Hi all,
I just started to learn programming with the monkey engine. Really great stuff 
But now I also want to learn to model things to use in my 3d programming. I can start with blender (with HotBJ) or with 3ds max. I always thought that using one of the tools didn
Blender is free.
3d Max is expensive.
Easy decision, for me.
Both applications are feature rich. For pros, who have used 3d Max or other commercial tools for a long time, Blender is a bit strange to use, because the controls are different.
But for someone who just starts it will be no difference.
and for using and controlling the moddels in the engine?
There are many possible formats you can use to get your Blender-models into jme. You can even export your models as 3ds-files in Blender.
Actually I can only speak for the blender-side as I didn't use 3ds max since version 2.0!
Blender to start is not easy but there are soo much tutorials and the documentation is
for an opensource project just incredible. The most important is to do it step by step.
(I think this will be the same for 3ds max as well). Get comfortable with the interface and
and do some minor tutorials. Or have a look at some videotutorials.
As far as I know this was the first tutorial I did with blender! It explains a lot about the interface
how to model a small gingerbread and how to add some materials to it.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Your_First_Animation/1.A_static_Gingerbread_Man
And here (in part2) you see how to do a small animation
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Your_First_Animation/2.Animating_the_Gingerbread_Man
But caution: The tutorial is good but sadly the created model is because of that special kind of material not exportable with HottBJ. (Just using a default-material without stucci should do fine!)
Last Important is to learn how to use UV-Mapping for getting a texture on your model. For that just google around or have a look in the documentation…
e.g.:
http://biorust.com/index.php?page=tutorial_detail&tutid=85
Good luck and be welcome…
ttrocha said:
But caution: The tutorial is good but sadly the created model is because of that special kind of material not exportable with HottBJ. (Just using a default-material without stucci should do fine!)
not necessarily as of 2.44 or thereabouts u can bake procedurals to UV textures
Of course,…but if you only would have the knowledge of the tutorial, you don't know anything about baking if baked you need a uv-mapping as well… using standard-material was for me the fastest way to get gingerbread man exported.
ttrocha said:
Of course,...but if you only would have the knowledge of the tutorial, you don't know anything about baking if baked you need a uv-mapping as well.... using standard-material was for me the fastest way to get gingerbread man exported.
ok I get u, but I'll say this, for all the complaints of blender being unintuitive and hard...............and have my fear share of gripes too, it has what has to be the easiest uv-mapping work flow I have ever seen............but then, I only used max before and haven't actively since 7, I was able to turn from my criminal :D ways, when blender finally decided to include a control widget in 2.37 for modelling.
ttrocha said:
Of course,...but if you only would have the knowledge of the tutorial, you don't know anything about baking if baked you need a uv-mapping as well.... using standard-material was for me the fastest way to get gingerbread man exported.
Render baking is a very powerful feature, especially for games. Many advanced effects in Blender and 3Dsmax can only be created with many layered procedural textures which are not friendly for shaders.
In blender you create a UV map with 1 button click, then bake the diffuse color, normals, and specular color into 3 textures. I used this technique and the results are amazing.
HottBJ is well supported so if using Blender3D it will be a good choice.
However if you use a variety of tools (3ds, maya, blender, etc) you might want to consider Ogre3D Mesh.XML as it has exporters for all those tools and an importer for jME.