When it comes to UX there really shouldn't be a demarcation when it comes to the user type, either they have use for the tool or they don't. I see this all the time when I do UX for technical applications, a doctor, researcher or engineer will have just as much appreciation for a great user experience as a hobbyist or student.
I would have preferred that McNeel picked a side when it came to Rhino / Grasshopper. Either they stick with the Rhino UX or go all in on the Grasshopper UX.
I could go into the reasons why Blender has one of the worst UXs of all time but it wouldn't be anything that any other UX designer hasn't beaten to death already. Blender will never be anything other than a niche product because it's horrible usability holds it back.
I believe the next wave of winners will be the companies that realize the importance of a great UX. MoI is well positioned in this regard.
Have you checked out the Internet Archive of old software? Can you believe DPaint is over 30 years old? It doesn't seem like that long ago.
@You : "...I used iPad was always the little known neu.notes+..."
Thanks for the tip. For my 2D vector painting I use the excellent "Concepts" because it's highly optimized for iPad Pro, but for sure I'm going to take a deep look also to "neu.notes+".
@You : "...FWIW, I've switched to Android tablets and now mostly use the Android equipped Google Pixelbook..."
Oh...great device, no doubt. Was one the devices that I reviewed before buying the iPad Pro.
It's without doubt a very very capable all-rounder device with the "plus" of the Android OS that I much prefer over the "very bad" iOS (also iOS 11 is bad IMHO :)
It has great overall performance. A Very good piece of HW/SW from Samsung.
But as I've said some times ago here on this forum, I spent many months collecting all possible information from YouTube, web, opinion from artists, before buying the iPad Pro 12.9 second gen.
Bear in mind that I purchased the iPad Pro for ONE and ONLY one reason : having the best (actually) device for digital painting in mobility.
I use it almost exclusively for that purpose and sometimes for some quick video editing with the excellent Lumafusion.
So after tested many many things and considered all aspects and listened the opinion of many very talented digital painters, I purchased this iPad.
From the point of view of a all-rounder device, the Google Pixelbook or the Microsoft Surface (at least their top tier versions) are a better choice compared to iPad Pro, for many reasons.
But when it comes to digital drawing on an interactive and multitouch canvas iPad Pro actually has no competitors.
With the most Apps the Apple Pencil has really almost ZERO parallax and ZERO lag, the display is awesome and with the best color calibration compared to the extra-saturated OLED display, with Apps like Procreate or Sketckbook Pro the Apple pencil is amazing, super fast and has the most natural feel you can find in a digital stylus.
And it has excellent tilt support (with the right Apps) and with the 120Hz refresh rate display it's....awesome.
So, from the point of view of "digital painting" and "2d work" actually no other interactive display can beat the iPad Pro.
But...clearly it has also some cons that I really don't like :
- The Pencil feels to much like "rubber on glass". You have to get used to its behavior before creating good digital paintings
- Not so many Apps leverage on the processing power of the iPad Pro. Many apps are not optimized for it.
- The pencil need recharging and has no buttons
- The screen is not enough oleophobic (for my liking)
- iOS....iOS....what can say....I really hate it !!!! Android it's far better!!!!
Anyway...I purchased the iPad Pro almost only for digital paintings and 2D works and for this purpose it's still the best.
@You : "...I see this all the time when I do UX for technical applications, a doctor, researcher or engineer will have just as much appreciation for a great user experience as a hobbyist or student..."
I totally agree!!!
So...you're on dev side too!! Good to know :)
I'm on dev side and UX usually takes at least one third of my developing time :)
@You : "...I would have preferred that McNeel picked a side when it came to Rhino / Grasshopper. Either they stick with the Rhino UX or go all in on the Grasshopper UX..."
Hmm....I don't know...maybe you're right but along the years Rhino has become so complex that now I can imagine is almost impossible for McNeel to take a different direction. I don't know.
@You : "...I believe the next wave of winners will be the companies that realize the importance of a great UX. MoI is well positioned in this regard..."
I believe too!
@You : "...Have you checked out the Internet Archive of old software? Can you believe DPaint is over 30 years old? It doesn't seem like that long ago..."
OH...Dpaint...what a lovely piece of human ingenuity it was!!!
Eternal UX!
Not sure this is too off topic, but I also had the large iPad Pro with the pencil as well as the smaller version (which I have now but only use for testing). I have a Samsung Tab S3 which used to be my goto machine before the Google Pixelbook. And I have a MS Surface, which while nice, is just too difficult to carry around all the time. Not a big fan of the touchscreen interface, though it is better than Mac OS ;-)
I got frustrated with the limited battery life of the iPad pencil, always running out in the middle of meetings) not to mention the crappy way you had to cantilever it off the iPad (just asking for damage). Google, MS and Samsung don't have that problem with their pens. Google and MS have batteries that last a year, while Samsung never needs recharging.
Tried Concepts but found it too structured and at the time it was more a sketching and final rendering app than a macdraw type app like neu.notes+ or metamoji. Also, I really like the ability to write characters using the character zoom bar at the bottom, plus grouping is a must as well as PDF output (vectors).
