It’s a free give away on a magazine this week. does anyone know anything about it? can it do stuff that zbrush can’t?
not really sure what you talking about… maybe you could let us know what the mag is called…
it’s in the current UK magazine DIGIT.
Amapi is a full 3D program. It was selling last year for $US 400. V6 has just been released. I know that it has been given quite good reviews in the past but I was wondering if anyone knows anything about it.
Or whether it would be useful to use with ZBrush.
Here are some
tutorials in the left hand corner.
Here’s some
more
I’ve had a chance to look at the amapi software and it seems pretty cool. it exports to dfx and seems to import well into zbrush. I’ve not used any other 3d other than zbrush but it is very different. On the solid object I drew a free form line and just extruded it. On the spirial I did a similar thing. It seems to be able to make complex primitives very quickly for import into zBrush.
Being a full working version at no charge, the price seems to be right.
i won a copy of amapi 6 in the renderosity holiday card contest, and i love it…that is, until i found my soulmate, ZBRUSH!!! 
i have only used it a little, since i’m very new to modelling, but i have had a look into many other modelling demos and i like it the best for the interface and ease of use…comes with a great manual and great support…hadn’t thought of using it to build prim’s for Z…after i fell in love with the Z, i uninstalled it…will have to reinstall to make some cool prim’s! 
It sucks not living in the UK right now. 
sigh
Well I’ve been able to produce some excellent primatives for use in zbrush really easily. It has opened up a whole new world. I’ve produced these typeface polymeshes instantaneously and imported straight into ZBrush for texturing.
Shinzaho
Perhaps you could get someone to buy the mag and post you the CD?
Actually, the bookstore up the block from work carries it, but I’ll have to wait about a month for that issue to come here.
i sure wish i could find a copy of that mag. I would love to try another 3d app. MY only experience is with Zbrush.
Theolonius, I’m curious…
I use Elefont for text objects…Sometimes I bring in a word, sometimes individual letters, depending on what the project requires…
Here are my questions.
:b2: When you say ‘Polymesh’, do you refer to the whole text string?
:b2: Have you used Elefont? If so, I would be interested in any advantages you found. Amapi looks pretty cool, and I would like to know how it compares for this function.
With Elefont, I choose a font, type my text, and save as DXF…What is the procedure with Amapi?
Thanks for starting an interesting thread, and if you haven’t tried Elefont, (also free), I would be glad if anyone else could answer this question…
(And FZ rules…!)
Hi Stonecutter.
As you know I’m not an experienced 3D user. I tried to download elephont once but it is only coded for PC, and I’m on a mac.
The samples I posted were typed directy into the program and downloaded as a DFX polymesh. It’s just a matter of selecting the type tool selecting a font and typing and saving.
When saving there is a checkbox for polymesh, and nurbs as well. But I don’t know what nurbs are. There’s also options to trianglulate n sided faces and kill coplanar surface. This is also greek to me! There are other options as well. It exports to about 23 formats including truespace, vrml, cinema 4d and heaps of others as well as importing from illustrator 3.0
If when I saved with or without polymesh I couldn’t tell the difference as the text came in as a string. I’m not actually sure what polymesh means. I thought that it meant that it kept the letters as one unit but maybe it means something else. Anyway this program is a very elaborate an fun program that looks like the perfect complement to ZBrush. I’d certainly get someone in the uk to buy the mag and post the CD. It seems to good to be true.
If there’s any tests you want me to try let me know, bearing in mind of course that I may not know how to. Did you see the links I posted earlier to their tutorials. They give a good description of what it can do. There is a good tut on making a shirt.
thelonious
is there any way i can get my hands on the software?
Thanks T!
(And you’re not alone…A lot of what you referred to sounds like Greek to me too!)
I didn’t know Elefont didn’t have a Mac version, but it sounds like Elefont and Amapi do very similar things, although Amapi does more…
Thanx for the clarification! 
Amapi is a very useful and easy to use to 3d program. It is not similar to Zbrush but it equally easy to use to produce complex models. It was made as a way of simplifing the modeling process of 3ds max and that is why it cooperates so well with 3dsmax. It mainly use poly-mesh modeling. Which means that you first create a low-polygon model wich the programs through the meshsmooth function it use it to produce a smother and much more detailed model automatically. I can not say exactly what these new version does ( because the last free version was v.4 if i am not mistaken, which i used for quite some time) but is an excellent idea to use it where Zbrush can not produce very good or eficient results. It can be combined with zbrush because it can export and import DXF files. Eventhough Zbrush is an excellent progam in some areas Amapi is much better. (Lighting , rendering, combining different models etc.) It was also the fist 3d program to be produced by a french company.
I use amapi V6 and I love it. V6 does obj import/export which allows it to work (Sortof) with poser models (it doesn’t import or export UV coords). Also it has nurbs. I’m currently working on this corset and boots in Amapi6 (this is a poser render):
I created thise in a totally un-zbrushlike fashion–most of what I’m working on involves building surfaces out of assorted profile lines. Extruding, sweeping, hulls, that kind of stuff. However Amapi also has primitives and pretty decent deformers, so I suppose you could do some of the stuff zbrush does with Amapi, but not so easily. I use the deformers for fitting the models to the poser figure but for fine detail work I don’t like them. And the claylike additive & subtractive modelling in zbrush is something I’ve only really seen before in (gaack) amorphium, which is a crash-happy pain in the butt.
Robin Wood did an excellent and very thorough review of Amapi version 6 over at Critical-Depth. You can read it here: http://www.critical-depth.com/Reviews/amapi6/amapi6-review.html
Oh and if you want 3d software that’s STILL made by a french company (Amapi’s company got bought out by the Carrara people), check out Vue D’Esprit landscape & rendering software at www.e-onsoftware.com. It’s nothing like zbrush OR amapi, though.
Mary
Thanks for the replies. I’m starting to learn Amapi 5 and it looks useful. I’ll wait till they bring out amapi 7, then 6 will be free
It must be 3D givaway time because 3D World has a full Free copy of Pixels 3D 3.7 which looks very powerful but this is a mac only app.
Not to be outdone I notice that Maya has release a free non comercial version of their $5,000 Software! available for windows or Mac OSX. This looks like the givaway of the year.
I also got the Amapi 5 free version. Do not expect Amapi 6 to be free also. In the past release 2 and 3 of Truspace was free but they no longer provide free versions. When a company gives free version is because they try to promote theri programs but when the programs become standard on the market then NO FREE version anymore.
The free version of Maya it might be free but i am not sure that is exactly the $5,000 package software. In the end nothing is free but that does not mean that amapi 5 is not a good software. However it will be some time till some persuade me to abandon Zbrush, hehehe 
Khlon,
As far as I’m concerned I see amapi as a handy adjunct to Z. For making quick primatives, not a replacement.
The maya software has a copyright symbol inserted and it can’t use plug ins other wise it is the full program. The point is that it gives 3D artists a chance to work with software that they could never afford, and learn new skills it is a groundbreaking move. Remember this is the software used by hollywood.
THELONIOUS,
ahh?? I see you know DIGIT Magazine. I have not found it here in France and not in Luxembourg where I’m very often. May I ask you a favor ?
Digit Magazine asked me for an image I have created. They wanted to publish it, maybe in April 2002. If ever you read this paper and you see an image called “greece” from gebe or Guitta, the small original is here, could you tell me, please?
Thank you very much:)
Guitta