   What's the best free 3d modeler for export to XNA?
  OK, I'm several days into trying to export a simple animated .FXB from Blender 2.49b into XNA 3.1 and even with the latest exporters etc. am still encountering one problem after another, and have so far found fixes for everything, but this is a LOT of hoop jumping, I have begun to associate Blender with my ex-wife, and I would like to remove verbal expletives from the workflow process entirely, if possible.  I'd prefer not to undergo the painful and underdocumented learning process for every free 3d package that's out there...so I was wondering if any of you fine folks would care to register your opinions....What Is The Best FREE 3D Modeler For Export To XNA 3.1?  (I suspect that I already know the definitive answer, but dammmnnn this stuff is aggravating).  My requirements are basic.  I'm only doing simple rigid body animations.  Rather than feature heavy software I would like something that is relatively easy to create simple model animations with, and with fairly seamless exportation to something that XNA will read.  THANKS   
  I'm not an artist so you probably wanna take what I say with a grain of salt, but personally I like XSI Mod Tool the best. At work we use Maya and I wish I could use that at home (but it costs several thousand), and for me XSI provides the closest experience. It actually has a pretty extensive feature set, including the ability to use DX shaders/effects for real-time preview. I can't stand Blender, but it's still pretty popular among the XNA community. You might want to have a look through some of threads in the XNA artist's forum to see what they have to say.   ;  Blender is a love/hate thing. Some people love it some people hate it. Personally I love it but I too have had a lot of trouble in the past getting animations exported properly to XNA.Worked it out in the end but there are a lot of niggling steps that I feel could be improved with a better exporter. Once you get the hang of the things that need to be done like ensuring every single vertex has a painted weight (why the exporter can't just assign a default value is beyond me) and remembering to export the armatures with your mesh then it's pretty simple. There's just a lot of little things that can go wrong :)   ;  Hey, thanks for the advice.XSI Mod Tool was never even on the list for consideration because of the non-commercial license.  Sure, I'm dreaming that this may someday be profitable, but why tie my hands behind my back?Anyway, for any other newbies that might stumble on this thread, XSI is only free for non-commercial use.   ;  You can use Mod Tool for releasing on Xbox Indie Games though.   