3D yacht and scenery design software(s) recommendations requested

[BoatShowAddict]

I'm interested in designing/building a 3D yacht and of the ocean and shore line. Purely for personal reasons, just something I've wanted to do for quite some time. I want to know what would be the best program(s) for me to do this with. Hopefully I'll be able to walk through the vessel, come out on deck and look at the scenery. Any suggestions? As this is purely for fun I'm hoping for the program(s) to be very inexpensive, "Free". If you've got any, I would like to look at any scenery that anyone has created.

Thanks,
Don

[pavel915]

The best thing for you would be Rhino. Its price is not much only 995 usd.
But I think if you want good quality rendering then , that would not be inexpensive.
In my website, you can see some renderings of boats in ocean...

[BoatShowAddict]

Thanks Al-Amin

[ACuttle]

Your refering to a 3D visualisation? If your looking for something free then Google Sketch-up might be something good to start off with. It's pretty user friendly and geared towards people without a technical background.

Rhino is great but it is almost too powerful for a novice user and if you don't have a strong background can be quiet a steep learning curve. It also cost closer to the 3K mark last time I purchased any suites.

It also depend what end product you are looking for 'walk through the vessel, come out on deck and look at the scenery' - do you want to create an animation or an interactive scene? These are more involved actions and require a bit more thought.

I've got a fair bit of experience in these area so please ask if you've got any more questions.

[bhnautika]

Here is some free software other than what’s been mentioned for you to play with to get a feel for the things you want to do
Modelling:
freeship for boat design if you plan on building.
Mesh modelling for visuals.
Carrara
Hexagon
TrueSpace
Blender
The above can also do terrains but you can get dedicated software for these.
Terragen
Bryce
PE versions of Vue
Inter activity. Blender has a built in games engine others such as Irrlicht have the ability to import your own assets.
All mentioned software have a varying degrees of learning curve but most have a good on line community with tutorials.

[BoatShowAddict]

Drew, goggle sketch-up is just what I'm looking for right now, thanks..

Originally Posted by ACuttle

Your refering to a 3D visualisation? If your looking for something free then Google Sketch-up might be something good to start off with. It's pretty user friendly and geared towards people without a technical background.

Rhino is great but it is almost too powerful for a novice user and if you don't have a strong background can be quiet a steep learning curve. It also cost closer to the 3K mark last time I purchased any suites.

It also depend what end product you are looking for 'walk through the vessel, come out on deck and look at the scenery' - do you want to create an animation or an interactive scene? These are more involved actions and require a bit more thought.

I've got a fair bit of experience in these area so please ask if you've got any more questions.