Adehus

All-

There's a thread in Autodessys's FormZ forums about how different users feel about FormZ's roadmap. It seems to divide into two camps: 1) Users who use FormZ primarily for modeling and export to different apps for rendering & animation, and 2) Users who look at FormZ as an all-in-one app.

Personally, I'm more interested in FormZ upgrading it's modeling capabilities (camp 1). I'm not to the point yet where I feel as though I've outgrown it's functionality, but I see the day coming soon. FormZ's strength was always it's modeling capabilities, and other packages seem to be adding functionality (especially subdivision surfaces and construction history) that is surpassing it. Nonetheless, Autodessys appears (from what they're willing to tell us) to be pushing ahead with expanded animation capabilities as the cornerstone of their next major release. To those of us who aren't concerned with rendering/animation within FormZ, this seems to be a bad sign.

I thought I'd post this here, versus on the autodessys site, because I know that there are several FormZ users here and would like to hear opinions from others who use the app as part of their archviz workflow. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks, Andy

ihabkal

I think some animation advancements are welcome. I would like not to have to export my file into max for animations. but I guess in order for them to get the flexibility of the max history modeling, they might need to reprogram the whole thing...that's maybe why they're stopping there in the modeling package. For architectural modeling that I do I see formZ gives me more tools than I need...so it's not a problem if they go into other areas, unless they drop the whole package one day, if the user base shrinks...

Adehus

That's interesting, Ihab... I assumed that most FormZ users here exported to another app to render, if only because of the limitations of the Lightworks rendering module. Good to hear a different point of view.

Any others?

BTW, Ihab- have you had any success doing animations on FormZ with network rendering?

Ernest Burden

My good friend, and sometimes partner, Sven Johnson uses FormZ a lot. In fact, working with him is why I bought FZ. He also uses Cinema. But I know he is fairly good with RenderZone and uses it for his work. Although as often as not he's using it as a visual guide and then watercoloring the final.

I've had it with FZ. Slow, slow slow. I may upgrade to 5 just to get a more stable version than 4, but after that, no. It has all the right features, but the workflow is awful (for me). I know that once you get used to it, it does great stuff. I just can't get to that point. Cinema, however, is so much easier to use, and the renders are much better.

So for me, FormZ is an expensive file translator (and its even really slow at that).

__________________
Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

Trick

For quick AND complex arch.modeling where the goal is viz or animation, I think FormZ is the best and fastest tool around. However I must admit that it has a VERY clumsy interface which is still rooted in it's first (MAC) releasse some decades ago. Furthermore I'm still very satisfied with v3.6.8, especially because v4/5's wireframe redraw speed makes you cry. I'm exporting to MAX and LW so I surely don't need more bells (and crashes). If they don't make it lots faster in the next (v5.5) release, I (and many others) will slowly move ALL modeling to MAX and LW...

Adehus

Trick-

I have similar concerns... redraw speed is going in the wrong direction for complex models, and they haven't really been able to get a handle on how to make the interface work cleanly with their expanded toolset. I also agree, though, that in spite of these issues FormZ is still the fastest way I know of to get a nice clean model knocked out quickly, regardless of complexity.

To that end, I really hope that they can push forward with cleaning up the modeling interface and regaining lost speed. Autodessys seems to be in 'feature-itis' mode, and I'd prefer it if they'd make everything they've already implemented easier-to-use/more stable/faster... focus on their core competency. LightWorks is never going to be a top-tier rendering solution, and I have little faith in their ability to implement competitive animation functionality either. Why focus on it?

Andy

Trick

As a modeling application FormZ in some way stood on its own and actually had very little competition.

With the render- and animation add-ons it is competing with a lot of the big boys now and I am (very) afraid that the modeling roots (read speed and stabilty) are going to suffer because of that. Once I saw that FormZ went the modular way I guessed some parties would develop render- and animation plugins wich would keep the core app clean and compact: it seems I guessed wrong

I'm really speeding up in MAX and LW and at the current pace FZ will surely lose in my game !!

Adehus

I think you hit on the sore point for them- nobody has jumped in to develop plugins. Maxwell and RPC plugins are supposedly 'in the works', but even so, it's a case of too little too late. At any rate, it seems that ADS is having to code the functions that they were hoping third party developers would do, to the detriment of their core modeling offering.

BTW, you may be interested in a thread on the FormZ Forums that is discussing much of this. It's under the 'FormZ General Discussion', and is titled 'Form*Z 5.5 and 6.0'.

