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Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

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Re: Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

#71

Post by s1mon »

nkallen wrote: post #68
s1mon wrote: post #66

This is very interesting to me. However if it’s truly for “artists”, linking to a GitHub page isn’t going to reach that demographic. You need a proper product web site with an explanation of the features and benefits using images and videos. And you need a simple download link. I’ve been using and managing CAD professionally for product engineering for 30+ years and I’ve had GitHub accounts to review code for work th…

When I get to version 1.0 I will do all of those things. For now this is a beta, more for artists who are interested offering feedback to affect the design of the app.

Even in beta, how you present your work is as important or possibly more important than the "work" itself. (It's actually a significant part of the work.)

I've been involved with beta programs for other CAD tools and constantly give feedback to the Onshape team for their design and development of their app. I've worked at major design firms (IDEO, Pentagram, Lunar, etc) and have an ID background. I'm very enthusiastic about CAD and its creative uses. I'm part of what I understand your core audience to be.

I'm trying to give you constructive feedback that a GitHub link which dumps me into a directory is a huge turn off.

Go look at Shapr3D [1], Gravity Sketch [2], or even FreeCAD [3]. Look at how they have calls to action, download links and key benefits shown visually in 2 seconds.

[1] https://www.shapr3d.com

[2] https://www.gravitysketch.com

[3] https://www.freecadweb.org

Re: Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

#72

Post by wlesieutre »

bwda wrote: post #44

Looks interesting, but why opensource if you plan to sell it and are "not okay" with other people benefiting - only you can benefit? :( Sad for a prospective app I would use in my workflow.

It's built on C3D which costs them money to license

http://web.archive.org/web/20210412124037/https://c3dlabs.co...

Re: Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

#73

Post by s1mon »

s1mon wrote: post #71
nkallen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I get to version 1.0 I will do all of those things. For now this is a beta, more for artists who are interested offering feedback to affect the design of the app.

Even in beta, how you present your work is as important or possibly more important than the "work" itself. (It's actually a significant part of the work.) I've been involved with beta programs for other CAD tools and constantly give feedback to the Onshape team for their design and development of their app. I've worked at major design firms (IDEO, Pentagram, Lunar, etc) and have an ID background. I'm very enthusiasti…

Watching some of the videos on your YouTube page [0] gives a much better impression and clarity of what you're trying to do. Particularly this one [1].

The workflow and ease of creating so many features with so few keyboard/mouse commands is intriguing. I understand that you're trying to focus on game asset creation, but since it does do STEP import/export, there's really no reason this can't be used for ID or engineering work, at least at the initial concept level. Don't ignore those markets.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/user/nickkallen1/videos

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC2MBvb1_Fk

Re: Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

#75

Post by nkallen »

s1mon wrote: post #73
s1mon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in beta, how you present your work is as important or possibly more important than the "work" itself. (It's actually a significant part of the work.) I've been involved with beta programs for other CAD tools and constantly give feedback to the Onshape team for their design and development of their app. I've worked at major design firms (IDEO, Pentagram, Lunar, etc) and have an ID background. I'm very enthusiasti…

Watching some of the videos on your YouTube page [0] gives a much better impression and clarity of what you're trying to do. Particularly this one [1]. The workflow and ease of creating so many features with so few keyboard/mouse commands is intriguing. I understand that you're trying to focus on game asset creation, but since it does do STEP import/export, there's really no reason this can't be used for ID or engine…

I appreciate your feedback and I totally want to market it in the way you propose. But let me be real: I am one person doing everything. I expect to have all that stuff by September when I plan to launch 1.0. If I were "in control" of this situation, I'd prefer the app get more buzz closer to launch rather than 6 months away. But I can't really control when people post to hacker news... And in any case I think all publicity is good. Dying in obscurity is the biggest risk.

Re: Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

#76

Post by fsloth »

jcelerier wrote: post #61
nkallen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fine for people to have varying philosophical takes on what should be the normative goals of open source software licenses. Obviously the FSF takes a rather maximalist stance. I personally find this aggressive goal and some of the personalities behind it to not match my vibe. And the reality is that more permissive licenses like MIT are becoming more and more popular. What I've seen some Blender plugins…

> It's totally legal. If the IPC is here only for the sake of circumventing the GPL (e.g. there aren't any meaningful use of the "GPL plug-in" part through this IPC channel outside of communication with the non-GPL program), it's totally not. What are such plug-ins ?

IPC is totally worthwhile for native applications in any case, when separate complex components are combined into a single user session. Running the code in separate heaps reduces the chances of bugs in one application code corrupting the entire application heap.

Very hard to argue that IPC would ever be just for avoiding license. It always increases total robustness.

Re: Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

#78

Post by fknorangesite »

nkallen wrote: post #75
s1mon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching some of the videos on your YouTube page [0] gives a much better impression and clarity of what you're trying to do. Particularly this one [1]. The workflow and ease of creating so many features with so few keyboard/mouse commands is intriguing. I understand that you're trying to focus on game asset creation, but since it does do STEP import/export, there's really no reason this can't be used for ID or engine…

I appreciate your feedback and I totally want to market it in the way you propose. But let me be real: I am one person doing everything. I expect to have all that stuff by September when I plan to launch 1.0. If I were "in control" of this situation, I'd prefer the app get more buzz closer to launch rather than 6 months away. But I can't really control when people post to hacker news... And in any case I think all pu…

Yeah, this makes sense. Don't let the HN commenters grind you down.

Re: Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

#79

Post by toss1 »

s1mon wrote: post #71
nkallen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I get to version 1.0 I will do all of those things. For now this is a beta, more for artists who are interested offering feedback to affect the design of the app.

Even in beta, how you present your work is as important or possibly more important than the "work" itself. (It's actually a significant part of the work.) I've been involved with beta programs for other CAD tools and constantly give feedback to the Onshape team for their design and development of their app. I've worked at major design firms (IDEO, Pentagram, Lunar, etc) and have an ID background. I'm very enthusiasti…

THIS!!

I've also been using CAD professionally for nearly two decades (RhinoCAD), and was intrigued by the title. When I saw it was just a GitHub code page, without even much for documentation, etc. My response was basically "nevermind", although I did come to check the comments - the video definitely highlights capabilities in a way I would never have guessed form the GH link.

In short, some basics that I learned while building software companies (before doing materials & CAD):

1) Most users have very little imagination - we MUST really spell everything out and draw the connections for them, at least until they get to the "AHA" moment.

2) Most potential customers have no interest or knowledge of software and how it works (software for artists this goes double++). They want to know what it can do FOR THEM, not how cool it is for us

3) A decent approximation for how well users will understand something is what we as software experts would understand with a new application or feature set when we are very tired and in a huge rush - think what you can figure out in less than a minute at 3AM when you've been crunching for days under a deadline, and someone brings in a new thing - it isn't much; you don't really GAF about the new thing, if it isn't really obvious, you'll skip it for now. That level of insight is what is available for a non-expert after a half hour of presentation. So, whatever it is, you need to design it and the presentation of it so that it meets that criteria - you could present it to your peer at 3AM in crunch time and they'd be able to pick it up and use it (or at least get the "AHA" moment and see the utility).

Re: Plasticity Is CAD for Artists

#80

Post by [deleted] »

avian wrote: post #7

> Plasticity is mostly Open Source. When Plasticity reaches 1.0, it will cost $25 to use (no subscription). I'm curious how this will be implemented. According to the LICENSE file in the repo, the current source is available under LGPL. What will cost $25? Will the repo be taken off-line after 1.0 release? Or will further updates after 1.0 be binary only?

[deleted]
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