MoI Parametric.

 From:  Andrei Samardac
7552.17 In reply to 7552.16 
Hi PaQ,
" Solidthinking is much easier to pick than Fusion, 'polynurbs' toolset is very primitive"
Yes... When I saw it, I leave this app because I need SUBD. But anyway their parametric features are great, I really like how you can work with it!

I decided to make some little review of Fusion, may be it will halp others to take decision of using it.
I will explain my thoughts from point of vision of Concept Designer. In my work when I made things for product design I do not need absolute precision, in my stage I gave 3D model of mechanism and create design above it. After design is approved my model use another person - 3D modeler that creates precis nurbs model for production. So may be my workflow will have some effect on my review, because I prefer to work super fast only with shortcuts to not loose my inspiration.
Also my English is not very good so I can say something wrong so excuse me :)

Fusion 360:

Shortcuts:
It has no any shortcut, oh they have some but you will never use them because they are for operation that you use very rare. Vital commands like Pull and Edit Form has no any shortcuts.
So you have to be ready for endless clicking...

Navigation:
It has that famous useless Navigation Cube in upper right corner, my personal opinion is, it is the only progressive feature that AD adds to their apps :D
There is no any way to go into Right or any other ortho thews except clicking on that Cube or in Browser.

Drawing:
You always have to create plane to draw and having this limitation it has no goo toolset for this. Instead it has a lot of tools that are all nearly not so good as one CPlane picker in MoI.
Check how many tools and they are absolutely useless if you want to set CPlane to organic stuff you made with TSplines you just can not do it, it work only with hard surface.


Snapping:
There is no snapping at all when you model and it is terrible, snapping is only when you drawing. To move with snap there is one command that in MoI calls Orient. Snaping is not bad when you draw but in MoI it is thousands time more advanced and MoI has real Construction lines.

Moving:
To move you always have to run command from context menu, in fusion you always have run commands from context menu it is so boring... In MoI you just select object and Move, in MoI 3.0 Michael implement stright snap moving with shift and it is really great.

Objects:
This theme is absolutely horrible... It confuse me most of all. In Fusion objects calls Components. And when you start project you are in top most component, so than you have to create components everytime you want to create separate objects. All sketches can be stored or in Active object or in top most or in parent. To store sketch in Component you have to activate it, but you always forget to make it because in Fusion there is no good way to see if component is activated. It has option to make all components transparent except active but it looks terrible when you have big model and you have to click about 5 clicks to go to setting and disable it... So if you forget to store sketch in component you can not isolate component with sketch because sketch will lay some where else.... Then.... :D If you want to extrude from sketch and cut with this geometry it will cut all geometry from all components that it meets, so to cut only one you have to hide all others you can do it by hiding objects (context menu as always :D) if you have more then 2 objects to hide it become so boring, or you can isolate your object and cut it, but if you forget to store you sketch in this object it is impossible :D There is no simple way to copy sketch from one component to another only complicated where you have to go to one sketch copy it and than go to another to past :% why not just copy it form explorer and past?... Do not going to confuse you with further imperfection of Fusion workflow with components :D. A... forget, Component have bodies and it is geometry that it holds and this thing confuse me from first day, I thought I have to work with bodies but, bodies just geometry inside component and this geometry can be hidden only from explorer, we can not isolate it, another words we can not handle it like Component, may be this body have sense but for me it looks like way to complicate things that are already complicated, also when you create object it by default creates bodies, so it is very easy to forget to change it to New Component, brr.... :D
Also...))) If you hide object and have big model with a lot of components it is real pain to unhide it because you can unhide it only from browser, but to do it you have to find it in that browser :D It is so hard task so you can break your eyes because selected object is so bad highlighted some tinny line under it and this is it, even if you use function find in browser you can not see highlited object.

TSpline:
I do not going to tell a lot of words about it, it have advantage that you can create T like cage but I thing it is all. It absolutely sucks against good polygonal modeler, in terms of polygonal modelling. May be for TSpline no need to have all that function because it can compensate them by using NURBS tools after you create base form, but have you tried to make it in Fusion? It is so hard because you can not eve set CPlane to this TSpline object. So to cut simple hole on organic TSpline you have to create nurbs object that replicate continuity of TSpline object than set CPlane from this :D
I work in NVil and can compare TSpline with it, it have about 30% of tools and workflow from NVil.

Render:
It has to few parameters and I like it but I could not mange to have things so nice and bright like in KeyShot, for me it looks not so expressive like KeyShot.

Patch:
This room is really good, it has all instruments to work with surfaces, it has loft with Tangent, Patch and others... But you will laugh, it has Sweep only with one rail :D

I do not test Cam and animation. Want to say that animation do not support Assembly. So if you joined components you can not animate it :%

But the great feature that fusion has it is Parametric Timeline, it is really great, you can go back change things, create things where you etc? you have absolutely freedom. It is not a tree like in another aps it is timeline where you can navigate through.

So in conclusion, Fusion is very simple it has very few settings and it is good! It has good idea to combine SubD and Nurbs, also they try to combine Cam and Animation with render, but as always happen when people try to combine too many stuff final product is not so good. But as we can say it was good effort :)

PS
I tried Fusion for 2 weeks and delayed deadline, because could not finish my model. I thought I can do it because I thing speed will be the same like in MoI and NVil, but it is 3-4 times slower some times much more.
I got 2 lessons from this experience, I learn how other CAD works, learn some nice ideas and fails and the main thing, I become absolutely Master in Clicking!

EDITED: 25 Aug 2015 by ANDREI SAMARDAC