Might want to catch it quickly, though- good threads like this tend to disappear on Monday mornings...

Adehus

Ernest-

I can't speak specifically to the robustness of the import/export features, but generally speaking I don't think that 5 is a more stable version than 4 is.

crazy homeless guy

i have used formZ since version 2 something. i remember the leap to version 3, oooo aaaahhh, color tools and limited animation capabilities. i used to be an active visitor and poster on their forum before i came here. i have not been back in a long time. i had issues with their forum, and had to contact their office to address them. i will not go into details, i would rather keep this post more professional than that.

formZ was the first 3d app i learned, so i never really had issues with the interface. though i can cl;early see how it could be streamlined, and made more efficient. i have my preferences set so that 50% of the tools i use for modeling are on the screen at any given time, and the other 50% are custom hot-keyed.

for me, formZ's strongest strengths of its strengths are accuracy, easy creation of complex boolean shapes, and the simplicity of it layer manager. there are lots of parts of formZ that i never touch because they are either to finicky, or just suck. accuracy being one of its shapes becomes one of its weaknesses when doing more organic modeling. so that places me in camp 1 per the first post of this email.

formZ version 4 was an absolute disaster plagued with delay after delay, and then a final product that was not stable, and yes, was actually slower in response than earlier versions. the app went from a quick and efficient program, to a larger, bulky program that bogged down.

many apps that you use for a long period of time you will see gradually grow worse as they try and make it do more things. my favorite version of quicktime is still version 2.5. back then it was a simple movie player, and nothing else. it was quick to open, and worked. just what a movie player should do. version 3.9.5 of formZ is my favorite version. it was the old code that had been refined for several years. it is stable, quick, and does what i needed it to.

i have version 5 installed on my machine, but have not used it. version 4.xx left such a bitter taste in mouth that i don't think version 5 is going to be any better. with version 4 formZ rewrote their entire code from ground up. they said the code in the old program was starting to get a little sloppy. they wanted to re-code it, streamline the code, in an effort to make it run smoother and faster. formZ themselves are the only ones i have ever heard say that their ex[periment was a success. as pointed out earlier in this thread, the response time of the model is dismal. it reminds me of working in 3dsmax. 3dsmax has poor response time also.

unfortunately i think that formz's user base has been shrinking since the release of version 4. look no further than our own forum site for proof of this. i can not remember the last this forum was posted in before this thread, and their is an active thread in general discussions about someone switching from formZ to autocad. at the rate it is going, i don't see it lasting as an app. the only thing really keeping it going right now is that they give good deals to universities and students to use their program.

i think formZ needs to do something about the lightworks engine. it is now way behind the game of rendering and lighting. i think their primary lighting method is still radiosity, although they did just add HDRI, and some other type of general GI, but i am not sure if these are even enabled to in the latest version of formZ. they should dump Lightworks, and strike a deal with another 3rd party app, a la 3dsmax and MentalRay.

actually, i think the strongest thing formZ could do to their program right now is to create a plugin version of their program, that serves as a modeler within another program, whether it is 3dsmax, lightwave, autocad, ect.... this is basically how i use it now. i build the main part of the model in formZ, fileLink it to 3dsmax, compose the scene in Max, and add any extras to the scene in max, then i light and render using vray. it would be cool if i could start in max 9or my preferred program), and launch a formZ plugin to do my architectural modeling, and have the geometry always be in max. kind of like how you work with Vray and 3dsmax. you are always lighing, and rendering with vray. i would be doing most of my modeling with formz.

that would potentially make the company smaller, but on the other hand, it would also expand their market base. it would make its powerful architectural modeling tools accessible to a larger audience. gamers who need to build city worlds could use the formZ plugin to build their architecture more efficiently. special effects guys who are making buildings or rooms for composting scenes could use the formz plugin. yes, they could just use the full version now, but what do you think the actual chances of that are? not good.

anyway, i am rambling, and really don't know if anyone is actually reading my entire post. basically, i think formZ is dead if it keeps following the path it is on. i don't think it can reach enough new users, and it is losing to many existing ones. as for improvements following their exiting path... i would like to see them add some of the features found in other apps that work with arch modeling... window placement will automatically punch the hole for you. door placement allow you to choose different hardware on the fly, ect..

oh, and one last thing... especially if any one from formZ is reading my post... ADD FILE REFERENCING / LINKING ALREADY. WE WANT IT.

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travis schmiesing