I see there's a full-on diss battle going on here. Honestly, I don't get why you've personally jumped into this criticism. Plasticity might appeal to some people and not to others, just like Moi3D. I own both programs, along with Blender and a bunch of other 2D and 3D CAD software. Every app has its strengths and weaknesses, but there's no denying that Plasticity is an extremely powerful tool, and for someone like me who's used to Blender, the switch is pretty straightforward, they're just different philosophies and approaches.
Plasticity has made huge strides in a short time, and even the early versions could produce great models. It's only been around for 3 years, which makes it really young, even though it uses one of the most established geometric kernels out there. Plasticity already has a ton of features that people have been begging for in Moi3D for ages, especially when it comes to NURBS surface continuity, plus a proper advanced viewport.
I use both programs together in a complementary way: I do certain things in one and other things in the other, same as with Blender.
This field is growing fast and there are plenty of competitors out there.

Cheers

Hi pafurijaz,

re:
> Honestly, I don't get why you've personally jumped into this criticism.

I've just had enough of exaggerations and propaganda that Plasticity invented the concept of "CAD for artists".

That's just absolute nonsense.

I receive a lot of emails from people who have tried Plasticity and are confused why they found it difficult to use after seeing a lot of hype in YouTube comments that "it's pioneered a new category of CAD for artists" or they saw on the web site that "It's the easiest to use and has the best UX", etc etc etc but nobody seems to care about actual UX, the focus is all on having the coolest looking "modern UI" and trendy icons.

It's not just Plasticity that has this focus, Apple has pushed far in that direction recently as well.

I find it distasteful when I see poorly designed UX being praised.


> but there's no denying that Plasticity is an extremely powerful tool, and for someone like me who's
> used to Blender, the switch is pretty straightforward, they're just different philosophies and approaches.

For an already established Blender user, Plasticity is indeed a great UX fit and I have no issue with that.

What it is not is "easiest to use" and "best UX", and it is definitely not the originator of the "CAD for Artists" concept.

For whatever reason, probably due to my own extreme intolerance of marketing, there is little information out there for me to send to someone who contacts me and asks me for my recommendation and opinions so this thread will serve for that.

If I write something that is factually incorrect (for example if there is a way to enter the x,y coordinates of a circle's origin point) please feel free to post a correction.

- Michael

“”””””” For an already established Blender user, Plasticity is indeed a great UX fit and I have no issue with that.””””

What a chuckle to start the day!!! :o

The whole "CAD for artists" thing could just be marketing hype or a branding strategy, everyone makes their own business choices. That doesn't automatically make it untrue, though. The idea behind a "CAD for artists" is that, unlike traditional CAD software, it uses a direct modeling approach. I don't think the Plasticity developer ever claimed to have invented the concept of CAD for artists; he just said that's the direction he's aiming for according to his roadmap.

If the issue is that people keep emailing you to complain about another program, maybe you should just redirect their complaints to the right place and avoid taking on the stress of replying to folks dumping their grievances on you. After all, FreeCAD and Blender are complicated too, and don't get me started on gCAD3D, it has a terrible UI as well.

The fact that you're especially annoyed by Plasticity, but not by the hundreds of other apps out there, makes me think you might see it as a potential competitor. Otherwise, you'd be making long threads about tons of other programs too.

I'm not saying your points about certain flaws are wrong, but focusing on a few minor issues while ignoring everything else that's good about it feels like a gratuitous attack.

There are plenty of programs that people around here don't like, Blender and FreeCAD especially, but that doesn't mean they're bad applications.

I hope in the future the competition focuses on the features offered, rather than pointing out the flaws in everyone else's software.

Greetings.

There was a "cube" snap anchor long time ago (2y ?), a bit like in MoI, that feature vanished at one point and never went back (I haven't checked recent build). I wouldn't be surprised if there an alternative hidden key combo to create cubes, not sure tho.

""""""""""The fact that you're especially annoyed by Plasticity, but not by the hundreds of other apps out there, makes me think you might see it as a potential competitor. Otherwise, you'd be making long threads about tons of other programs too.""""""""""

I dont see any posts from hundreds of others software's being done in this forum here which belongs to Michael and MoI.... So Maybe you dont know how to read and interpret facts...

Lots of people singing the hype song though......

Maybe the guy who is proud of his accomplishments with regard to UX and maybe has a bad taste from others who RUINED his previous work, is pointing a few things out!

you were allowed to make your point. Starting to look a little like a dick now....

Hahaha, the ever-so mild-mannered Michael shows his teeth. I like it! Keep going!

Hi Metin,

re:
> Hahaha, the ever-so mild-mannered Michael shows his teeth. I like it! Keep going!

Yes if you poke me enough times eventually I will get annoyed! :)

- Michael

@ Burr,

re:
> and maybe has a bad taste from others who RUINED his previous work,

For the record, I don't consider Rhino to be ruined, it's following a trajectory that I put it on myself.

It was designed with a focus on being friendly to AutoCAD users, a very different target than MOI.

That was a good fit for RMA since their work up until then was focused on being an AutoCAD reseller.

When the time came for them to exit the AutoCAD business they were able to switch fully to Rhino and didn't have to totally reset to a completely foreign environment.

- Michael

“”””” For the record, I don't consider Rhino to be ruined, it's following a trajectory that I put it on myself.”””””

Definitely different than what my understanding was….

So, noted.

