this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy
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For CAD and 3d design in general, I oreger Rhino. The grasshopper addition is phenominal,.and I've been using Rhino for almost.. 20 years now. I really enjoy the look and feel if it, I know basically every relevant command line input and input option etc. I use Revit and AutoCAD at work, but convinced them to get my Rhino for developing 3d models and converting them to 2D.
The only truly free program that competes with Rhino is Blender, which is an amazing program in a whole bunch of regards, but I've never liked the GUI at all.
Speaking of things Blender can also do, I prefer Photoshop to popular free alternatives such as GIMP or Blender. I'm very familiar with the tools and how they work, and the Beta improvements are mind boggling. I do however prefer Inkscape for vector work.
Speaking more about things Blender can also do, I prefer DaVinci Resolve as a free movie editor. However, I did purchase the basic license becuase I thought the program was that good. I'm blown away that they make it free with so many things enabled still.
Speaking ...Blender.. you get the idea.. digital sculpting is much nicer in Zbrush, to me. Took me forever to not hate the GUI (cough -- ok I still Hate it), but I really love some of the tools and plug-ins. It's also phenominal at mesh repair in general. Which is a subtasks I prefer Netfabb Basic for, which I think is also paid for now, but I think suspect it's included in my Autodesk license package..
The moral of the story is if you like to do any of these things go check out blender before you get used to a paid program, and save yourself decades of costs lol.
Hey at least Rhino appears to be run kinda like a co-op where the employees own the company, which is actually really interesting I've never heard of a co-op for a software company
Also same boat - Autodesk sucks and is the Adobe of the industry yes, but like, the alternative is freecad and I'm sorry but freecad kinda sucks especially when it's standing next to like, Fusion360. It's got the learning curve of a vertical line and is kinda missing a ton of stuff
McNeelsoft seem to be a fantastic company from what I can tell. They are local to me in Seattle which I love. They started as an autodesk division but broke away from autodesk to pursue a better product.
Blender is currently the #1 general-purpose 3d editor.... short of Houdini but it's getting there with everything nodes and when people complain about Blender being complicated or such they usually don't compare it against Houdini.
Sure, sculptors love ZBrush but ZBrush doesn't let you sculpt with full lightning and everything it doesn't even begin to support it because it's so specialised, arguably it's not even a 3d program (but 2.5d). Blender might only get to 95% of what sculptors might wish for but because it also does everything else you suddenly get another 50% that sculptors didn't even dream of. If you just bought your first tablet definitely give Blender a spin (also Krita over Photoshop).
As to Blender's UI, there's pretty much only three mistakes you can make: a) Assume that this could ever be mastered without a manual, discovered as you go without setting time aside to study it for its own sake, b) fall to the dark side and use left-click select and c) not customise things. Blender has more functions than could possibly fit on key combinations, supports more different workflows than it has users so once you've figured out a workflow customise the UI to be efficient for that particular flow.
Side note: Have you considered Blender as a vector editor?
Like I hinted at: it does too much
Try FreeCAD?
Nah, it's just too difficult to get things done. I don't mind paying for good software, especially when it's a lifetime license.