What did modellers use before zmodeler?

[Richard]

Hi there

What free programs were there before Zmodeler for creating model cars or objects?

[_RicH_]

milkshape, blender, carcad for NFS

[Richard]

Hi Rich

Thanks for the reply.

Were they your first programs? Or was it zmodeler.

I did once use milkshape, but I couldn't do anything with it. I also didn't realise it was that old.

[_RicH_]

Nope I started with zmodeler, in the days of Midtown Madness 2 (10 years ago!). I've never used anything else for making cars.

I do use LightWave to render them.

Have also used Valves Hammer Editor to make buildings (its free), and recently played around with SolidWorks (not free) for a side project.

[Richard]

Ah I see.

Lightwave isn't free at all? I mean like a limited version for rendering. But then again, there is blender.

I didn't realised Zanoza was that old, I thought it was released in 2003? So then the version available today was the last released one.

[Oleg]

ZModeler2 was released in autumn 2003. meanwhile, ZModeler1 was still used for editing games like NFS and MM2. ZModeler1 was released in a days of "NFS4 high stakes" somewhere in 1999 or in 2000, I don't remember.

[Richard]

Oh I see. i thought I was using a program that was made and released less than decade ago..

I'm hovering around with a ten to eleven year old program

[Oleg]

yup. very outdated.

[BIGBLOCK]

I started useing it when it first came out in around 1999. It was (and I think still is) the best free modeler available!


Oleg ROCKS!

[Richard]

I see.

I was only ten years old back then, I wouldn't of even known how to use a computer.

[Richard]

Oleg where did you get the name Zanoza for the program?

[_RicH_]

If i remember correctly i think it was made up, so that if you searched for it, it would be the only result

[Oleg]

If i remember correctly i think it was made up, so that if you searched for it, it would be the only result

Yes. The underlying story is a bit longer))).
Years passed, I think I can tell it nowdays.

Background:
It were late 90th, something around 97 or 98 year whilst internet was not widely available in Russia country (even simple dial-up connection was just in few companies and universities). Gods sake there was a classroom with dialup connection in an University I've studied in. The market of computer hardware was groing at extreemly high speed in our country those days. Newer and bigger companies (relatively big shops, not a Mall or big PC hardware markets like nowdays) rose everywhere. It was a good market for hardware manufacters too.

The idea.
It was an idea to express yourself as a growing PC hardware shop or a network of shops that would like to have a top-edge newest PC hardware on shelfes. It's good to have a quality and tested products and better to test an actual product than trust to manufacter advertisement, claims and tricks on performance. Yup, "our company would like to test this hardware, blah blah blah". Our company. The company, named... well. It should be something that google ("altavista search engine") should give zero results on request. My friend has used some russian word (I don't remember exacly) as the name or frontend for this "our shop want some samples of this hardware to test". He did a really long e-mail correspondence with hardware manufacters.

As a result.
My friend got single 128Mb DIMM RAM module from Micron Inc. He had a pretty good PC with 16Mb of total RAM that moment and there were no similar RAM products around those days. He have exchanged it to new Zyxel dialup modem (estimated price was near $200). On the other hand, I got only a "name" for a similar bluff trick, but never used to do something similar.

He he.

[Richard]

I certainly didn't expect that.

This is the only program I know how to create a boxy car in. Anything else is just to complicated.