Sketchup Alternatives?

[basil_kunn]

So Sketchup Pro costs $299/year. I hate subscriptions (why can't it be a one off pay?) plus I have no money. I could use the free version but then I can't use it commercially, plus when I was using Sketchup for school last year, navigating the website was a massive pain. They like to make it as hard as possible to use the free version -_-

I'm thinking of just using blender and 3d modelling everything myself, but I want to check if there are any alternatives first.

So do any of you know of some sort of 3d program that can be used for comic backgrounds?
(I know Clip Studio has 3d stuff, but again, I have no money, so I'm using MediBang.)

I do know basic 3d modelling, so it don't need something that gives you all the assets and stuff, but that would be good for time saving.

I don't really expect anything good for free though -_-

[Kiweevil]

Sometimes clip studio has major sales and you can get the program for less than the usual $40 price tag. It also comes free with the purchase of a Wacom Intous. The version of Clip Studio that costs $200+ isn't really worth it anyway if you're focused on the 3D model stuff. For making your own models, I'd say Blender for geometric and Skulptris (Sculptris? I can't remember how it's spelled) for organic.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

Emergency crayons.

[basil_kunn]

I've been keeping an eye on Clip Studio sales, but I literally have no money so its kinda pointless lmao.
I'll check out sculptris, thanks!

[rajillustration]

Blender is honestly really great. I've been using it for years and it hasn't done me wrong, especially if you've already done some modeling. Plus, you can use it to do 2d animations now and that's pretty fun.

[Kiweevil]

Blender is a great program, I also highly recommend it. And that's coming from someone who went to college for several years to learn Maya lol! Blender has always been less buggy for me and has better sculpting features, ontop of being 100% cheaper

[Coati]

Blender is free and open source. CSP has premade 3d models and stuff, but you can't use it for create your own models. The blender community is great and you can learn a lot for free

[magnavarra]

if you are up to some more advanced things try real time rendering engine such as Unity and Unreal engine. They are free and have a lot of free assets like separate models and animations for people and animals as well as complete levels like medieval cities and dungeons or contemporary cities and living rooms . Unity has way more assets but anreal adds something every mont as well. There are plenty of introduction tutorials which should be enough to make you import assets to the level and take a screenshot. You may even take advanced render passes - like only color or shaded color or depth to be able to tweak tings in photoshop later.
You can even reexport those assets to fbx and use it in blender or another engine.

and for some poses you may also try https://www.mixamo.com/ it's a free autodesk service where you can play animations on different style characters and you can export those poses and animations to use in unity or unreal or whatever

[basil_kunn]

Oh I'll check Unity and Unreal engine out!! They sound useful!!
Using 3d animation as drawing reference is a great idea! I can't believe I never thought of that before