Do I need separate 3D to make my own images?

#1 Mario,

You do need external editors to make characters and objects (.dts files) and Buildings/Interiors (.dif files)

For DTS, you can use 3D Studio Max, Milkshape, and soon Maya
Limited Support is also available for Blender and gameSpace/trueSpace

If budget is your main concern: Blender is free, Milkshape is $20, gameSpace is $300. Of the three, Milkshape currently has the most complete exporter.

If professional level modelling and full exporter support are your main concern: 3DStudio Max ($3,500) is currently the most full featured exporter. There are official exporters in the works for the latest version of Max (6.0) and Maya, these will support all DTS features. Maya costs $2000, and is available for all 3 major platforms, while Max is Windows only.

For DIF editing, we recommend the opensource Quake editing solution QuArK.

Maya: www.alias.com/
3D Studio Max: www.discreet.com/3dsmax
Milkshape: www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/ms3d/
Blender: www.blender.org/
gameSpace: www.caligari.com/

QuArK: www.planetquake.com/quark

#2 Torque is ~400,000 lines of C/C++ source code that you need to compile to use.

It is NOT a game builder application suite or library or anything else.

and Alex forgot to mention Lightwave is supported also.

#3 Thanks a lot Alex and Jarrod your input has really helped out this newbie to this site, and beginner game creator.

#4 Ah, yes, Lightwave as well.

#5 Truespace is still a contender as well. At $800, and another $200 for their GamePak plugin which makes it do what GameSpace does, it's not too bad a deal.

#6 @David: Yes, but as of the last version I tried, their Torque exporter is still a work in progress.

#7 Thanks Alex. Figures. I've been using TS since ver 2.0 and have been telling Caligari for years that they gotta start supporting game development if they want to survive. I'm glad they are finally coming around, but like anything it takes time. I would hate to have to switch to something else though after investing years into the app. Hard to find TS artist though so I may have to in time.
DCF

#8 @Daved: We're finally getting support for a lot of new modelling programs, which has been something we've needed badly for a while. If you do end up using TS extensively with Torque, be sure to let Caligari know about any bugs you find - we'd like to make sure that their exporter is as complete as possible, but it is hard to find every bug until you try to use a tool for a real production.

#9 Will do,Alex. Hopefully as the saying goes,'the squeaky wheel gets the most oil.' If I whine enough maybe they'll get the clue.
DCF

#10 Yeah, tS has a chance to become a better game development platform, but only after they pull their heads out of the sand and understand that they need to execute some follow-through on the features they implement, and stop treating 3rd party developers as if they don't want them around.