Wells are still common in many parts of India supplying clean and pure water to the masses. So why am I mentioning it here? Because this theme happened to be the first 3D scene I ever created in my life !
Behold, Google Sketch up. This is one of the coolest freeware(but not open source software) that I have come across in the last few months. You can download it for free from the Google sketch up site.
And for me the book “Google sketch up for Dummies” came in handy. Just within the 1 st hour of using this cool software, I was comfortable with moving around, zooming and creating various shapes and so on. By the way Google sketch up has a marvelous helper tool called “Instructor” (Window>Instructor)which provides really cool context sensitive help along the way.
The first shape that I created did not have any shape at all , a rather “modern art” style(no pun intended) Next was this “well”(depicted above) of course.
Its so special because, I always longed to create a game of my own using any programming language(preferably Java) but most of the time I was bogged down by the concept of creating 3D models of character – which seemed rather like an impossible dream to me.
Learning 3d studio max or Maya for that matter, just seemed impossible for me and I had almost given it up. But I think I can get my hands dirty again with some cool 3d Transformations!!!
As you mentioned about 3D games in Java, I remember you have always “encouraged” me in writing a a game in Java and I havent done it yet.But after seeing your Google Sketch up, i believe that you are going to make some serious stuff and I extend my full fledged support ( In da all the ways possible)