Software Alternatives & Reviews

Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

MoI - Moment of Inspiration
  1. MagicaVoxel Official Website

    #3D #Game Development #Game Engine 6 social mentions

  2. MoI is a new 3D Modeling/CAD application for designers and artists. Offering a blend of precision and freeform NURBS drawing tools, it sports a unique user interface that operates seamlessly with a pen tablet.
    As others have said, Blender supports NURBS, but it is not too fancy. I have played before with Moi3D[^1], which is "3D modeling for designers and artists", and I also use Blender and ZBrush quite a bit. My impression so far is that CAD-like specialized software is not worth using for artistic 3D modelling, at least the type which is only intended to be shown on a screen. That's because Blender's NURBS, curves and surfaces are good enough for simple shapes. For relatively complex shapes, the solvers in CAD engines can be very slow and glitchy[^2]. With a little bit of patience, one can do amazing non-destructive hard surfaces using curves and Blender's Geometry nodes (specially now that there is support for curves). With an entirely different workflow, ZBrush is a mighty hard-surface modeller as well[^3]. That's not to say that there aren't scenarios where one may have use for a solver, but they are so specialized that most artists would be better off doing the math outside their 3D modeller (or renting Fusion360 for a month, but for a casual user that software has to be more intimidating than using Python and Kiwisolver). [^1]: http://moi3d.com.

    #3D #Photos & Graphics #Architecture 18 social mentions

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