So i am a normal school student and I have a huge interest in 3D modeling.
I have small experience (Around 10h for each) with Blender, Maya/3D Max, Cinema 4D and Houdini. ( My parents have a subscription needed for work so i have a chance to use all of them, Except Blender, cause it`s free)
I have no idea about programming so i took a free 3 month try in pularsight for learning.
My question is:
What program should i use if i want to find myself in future (next 10 years) and which programming language to learn?
Houdini? Maya/3D max? Cinema 4D?
And
C# or C++?
For the game engine, i chose Unreal ( Because people have a good opinion about it and it looks amazing).
Pick the one you like best and get really good with it. A serious company will either let you use the program you prefer or give you the proper training to quickly learn the tools you need for their specific pipeline. The important thing is to learn the craft and not the tools. When you have learned the craft you can pick up the tools that improves your workflow. Don’t lock yourself into one specific tool, but instead get good at learning new software.
In regards to programming you could let programmers do the heavy lifting and just focus on modeling and Visual Scripting (Blueprints). In regards to procedural modeling and custom tools you may still want to learn Python to use with Blender and Maya.
If you are interested in game programming in general C# and C++ is not that different but C++ is a lot more advanced and therefore more difficult to learn. Specifically for Unreal Engine you should pick C++ though and while using the Unreal Framework C++ becomes less scary.
Just be careful not to over-extend. It is very easy to fall into the trap to do a bit of everything but the truth is you will never be as good a dedicated 3D modeler of you also do programming on the side. Generalists like thay are few and far between and it takes at least half a decade of full-time work and education.
So long story short - choose your weapon and stick to it.
No software will be great still 10 years down the line, as new stuff is always popping up.
I’d say Maya LT. It’s cheap $30/month and and really good. I’ve used all listed and then some and I like Maya’s new Quick Rig system.
I also like iClone. It’s suite costs about $500-1000, but it’s really good for character animations and it’s the only application that seems to work with UE4 anymore.
For languages, if you want a language you can make money on, go for Java, groovy and python. For games, you can learn c++, but it’s a scary beast. I can code in several languages and I stayed away from c++ for as long as I can.
Maya and 3ds Max are the most popular in game development studios–but a lot of people hate being tied to them so if we’re lucky that may change at some point