3d carving first time

hi everyone. trying to do true 3d carving. I have already bought some 3d files online, but I need to learn how to generate g-code. what is the easiest/cost efficient program to use. also I have been thinking about buying vcarve desktop or aspire. whats the best combo to use together. I just got my x-carve in December along with easel pro. thankyou

I have been using Rhino3d for over 12 years now but it isn’t a cheap program. Many people use this these days and I believe it is free unless you generate a lot of cash from it. For the CAM end of things I like Meshcam as it works very well. Meshcam has been around for years too.

Meshcam:

CamBam is another program that I use for g code generation when it is 2.5 D as opposed to 3D.

I am very happy with Vectric V Carve Desktop. It lets you import STL and OBJ files and scale them as you need to before creating tool paths.
However it does not let you create 3d designs.