me to use Blender. Just was looking for something a bit leaner to work with.

[Bishop]

You can try Wings 3D.....but does not have animation tools.
....also 3D Crafter previously 3D Canvas and K-3D are interesting pieces of software.

[Mitovo]

You can try Wings 3D.....but does not have animation tools.
....also 3D Crafter previously 3D Canvas and K-3D are interesting pieces of software.

I gave Wings3D a go. It's a neat program, but it has some weird quirks that make it annoying to work with for me. Seen others do cool stuff with it.

I gave Hexagon3D another try. It's a solid modeler with some nice tools, but has a lot of stability problems. Will crash on you randomly while doing normal operations.

I've decided just to stick with Blender. Diving into 2.8 and getting used to the new setup.

[Jason Campbell]

Got to admit Blender 2.80 seems to make a lot more sense. In this case relearning will be welcomed.