thacks Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 Joined this forum since it has a Form*Z section. One of the few Form*Z dedicated forums I have found. There is a very active Form*Z forum at http://www.formz.com, but I don't like the forum format. This doesn't seem to be a very active Form*Z community. Does anyone know of any other Form*Z communities? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 Joined this forum since it has a Form*Z section. One of the few Form*Z dedicated forums I have found. There is a very active Form*Z forum at www.formz.com, but I don't like the forum format. This doesn't seem to be a very active Form*Z community. Does anyone know of any other Form*Z communities? the formz forum on their website is defenitly the most active around, and decent for tech support. i used to play over there a lot, but lost interest. there are a handful of formz users on this forum, and we are relatively knowledgable on the application, so a lot of questions don't come up. but if they do, they will garner a response. i am interested to see version 5 of formz. i don't know if ours came in the mail yet. we have the latest version, but i tend to reach for version 3.9.5 before i use 4.xx, so i am hoping version 5 will suite my fancy. anyway, welcome aboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 i am interested to see version 5 of formz. I haven't decided whether or not to upgrade from 4. I haven't learned to use it very well, so it kust sits there. In a pinch I use it, but it has not become the replacement for modeling in my CAD program that I had hoped. And its abilities in file translation are seriously compromised by its being so slow that its almost useless. But FZ5 is supposed to be faster, so I may risk one more pile of cash on it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 I haven't decided whether or not to upgrade from 4. I haven't learned to use it very well, so it kust sits there. In a pinch I use it, but it has not become the replacement for modeling in my CAD program that I had hoped. And its abilities in file translation are seriously compromised by its being so slow that its almost useless. But FZ5 is supposed to be faster, so I may risk one more pile of cash on it... version 3.9.5 is faster than version 4.xx. ...and not so cumbersome. version 4 was a complete re-write of the code from the ground up that was supposed to move formz into its next generation. unfortunately, imo, it started behaving like max. being that all of the sudden it was slow and boggy to respond. i am hoping it regains what it had previously with version 5. i will let you know my opinion after i test it out. there is a demo version of 5 posted on their website right now, but sometimes those are not the current build they are shipping. ..and there is no saving in demo versions, so you can't really test drive a project all the way through, just open existing ones, or build 1 hour project, and see how it responds. the jump from version 4.2 straight to version 5 seemed a bit odd to myself, considering 4 was never fully developed like 2 was, and 3 was before making the next big jump in numbers. trivial, but maybe 5 is so much better than 4, that they didn't want to group it with 4. their official explanation was that beta testers had 4.5 for so long, they thought it was time to advance it to 5. oh, and on a side note, our firm just received a post card from NYSR today. went to their website, and saw your name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 oh, and on a side note, our firm just received a post card from NYSR today. went to their website, and saw your name. Well I was president of the group for eight years, been a member for about 20. I never had v.3 of FZ, bought 4 as my first. But I've not warmed to it, though I have to Cinema. Even working in polygon mode, Cinema is SO much easier to use than FZ. But I'm sure once you get used to the weird ways of FZ it would be great to work with. So long as it was operating fast enough, which v4 really does not. And their tech support think a 200,000 polygon model is huge. Yeah, ten years ago it was... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Mac Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 I never had v.3 of FZ, bought 4 as my first. But I've not warmed to it, though I have to Cinema. Even working in polygon mode, Cinema is SO much easier to use than FZ. But I'm sure once you get used to the weird ways of FZ it would be great to work with. So long as it was operating fast enough, which v4 really does not. And their tech support think a 200,000 polygon model is huge. Yeah, ten years ago it was... It's funny - for years I was a staunch supporter of FormZ - just look at my previous posts!! But now, after not even 6 months of using Cinema 4d, I'd never go back! I use to think that, as a modeller, Form Z was unrivalled - but I'm enjoying modelling in polygons with Cinema so much I don't think I'll ever need to use FZ again. And don't even get me started on FZ's radiozity!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackb602 Posted February 25, 2005 Share Posted February 25, 2005 Funny, I'm in kind of the same boat. I was a huge fan of Formz for years; it's the platform I learned 3d modeling in. Now I've been using Cinema for everything but modeling for a couple of years, and I REALLY like the workflow. I love the idea of the object manager and the ability to make large scale changes to a project almost instantaneously, but I've been kind of timid about actually modelling an architectural project in Cinema. FormZ does have some very useful tools that I took for granted until I noticed their absence in Cinema. The Enclosure Tool for making walls is saves me lots of time. And working in the viewport in FormZ is much more interactive. I can actually draw a cube exactly where I want it to appear, rather than just dropping a generic cube into the center of my scene. The snap controls also seem more powerful. But I would still like to be able to do all of my work in Cinema. Chris and Ernest, how comfortable do you feel doing architectural modeling in Cinema? Were there any major obstacles to getting your work done? What's you basic approach? I'd love to hear more about how others use Cinema for modeling. Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Alexander Posted February 26, 2005 Share Posted February 26, 2005 C4D is a great app, really. However & currently comapred to MAX, MAYA, XSI some think it equal or slightly behind. The reality is you can do 90% of everything possible in C4D hard-soft surface/ animation/ charactor/ rendering ..... It's an application developed for ease of use to cover a very broad range of the CG VFX market, not compete with the complexities, high level of FX & price of XSI advanced, Maya.............. imho. The reality is you still may need once in a while a hard surface modeler like FormZ. Unfortunately to use FormZ or other HardSurface app for these situations requires in depth knowledge of the hardsurface app. FormZ fills that need especially if you are very familar with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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