Review of Cheetah3D

For many years, I've been an avid gamer and extremely interested in 3D graphics. When Unreal Tournament came out, I got my hands dirty with this first-person shooter's level editor. It was a bit of a learning curve, but for those who understand object oriented languages, the editor was simply a watered down interface to plug in variable values. It took me around 2 months, working off and on, to create a level that had two adjoined hallways. Each hallway represented our best and worst worlds, heaven and hell. There was a hand on each level. If your character jumped on the hand, it would raise you up, like an elevator, to a more devastating weapon. That was quite a few years ago, so now I'm back at it, but with a true 3D modeling application called Cheetah3D.

When I was creating my game level, I had to concentrate on weapon placement, polygon counts (for faster rendering of animations), sound, lighting, texture (those pictures placed onto objects in the room to make them look more real), spawn points (where enemies and players would "pop up") and much more. Cheetah3D isn't very different in its capabilities, other than the spawn points and sound. However, it is a great 3D application for modeling architecture, characters, furniture and more. There are many other 3D applications out there that either do as much if not more, but few are within the price range of a novice (think $500 to a few thousand on average). One exception is Blender, which is open source and a great competitor to many high-end 3D apps, such as 3D Studio Max and Maya.

So how does Cheetah stand out? Foremost is its ease of use and small learning curve. Blender can be a real beast for any novice to get a handle on. Sure, it's very powerful, but it also has way too many options that can take months to learn how to use and/or what they mean. Cheetah is also very powerful, but pushes a lot of advanced stuff out of view, such that you get a clean compiled interface. It literally took me a few days to figure out how to create a castle, with landscape, lighting and water. I also created glass effects and animations. I was so impressed with how quickly I pulled everything together (despite being rather amateur to what a trained 3D modeler can do). Putting this into perspective, I can honestly say that I didn't use any training references, at that time.

Of course, I was missing out without any training. As I began to learn some of the basics, I felt it was good idea to record what I was doing, so that I wouldn't forget. I now offer a range of training videos on my computer graphics site www.cgvertx.com and also at www.cgcookie.com. I am much better at modeling, texturing, lighting and animating with purpose than I was then. My portfolio can be found at www.guardpostonline.com/wp. Cheetah excels on value, as well.

At the time of this posting, you could pick up a copy of Cheetah3D for $99, which includes a free upgrade from version 4 to the near future release of version 5. Version 5 will carry with it a much more robust texture creation tool and quite a few other features. Cheetah may not be free, but for that price and what you get, it's a super great value! Please note that it is for the Apple mac only!! For an even more detailed review of Cheetah3D, please visit my review on www.epinions.com.