Ever since I had an Amiga, way back in the early 90s/late 80s, I've dabbled with 3d modeling software. Like, I've always assumed, a large percentage of people, there's a whole lot of images and designs in my imagination that I'd like to reproduce in some form, both for my own purposes and to share with others.
Ever since I've had an Amiga, my dabbling with 3d modeling software has always lasted for about five minutes of increasingly frustrated manipulations of impenetrably constructed menus, impossible to visualise projections of 3d space, and badly constructed mouse interfaces, before I lose all patience and promise to never again attempt to do anything so foolish as to express my internal representations of things using what passes for an interface in this kind of software.
The only software package I've ever managed to actually last with is POVray - the interface is entirely based on mathematical primitives and programming via a text-based system, rather than the clumsy and unintuitive visual interface of the majority of packages, and I find that I can actually interact with this quite easily and intuitively. Unfortunately, POVray can't usefully map its mathematical primitives onto exportable formats that other 3d packages use, so this severely limits what I can do with it.
I have tremendous respect for all the people I know (two in particular) who seem to have no problems in producing exceptional art and models in 3d packages. I salute you, especially since I've tried using at least one of the packages in question, and managed little more than an unpleasantly spiky box...
(This post, thanks to my latest five minutes of unbearable frustration with Blender, the free open-source 3d modeling package which appears to have been designed by sadists.)
