It is a good example of the flexibility often seen in FOSS software: replace the list with the tab bar addon, custom keyboard shortcuts, or one of two compatible pie menu implementations. A FreeCAD idiosyncrasy is the drop-down list for workbench switching, which is not ideal. I'm not sure of the authorship of each, but UI improvements in RealThunder's branch include animated camera snapping and panel autohide/transparency.
BLENDER 3.0.0 FREE
I often feel that 'bad' UI (especially in free software) is perfectly productive once the user is familiar, but I will admit that difference in aesthetics in FreeCAD from switching themes, tweaking settings, and rearranging toolbars/panels is not small.
There are four competing addons RealThunder's branch includes his, Assembl圓. FreeCAD's other crucial issue is the lack of official assembly support.
Many of the smaller features it includes will also be in the imminent upcoming release (0.20) sadly, the TNP fix has only been weakly promised for 0.21.
AutoDesk made an effective move, though, and Fusion's capture of the hobbyist market has stifled FOSS development.įreeCAD's most serious drawback, the topological naming problem (TNP), is remedied in RealThunder's branch (confusingly also called the RT branch, assembl圓 branch, Link Branch, and LinkStage3).
BLENDER 3.0.0 SOFTWARE
But this type of software isn't built, refined, and polished overnight.įreeCAD's stable release is somewhat painful to use, but I'd say that when using a development build (I've personally had no trouble) and having gone through the preferences, customization options, and list of addons (altogether not too much effort ⇒ would recommend), it becomes truly competitive with the other major alternative, the free-as-in-beer tier of less-than-industry-standard Fusion 360. There's definitely demand for open source 3D CAD and a passionate and capable community of makers willing to make that happen. Especially when considering how the 3D printing/maker community has become increasingly prominent. So I like to think that there's hope for FreeCAD or something similar. Eventually it hit some sort of critical mass where it got good enough, and attracted enough attention and funding to accelerate the development (I like to think this was the 2.8 release.) This started a positive feedback cycle where it got better, attracted more attention and funding, thus improving and polishing it even further to the point where it's sponsored by practically every major tech company, and taken seriously when compared to commercial software. Blender has been around for a really long time, and there has always been a community of users and developers who improved the software over the years. You know, it wasn't long ago that Blender was a somewhat obscure open source CG/3D modeling software that was not taken super seriously for enterprise use. If they levelled up the Python API to be more friendly to the code-oriented generative art crowd, they would be even more unstoppable! Suffice to say, you end up writing a lot of boilerplate to ensure predictable state changes in between operations. This makes the api feel like an afterthought to the traditional UI interaction, and introduces a number of issues that I won't bore you with. This context is essentially putting the UI in a particular state, as if the user had clicked specific items and activated certain windows. For example, many operations (bpy.ops) require an accurate "context" to succeed. I consider myself a Python expert, and the Python API leaves a lot to be desired at an architectural level. One area I wish they would start to give more attention is their scripting.
It's written by creators, for creators, and you can feel the love and care that they put into it. I've been using Blender for over 20 years as a hobbyist and it has consistently been one of my favorite pieces of software. Sadly I don't think AMD is bringing HIP for their older, pre-6000 GPUs.
BLENDER 3.0.0 MAC
I was a long time Radeon VII user on Mac but before 3.0 the stability and performance was just not there so I've moved my Blender experiments to Windows and Nvidia which works spectacularly but I'm not fussed about booting win just for Blender. I'm in particular interested in seeing how 6900 XT and regular M1 (in Mac mini form) will perform under Metal with 3.1 and macOs 12.3.
BLENDER 3.0.0 UPDATE
This update comes with many geometry node improvements which continue the trend of making Blender the premium non-destructive modelling solution. They do everything so well, even the releases, I think it beats the paid competition now or will soon do in feature parity and ease of use. Blender is shaping up to be the best open source project I've seen in my 20 years of tech, and I'm comparing this with many other large ones I've used, like Linux kernel or various distros, FreeBSD, Kubernetes and so on.