My (first?) 3d printer arrives tomorrow. I’ve been researching for months. One category I’ve been looking into is 3d modeling software. They all have drawbacks (too expensive, too hard to learn, save files in the cloud, etc) but the one that seems to fit the best is this apparently new one called Plasticity. I’d be willing to spend the $150 and then decide after a year if I want to re-up or just keep the current version. Or maybe I’d upgrade every few years or something.
Anyway, there are a bunch of great reviews and tutorials but they’re all over a year old, from when looks like the software was first released.
I’m wondering if anyone here has experience with it and could advise if it’s worth the $150.
I think it depends greatly on your preferred workflow and what you plan to model. Parametric drafting like fusion involves creating dimensioned and constrained sketches and manipulating them. Where direct modeling like blender or plasticity is more like painting in 3D
You wouldn’t create a figurine using parametric tools as all the fine detail would be impossible to constrain. At the same time a precise gear that needs to mesh would be difficult to model in a direct modeling tool as it’s difficult to make the precise teeth
Well I suspect the custom stuff that I’m going to design will be utilitarian in nature rather than artistic- replacement parts, organizational stuff, a little attachment to something, etc. So I’ll want precise measuring tools. If I print something more artistic, I’ll probably rely on models that already exist, like DnD minis or something.
In that case, I would recommend starting with FreeCAD (get a 1.0 release candidate from the weekly builds github) and make sure to watch a couple of intro tutorials. There are tons of CAD packages with pluses and minuses (and that’s exaggerated in their free tiers), but if you can start with FreeCAD and have it as your baseline, you can avoid a lot of cost and annoying business practices, though as I mentioned elsewhere, Plasticity is not a bad choice if you go in knowing its limitations.