Hi pafurijaz

> The fact that you're especially annoyed by Plasticity, but not by the hundreds of other apps
> out there, makes me think you might see it as a potential competitor. Otherwise, you'd be
> making long threads about tons of other programs too.

Plasticity is the only one that started out by blatantly plagiarizing my work.

From 2006:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060810145302/http://moi3d.com/

"MoI (Moment of Inspiration) is a new 3D modeling/CAD program for designers and artists."


Or check out https://github.com/nkallen/elephant/releases/tag/v0.1-alpha where the entirety of MoI's UI and script commands were copied and forked as if it was an open source project.


> I'm not saying your points about certain flaws are wrong, but focusing on a few minor issues
> while ignoring everything else that's good about it feels like a gratuitous attack.

They are not minor issues!!!!!

That drawing a circle is gross is not a minor issue!

These are the things that make the UX, not having stylish looking icons.

Yet there are so many people who are like "Ooooo sweet looking icons, I like how they all look like the same indecipherable blobs of monochrome lumps. A+++++!! Oh geez look at those icons, not monochrome, lame."

There are plenty of places that cover the good stuff (which is primarily that it is cheap).

There is not much covering the bad stuff, people are somehow scared to write their opinions publicly if it differs from the "influencer" horde.

- Michael

Hello,

Years ago I was having a chat with an industrial designer about, among other things, how a person knows if they've created a great product. We agreed... great products are copied. Not if, when. It's absolutely wrong, but it happens.

I think MoIs representation as a tool for artists doesn't accurately convey its capability. Is it one of the easiest to use and most intuitive design applications available, CAD or otherwise? Yes. For those doing a measured comparison between products and how efficiently you can model it's obvious, measured as a whole, MoI wins.

Here comes the criticism.

For someone doing a quick informational overview of both products, MoI loses hard. Why? Do an A/B comparison of the websites. Plasticity shows me what it can do, it really sells the product. Does the MoI site do that? In order to download the product you have to look at the site, you must create the correct impression from the first second. The test is easy, show someone who knows nothing about either company both websites and ask them their initial impression about the capability of the respective products. Don't be surprised when people think Plasticity is the more mature, more capable product.

Here are some ways to combat the wrong and reinforce the correct impression.

Website needs to be totally overhauled. 65% mobile, 35% desktop browser split, make it responsive so people can actually view your content easily on a phone screen. People read at most 20% of a site and of that only digest 5-7% of the content they read. Create brief, accurate statements that convey the greatest strengths of MoI. Here's an idea, show a few examples of products being designed end to end, digital asset, printed (additive) asset, machined (subtractive) asset. MoI has the content and capability for a long time now, you just have to tell the story. It's very difficult for hype and incorrect information to take hold when the accurate story is made available front and center.

Un slogan du siècle dernier disait : sa qualité fait sa publicité!

A slogan from the last century said: its quality is its publicty!

;)

I’m not so sure about that. A nice website might help increase the number of trial downloads, but converting those downloads into sales is more complicated than that. I don't think people will blindly buy software without evaluating the learning curve first, and I guess these days the first reflex is watching youtube content. (But ... it's not my field so). Sadly there isn't much recent content, and when there is, you always have a moron suggesting to use Plasticity.

For me, coming from MoI, the 'only' things that Plasticity do better is surfacing, and the Parasolid kernel makes fillet job insanely easy (the patch function is also very neat). Sure as Michael point out, we start to see scenario where ACIS shows his power too, but overall the simple conic mode is amazingly fast and permissive. But for almost everything else, I wish Plasticity was a real MoI clone, but obviously (and hopefully) it isn't.

For people coming from poly modeling, trying to make hard surface assets and the like, those "easy fillet" makes a whole difference compared to 'old (pre-ACIS)' MoI. I know for a fact it was always the friction point when I showcased MoI to co worker (game industry). Gosh those guys like round fillets everywhere like if everything was made with surface subdivision, even if they are work around like round edge shader.

That said I'm talking from a very niche industry, but looking at the thousands of guns posted in Plasticity discord, it does seems representative of the current usage ... (and usually the problematic part is when it's time to model the handle ...)

edit : that github clone is indeed pretty lame, looks like there is a good bunch of miss behaviour that generate this ranting thread !

Hi OSTexo,

re:
> It's very difficult for hype and incorrect information to take hold when the accurate story
> is made available front and center.

I think you're right. It's generally a weak area for me. I have great disdain for marketing exaggerations, I like it when people investigate things directly themselves.

But that would be a good area for me to focus on sometime next year.

Thanks, - Michael

jeez I usually have to fight to get a 5 lines of VEX (C) working in Houdini, but indeed those models generate .html like it's nothing.
(I just asked for a generic site for MOI3D :O))

Hello,

I doubt you're as weak in that area as you think you are. Apply the same UX/HID principles you use in designing MoI as designing your site. I've done UX/HID on physical and digital product for years and was always hesitant to do the web related stuff until I realized a great effective website is a simplified UX exercise.

You've already done the heavy lift, time to tell people about it.

I actually like the MoI3d website. ESPECIALLY the forum. I pretty much browse it every day and follow and read through every thread (Except the spam of course)

On my desktop, phone and random devices through the day

If it was one of those "one page websites" like PaQ posted a sample of, I could never make heads or tails of what might be different or changing daily...

Ther site itself? It has all the info. Massive tutorials also. Gallery. And of course, leading into this forum where pretty much REAL TIME communication and Q&A with the actual developer... Priceless!