What's a good program to 3D model a computer

[DaJe]

I sometimes see 3D images here of potential computers and components. Any particular programs that you guys use to do that?

[Cevinzol]

google sketchUp (http://sketchup.google.com/index.html)... its free. we like free.

[ShadowSniper]

You could also use the 30 day trial for 3DS Max It's free, but a limited time.
Then theres also MilkShape, which is free http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/

[DaJe]

I don't know 3ds Max well enough to create a computer in it. Sure, some things like Photoshop I taught myself, and now have 3 years experience and am great with it. But for 3DS Max, I'll be taking some classes at a local college. Some will be the basics such as math, but I'll also take some courses such as the game design one. One of the things that course teaches is 3ds.

[Weasel_Net]

Maybe a strange suggestion but you could try "sketchup". It's not free and if you look at the tutorials you'll notice its mainly for architectural purposes but... with no experience at all it let me drawup my future home in 3d in 2 days time. The level of detail and scale was perfect, a complete house.
So a case mod should be possible. It's fun to use and delivers expert results.

Later on in the forum I noticed in the worklogs a url containing pc part plugins for sketchup.
http://scc.jazzle.co.uk/
so it's not so strange

[silverdemon]

I used ProEngineer, had to use it for university... it's a nice program if you can learn to work with it, which is a pain in the ass... nowadays I use Solidworks, also not for free, but SW works a lot better than ProEngineer, lets you make detailed renders in very little time...

[dgrmkrp]

I don't know 3ds Max well enough to create a computer in it. Sure, some things like Photoshop I taught myself, and now have 3 years experience and am great with it. But for 3DS Max, I'll be taking some classes at a local college. Some will be the basics such as math, but I'll also take some courses such as the game design one. One of the things that course teaches is 3ds.
what specialization would that be? and at what college? i wanted to follow this study-line, but there isn't a college around that has 3d courses..

also, i think the best programmes for mod work are 3dsmax (because i know how to do stuff in it) and solid works, which is perfect for metal works :D ;)
sketchup has some nice features.. i like the follow-me tool :) i don't use it, but i like it :)

[DaJe]

The college is CCRI (community college of rhode island). I plan on going there for a year or two, take many classes, then move onto MIT for a full 4 years.

www.ccri.edu


Here's the part about the game design (this one is actually an online course)

http://www.ccri.edu/lifelong/gatlin/index.shtml#Video_Game


And they have a whole bunch of other interesting ones, such as the Internet Design courses

http://www.ccri.edu/lifelong/gatlin/index.shtml#Internet_Design

[dgrmkrp]

10ks.. i'm checking them out.. it's a good thing those are online courses, as i'm not near rhode island..

[Razors Edge]

Lol wussies, I just suck it up and use photoshop. 6+ years of expirience I can make anything no there,2d 3d maybe even 4d 0_0

[dgrmkrp]

wow... dam! those courses are way to expensive.. i bet they teach u a lot.. but for that money i can buy a workstation, pay an internet provider and learn my ass off myself ;)
also.. i like 3dsmax becasue it is actually 4d :D i used it to do some airflow simulations for speaker cabinets.. just an example.. or i can see my fans in motion :)

[Weasel_Net]

anyone used 3dsmax and sketchup?? what's the preferred one?

[fragged]

sketchup is easy and free, view the online video's (about 20 minutes worth) and your off, i've had a little expreience with 3ds max to know that its targeted at higher detail work such as movie animation etc... sketchup is targeted at easy things, such as modelling concepts.

One thing I cant figure out about sketch up is how to change the defult from inches/feet to cm/meters, can anyone point me in the right direction for this

[Cevinzol]

One thing I cant figure out about sketch up is how to change the defult from inches/feet to cm/meters, can anyone point me in the right direction for this
Window -> Preferences -> Templates -> Centimeters.

[Chel]

I recomend SketchUp because its simple and comes with good tutorials.

[fragged]

Thanks for the help Cevinzol

Also, was talking to a mate on MSN and he linked me to this site http://scc.jazzle.co.uk/ its pretty useful when you cbf taking your computer apart just to find the dimensions of a hard drive etc... but not, not all hardware have static dimensions, for instance my *state of the art* DVD burner (2x, very early to the realease of DVDRW) is about 4 CM longer than a standard DVDRW because it has an added fan

So in short, dont cut your metals / woods / plastics etc before you do a final measurement