Create and design realistic 3D scenes and virtual worlds using SceneCaster

Posted on December 19, 2007 at 7:02 am

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could design and create a 3D design of your fantasy house without having to buy expensive CAD software? Also, it would be nice if you didn’t have to spend 2 years reading the 5000 page manual on how to design a simple little object!

Recently, I had written about a cool piece of open software that you could use to create 3D games, 3D people, and lots more called Blender, however, it’s a little complicated and meant for hardcore 3D designers.

If you’re like me, you’re probably looking for something where you simply drag and drop 3D objects into a 3D template of, let’s say, a house or office. And why not be able to do all of that without even having to install a single piece of software!

SceneCaster is a very cool web site where you can create your own 3D interior scenes. As of right now, they only support interior scenes like homes, offices, art galleries, theaters, etc, but soon they are going to support external scenes, which includes things like landscapes, beach villas, parks, outdoor markets, or any other exterior scene.

Here are some the of major features of the website, which is free by the way!

Create or manipulate 3D scenes

Choose from millions of 3D objects to add to your scene

Share your scenes with others via SceneCaster or via FaceBook or Flickr

Personalize your scenes with your own talking avatar

You can create a scene in three ways: start from a custom set of dimensions, start from a template, or start from scratch.

To get started, you’ll have to install a Firefox add-on (so I guess it’s a small piece of software, but better than having to download a huge desktop app). You don’t even have to restart Firefox to launch the app.

The software is amazingly simple to use and is very nicely designed. You can switch camera angles, move around the 3D scene quickly and browse the object catalog, which has tons of cool stuff.

You don’t have to join if you want to play around with the software, but you’ll need to in order to save any scene and share it.

Overall, it’s probably the best 3D sketching and environment creation app I have used which is SIMPLE yet creates realistic scenes. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you like to fantasize! Enjoy!

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