MicrostockGroup

http://www.blender.org/

Someone who knows might take a look at this and tell me what you think of it. FREE is nice but like Irfanview, it may do basic editing but anything complex will be difficult?

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.

Could be what I need to tracing my simple graphics that are rasters, into vectors, but since I'm a photographer and clueless, it would be really nice if someone could see if it's functional. Also maybe others here would like to try it for their intro to 3D?

3dstudiomax, adobe photoshop, and poser, but I thought you said you only did photos, did I miss something there in your reply? Something up to date instead of the older versions of these, may be better?

The pig (latest batch) was a 3D model to start with, custom made to Spec.

No I don't know vectors, that why I was hoping someone who did could ascertain if this software was useful or just one more toy for the web.  

Since I keep reading how well illustrations sell I wanted to test if they actually do as well as the Mock-Stock I've been playing with.

I still use Elements for most of the photo work because I can't use most of the features of CS# for Editorial. It's kind of like the stamps. I had an idea, I worked up a way to make them different and isolated, I tried it... it's a flop. No market very few sales. It was interesting and now I've moved on to something new. After that I have another idea for a project. Keeps me entertained and amused. Can't decide... food porn or more isolations with the new light setup.

Got me, I'm still trying to be a photographer! LOL

Did the avatar with paint shop pro 6, animation wizard that comes with it. Haven't started that software in about 8 months. There's probably some GNU free software that does the same thing. Seems there's more of that coming around.

Thanks microstockphoto.co.uk I won't create another stupid reply. I think I have InkScape around here someplace and had some problems with the SGV conversions from rasters. Probably just me. It added gradients and tried to manage the shadows when converting to Vectors. I suspect the best way is start with the right format and software and I won't be causing all that trouble for myself.
 
 

If you have 3ds max there is no point in downloading blender, which won't do anything significant which Max won't and has the reputation of being hard to learn.

Almost all 3D modeling software will import vector files, but not the latest Illustrator files, just eps 10 usually. The 3D programs convert the vectors to polygons or to NURBS (if you have Maya or Rhino or MOI or some other NURBS modeling sofware). It is like the way that 3D programs import text (fonts being the same sort of thing as vectors).

Often the meshes created from imported vectors into 3D don't render very well, and forget about modifying the meshes very much, they will be very hard to work with using your normal Max tools.

If I were going to start in vectors, I would just download the trial version of Illustrator from Adobe, I think you can still do that for free. Virtually no one doing vectors for money uses anything else, although it is in many ways a piece of junk (like most Adobe software IMO). Illustrator has a 3D function which lets you use 3D-like rendering tools to add depth to your vectors. It's very buggy though, was never really supported in subsequent versions after it was added to Illustrator.  Still, I use it sometimes.

I often make vectors in Illustrator and import them into NURBS modeling software. It is like using Illustrator as a 3D modeling program.