Thanks to all who answered my Rhino question from a couple weeks ago. Time for another.

Form Z - anyone use MoI and Form Z?

From the videos FormZ looks like the interface is much easier and cleaner than Rhino. But, does FormZ play nicely with MoI?

Looking at the videos it appears as though FormZ is what Rhino would be now if they followed the much cleaner MoI interface. I feel like with Rhino I am either hunting through multiple levels of drop down menus or memorizing "common" command names and typing them into the command line like good ole' AutoCAD when I first found that program in 1990ish.

I was playing around with Rhino some more by working on another car model, reference images parallel perspective this time, and Rhino was a pain in the but and I was following instructions 1 step at a time. I then came over to MoI and did the same steps in 15% of the time and got nicer results. MoI has repeatedly shown that it is the best tool for me to start from but I also need a higher end tool, trying like mad to avoid my SW, Alibre, SpaceClaim CAD tools. I do think that I am done with Rhino. Too much off and on playing around with it and it just makes me more angry. It is powerful to be sure but with program interfaces where they are today Rhino seems to be stuck in the 1990s by trying to have everysolution in a menu in front of you for every user type....and then there are still many addons (I like tsplines).

Thoughts from FormZ, former FormZ, or Bonzai3D users on the AutoDesSys solutions and MoI working well together as a complimentary tool set? My intent is more organic models for consumer products.

many thanks in advance for any answers provided.

if you want organic forms take Zbrush, or the free Wings3D, Sculptris or Blender :)

I think FormZ is more targeted to the architecture / visualization user. Kind of a super - SketchUp. It does have a fairly comprehensive NURBs tool set. I have not tried import / export to MoI though ( I had the free beta while V7 was in development).

"Kind of a super - SketchUp"

I think that is why formZ looks interesting. Sketchup / spaceclaim like but with better surfacing and some parametrics.

It does look like it is targeted at architecture for sure but the gallery / product design has plenty of example of things from simple toys to vehicles (cars, motorcycles).

<PILOU> "if you want organic forms take Zbrush, or the free Wings3D, Sculptris or Blender " ZBrush - way beyond what I am after. That is for a group that is vastly removed from my skill set and what I have in mind. Wings, Blender -maybe but sub-d stuff I would end up having to work around things like holes. Some of the get arounds that I have seen in Modo (unless they improved it) to make holes by added edges / loop slices allow the work to get done but not real productive for a workflow. Sculptris - awesome but not for me at all.

By organic I mean more along the lines of organic shapes in a product's housing, the shape of a wall, etc. not actually organic beings :-)

My drawing of an organic being is a stick man. I can do that in Windows Paint.

Thanks for the input so far.

I used FormZ regularly for a long time 1994 - 2004. I have not upgraded it since 2004. I don't use it now because its drafting is weak, and its native file format is not an industry standard for my work.

Otherwise, it is a superb program, and works equally with with polygons and nurbs format. I really wish it had caught on more than it has.

Thank you for that input.

I fooled around with Bonzai for a bit. Only when it was in Beta (I didnt like that the earlier betas were less refined, but thats kindof more normal for betas.) I also didnt put a great effort into it, so thats a grain of salt for my comments.

For me, it blurred the line of poly and NURBS too much. I would prefer to be in one or the other. I never was really sure what I was working with.

They have some advanced tools. Some that I was really after, but the export wasnt always going to other apps properly. The really fancy blends were creating some faulty geometry (Only in other apps. It wasnt apparent in the Z's) I wonder what kernel they use? Possibly proprietary or ACIS based? It's NURBS surface modification tools are insane (powerful). I didnt get to the point of testing if they work on geometry brought in, as opposed to native creation.

Most of the stuff to really make it work, was deeper in dialogues so would have taken some time on the curve to figure out how/when/what/why. For me, it was along the lines of Rhino (For me, worse). The "it's better than Rhino" was not true, for me.

I just stopped early, because i wasnt confident ( Rememeber, I didnt put much time or effort)

If someone could put the time in to really push it (either the light or full versions) it would propbably prove to be pretty good. You may want to look at the userbase/community to see if the type of support for becoming proficient suits you.

There are several things in it I would like to see in MoI, and would have bought it for those, but shyed away for the above.

I did a similar thing with similar results.
I did like the real time boolean functions ... but the workflow in general was not fluid for me.
I am very happy with MoI and its development track.
cheers,
eric