A sample image from their website showing what I'm talking about regarding the text input
:
Again, I'm more interested in graphic note-taking than finished drawings...
I find these days I can sketch faster in programs like SketchUp than I can in a structured program, so I use neu.notes+ which is just fine for quick concept drawings:
It's also great for facilitation meetings with clients and sketching out wireframes because of it's GROUPING features, vector graphics and zoom control:
I tend not to draw much anymore for final artwork. Doing it in 3D is just so much faster. PLUS, MoI3D has some great EXPORT features to both AI, PDF and PNG, which can be very helpful. Not to mention exporting from MoI to KeyShot and using it's toon shader for illustration:
What a lovely little and very useful vector app!! Thanks a lot for letting me know :)
Just included into my current "2D" pipeline with my iPad Pro.
Pro :
- Stamps
- Objects style editing (fill, text and line)
- Export in PDF to all other vector Apps I already have in my iPad Pro
- Pages
- Zoom text
Cons :
- I must say that its UI and UX it's a little bit "aged"
- Not optimized for the iPad Pro. It's many times slower compared to "Concepts" and other more modern apps when it comes to zoom,pan,rotate,drawing with the pencil. This aspect let me a bit disappointed :(
- Doesn't support Pencil tilting and pressure sensitivity
IMHO it's absolutely not comparable to "Concepts" but anyway...very useful for some of its aspects.
Final verdict : Included into my current 2D pipeline :)
I don't think McNeel will change how Rhino works, although I think they could without alienating their customer base. The lack of change is many times driven by fear, perhaps McNeel is more afraid of the change than their customers.
I don't code, I work alongside great devs to make the features usable to the users. I do the same with physical products, that's what's great about UX, it has a practical application with just about any item you'll come across.
I suspect the reason for the slowness has to do with having to draw vectors. I believe Concepts draws raster images which are faster (and then Concept stores the stroke path in the db as a vector if needed later).
It's one of the reasons Concept's export to vectors does not look like the original drawing. Sketchbook also is a raster image product.
@You : "...I believe Concepts draws raster images which are faster (and then Concept stores the stroke path in the db as a vector if needed later)..."
Exactly! :)
In fact I really like Concepts just for its superior render quality, for how its vector drawing are rendered.
@You : "...It's one of the reasons Concept's export to vectors does not look like the original drawing..."
Exactly again :)
If you export in PDF using "Vector path" option, the output is a "simplified" version. It retains only the "path" information and not the "rendering" information.
If you instead export in any other ways, also in PDF but "flattened", what you get is what you see.
But, this is not a problem for me because I use "Concepts" for "design and digital art" purposes and not for technical or engineering things.
Anyway, Concepts is a superb app if you need that kind of things.
But I must say that I want to thank you for introducing me to the very useful "neu.notes+".
I really like some of its features like "stamps" and how it handle the texts.
Yeah, neu.notes+ rocks. I used it and it's sister app neu.draw to export SVGs for use in the videos below. It worked great with the iPad version of videoscribe https://www.videoscribe.co/en/
@You : "...I used it and it's sister app neu.draw to export SVGs..."
Thanks for the tip :) but for all my "classic vector" things on iPad Pro I use these two very powerful Apps :
- "Autodesk Graphics" : an all-rounder classic vector app
- "Assembly" : a "not usual" vector graphic app for fast creation of concepts and design http://assemblyapp.co/
But...with that said...almost ALL these things are now being overcome by the upcoming (maybe this summer or autumn) iPad Pro version of AFFINITY DESIGNER!!!!!!
On the Affinity forum we have been talking about it for a long time and there are realistic rumors about its coming not later then 2018!!
All "Affinity" people, like me, is waiting that day, because when we will have the full version of Designer on iPad Pro, like the actual Affinity Photo, THIS WILL BE AN ABSOLUTE GAME CHANGER for the whole 2D CG world.
Something that cannot be ignored.
While certainly powerful, those are Illustrator type vector apps. Not as well suited for me to taking notes, or even just sketching vectors (which is what you need to do if you're creating scribe videos).
I actually prefer Illustrator itself for vector drawings. Half the time I even start in MoI and paste into AI.
One thing I still hate about iOS is the lack of any decent file system-- not to mention the whole sandbox thing. Android not only has a file system, but you can also add memory cards as well.
I do like the Affinity concept, and own Photo , but I need a bit more features than it can deliver (for example: fill with Content Aware, intelligent upscaling, etc..).
@You : "...One thing I still hate about iOS is..."
Chipp believe me...I totally hate iOS!!
Android is thousands times better :)
Unfortunately (for me) actually the best digital canvas that you can by for digital painting in mobility runs on iOS, and it's the iPad Pro second generation (for all the reasons I already told you).
But Android is miles away from iOS.
I think iOS is one the worst OS ever written.
It's.... ridiculous :)
About vector graphic I understand your point of view.
For quick sketching Apps like Concepts or neu.notes+ are much better than more complex Apps.
But anyway, as I've written in one of previous post, I'm really wanting the version of Affinity Designer for iPad Pro.
This "event" will change many things for CG in mobility.
