3D Max hardware and Plugins questions

I've become interested in purchasing 3D max R6. I was wondering what plug ins I should think of purchasing?

Suggestions for Video cards? System hardware?

Any good books on character animation aside from Video game characters (found that already).

 

Okay, in my opinion as a Max R6 owner I would have to say that the following are "must have" plugins (IMHO):

1. AfterBurn 3.1 (plugin for shading particles..Awesome)
2. FinalRender (Renderer)
3. DreamScape (terrain, sea surface, sky/sun/cloud creation plugin)

You can read about these (and purchase them) at www.turbosquid.com

Hope this helps

 

This is NOT much diff. than asking what application to get. I guess I'll have to add this to the forum FAQ also.

Just like everything it depends on you particular needs. Unless they are specific for an exact specific task you don't have to get any plugins. There is no particular video-card or system you have to get either. Any regular 3D-gaming card will work good. And these are as cheap as $50 bucks. As far as a system goes just get as much memory as you can afford, same with the cpu too. But if you have a budget and this is just to do some basic learning with then almost any pc would work. I still use an old Celeron system to run MAX and do rendering. So before you end up with a 1000 opinions here you really should figure out how to satisfy your needs.

Anybody have a link to a site that talks about the type of system you should get for diff. kinds of needs please share so I can just add that to the FAQ and refer these kinds of questions there in the future.

 

Well, first, did you download the 30 day trial of 3ds Max 6? It is the full version so you can see how it is.
Also as far as renderers go, 3ds Max 6 has a really good renderer with it, Mental Ray. But you might want to test it out and see if you even need a different renderer. As far as other plugins, Max can do everything you need the way it comes without plugins, but the plugins just make it a lot easier, so you might want to test it out and see if you even need any other plugins like Afterburn or anything else.

 

Sorry... I was thinking it and didn't type it.

Character Animation is what I want to use 3D max for.

 

You could just buy something like Kaydara's Motionbuilder. It'll do animation work, simple physics and particles, and render out too. But there's not modelling, texturing tools, etc. So again it depends on your needs. If you just want to learn animation you could do that. If you want to make your own stuff and animate it then you're in for alot of self-learning with MAX. I read a professional review on Motionbuilder that says it has a steep learning curve too. I think, like somebody else mentioned, you should try a demo of MAX out and play with it. Even if you had a goal to animate a simple cartoon like character or anything just to learn it would take you months to learn. If you are trying to make some type of high-quality product and build the environment, texture it, light it, do all the animation work, etc... you'll be on it for years. There's alot of diff. areas there you have to become proficient in. If you were working with other people who could do all of that stuff for you.. you could get Motionbuilder and learn just animating in a matter of weeks and months.

There are also some other products out there but I'm not sure if they are plugins or all stand-alone apps.. CAT (character animtion toolkit?) ACT (animation character toolkit?). They all have diff. features and pros/cons.