I have a long history with 3d since the early 90's - used many software including some that are now dead (eg. Softimage) or soon to be dead (Modo). But one of my favorite dedicated polygonal modelers is Silo3D. NVil is very good too, but is not as easy as Silo3D.
Talking about dead software, Modo is now free for the next 10y.
I'm still not sure how long Foundry will allow this, as I first thought it that it only available for existing customer, but for the time been you can download 16 or 17, and use the free EOL license.
To me it's still the king for precise SDS modelling today, with probably a better user experience out of the box (no addons required) than Blender.
Edit : Well actually that v17 is a crash party, at best it's an alpha version. Looks like 16.1 is the stable version. I almost forget how unstable Modo is :O)
Modo option seems nice...going to check it out.
I managed to make something ...just testing this out...
but it seems to me ...it would be faster to export and boolean certain parts in Moi.
for wheels, chassis and mechanical parts ...I would not even try with polygons lol.
Well, even that car body is not that organic imho to justify using SDS poly modelling. It should be possible to build it in Moi directly without too much trouble, especially now that you have some sort of "draft" poly version.
Wings 3D has a cool history as it was heavily inspired by Nendo and Mirai which I had always wanted to get my hands on. I remember Bay Raitt using it for 3d modeling back in the 90's. As some of you may know, he was the lead facial modeler for Golem (Lord of the Rings trilogy) at Weta.
Also of note, Wings3D was created using Erlang, a functional programming language which is not typically used to build 3d software. Very cool!
@Paq
Yes it is simple enough to try in Moi but I have other more complex things I am trying to do in the future.
I think Plasticity would be a good option too but Ill buy it next year.(for xnurbs)
Everything I do at one point start or go thru Moi. I guess I am comfortable with the ui.
@Gary
I bought that tutorial it is what got me going with Moi3d.
@Frenchy
I tried wings 3d but Nvil still seems faster.
I tried doing the same thing in Nvil and Blender. and I was faster in Nvil...so I removed blender...because I am not going to use it for now.
I tried Modo...but my laptop seems underpowered for it :/
I might try it later...but then again I might never need it.
One thing I also look at is program startup time.....that is one thing I do not like about bigger programs...affinity takes a while to load.
I want to be in and out as quickly as possible.
Tnx!
Just got plasticity...Xnurbs seems awesome...
UI is weird to me...
So it seems it will end up the way I am using vcarve....Everything is done in Moi then send to vcarve....
Hopefully Moi can get xnurbs as well in the future...
I tried Rocket3F and NVil. Prefered Rocket3F as Nvil has a very confusing ui (IMHO) and much preferred the commercial app Silo3D over both.
Hexagon3D has some more advanced tools then Wings3D. Silo3D also has a some advanced tools over Wings3D but not as much as Hexagon3D.
Hexagon3D can be prone to crashing on Windows 10 or 11 as it has not been supported or updated in several years.
Curvy3D is an inexpensive app that is fun to play with. https://www.curvy3d.com/ but I rarely use now that I have 3D Coat.
I bit the bullet and fought with Blender, now that I understand it, it is quite simple. But it took me close to 6 months to get comfortable with it.
And there are a ton of addons (both free and paid) that can simplify things quite a bit.
I now longer use Hexagon3D or Silo. However I will fire up Wings3D a few times an year.
I would suggest try Wings3d or Hexagon3D (but beware it can be quite unstable). But going the Blender route will pay off in the end.
demo.JPG
