Programs/Applications for Models...

[JDWhyte]

What programs are good for making vanity items and weapons etc? I'm pretty fluent in Photoshop and didn't know what programs I could dive into for doing things such as skyboxes, player models, vanity items etc.. and thought I would ask what everyone is using to put together their stuff...

[SniperGoth]

I use almost exclusivelly Wings3d, since it's pretty damn easy to understand.
And i just started learning on how to make montain models on Blender.
Im also interested on skybox creation tools, if anyone has any suggestions.

[JDWhyte]

Thanks Snipey... I'd ask for links if I wasn't so fast to google it... I'll just grab them both and play around... I definitely am interested in skyboxes and textures though as I think I could make quite a bunch of new textures...

[SniperGoth]

Ah, and i use Xnormal for model baking.

[freezurbern]

One can use to make skyboxes. But be warned, you'll need to watch a few tutorials. It was hard for at first.

[unixfreak]

Blender is probably the best approach for models http://www.blender.org/

You'll have to export your model to either, MD3/MD5/OBJ/IQM (not sure of other formats) requiring a plugin;

MD5/MD3, the former typically used for animated mapmodels, the latter for static models
http://www.katsbits.com/tools/ (might need an older version of blender)

IQM typically used for the playermodels
http://sauerbraten.org/iqm/#

For vanity items you want to add a single "bone" to your model that is used as the anchor point.
Weapons are quite simple to make/export, but animating them for the hwep/reloading is another story.

[JDWhyte]

Thanks, Thanks, and Thanks! Appreciate the help.