I looked into this software (trial version) as a means of creating models for 3D printing of complex models, requiring specific accuracy for movement. My background is 12+ years working in Autodesk Maya for Animation series and films, in Rigging, Coding and Modelling areas, plus some experience with Blender.
I like the History setup, with the ability to isolate the history to ‘Breakpoints’, however I noticed some significant bugs with doing so:
1 - whenever a history item is edited in a way that changes the number of objects in the scene, (eg. boolean ones,) it seems like the new object IDs can replace the IDs further down the history stack, ie. the new objects may steal the ID number (apparently?) that a later history operation was previously using.
1a - This has a flow on effect where if you renamed Items or put them into folders, before adjusting the history, the names may end up on the wrong objects after disabling the Breakpoint.
1b - In some cases, I’m not sure of the steps to reproduce it, an object went fully missing from the Items view after editing such history items, even though the object was still visible in the scene and editable. (In this case, exporting it as a Shapr file and creating a new project from that file brought the object back.)
1c. Ideally, as I saw mentioned in another post (Feedback on history based parametric version #5) the object rename should keep track of what point in the history stack it applied to, maybe the point at which the object it refers to was first created.
1d. Also, perhaps the operations with boolean output options should reserve all the possible IDs on creation, or similar logic, so that if the mode is switched later on, it doesn’t clash with IDs used elsewhere, (later in the history.)
For a coder/debugger, it would also be nice to have access to the console output when errors and warnings are raised - perhaps Beta users have this, but I didn’t see anything on the trial version.
Other bugs:
2 - When initially choosing the ‘tablet pen’ view option, on Windows 10, the ‘Control’ button didn’t work, so there was no way to navigate fully until restarting with another (mouse) mode and changing it to another option in the settings.
3 - And then (when using the ‘blender’ view settings,) occasionally the camera would glitch out and rotate the camera when it was supposed to be panning sideways. This became quite frustrating at times, having to use ‘Ctrl+1’ often to try and fix the camera, especially when working on small details inside an object.
Feature requests:
4 - For people with multiple monitors, it would be nice if the tutorial videos could be in a separate window. Currently the video frame only exists within the main window.
5 - Currently, to use a model as a reusable sub-part of other models, you have to import it, losing any link to the original model if it is updated. Also, there appears to be no option to import from another project, but you have to export to disk and import from there. My preference would be a live link to another project (like a Maya Reference, but as an operation in the History stack) so that updating eg. a connector design project would update the connector(s) in any project that references that. (Ideally with a version control option, if you want to lock a design to a specific connector version.) This concept is a standard concept in CGI Rigging Systems, but could benefit any workflow with reusable and especially moving parts.
I liked the idea of ‘Constraints’ on the drawings - although occasionally the correct order was difficult to figure out - to me this was like 2D Rigging, where adjusting one value could adjust a whole design. Ideally there would be a way to mark/highlight the values that are intended by the designer to be dynamically adjustable though (if designing a template for reuse) eg. the main dimensions.
At present, having no current need for doing more 3D printing or industrial design, I don’t intend to continue with a paid subscription, particularly with the volatile things mentioned with the camera and history. However I am interested to see where this software goes, and may come back to it in the future! (And would be interested in a Beta thing to give feedback on if it were free.)
Reference of my hexasphericon model with sort of bayonet-connector teeth - not my best design, but it used the 2D rigging idea - the inner and outer radius of the 6 teeth is adjustable, with the sketch and model updating automatically. For this design, the two halves of the shape are identical, but fit together at any 60 degree alignment. Posted as one pic due to new post limit.)
