AsOne

+1

I love FormZ!!! I'm very impressed with the v9 release. Yes, less "sexy" with more under the hood improvements, but so many were so necessary. I was first taught it in the early 90's in school. I would love to help promote the program as I want to see it succeed. I haven't found another program like it. I explain it to other architects as a love child between SketchUp and Rhino. Speed of SketchUp + power of Rhino. (minus Grasshopper, which would be great to see addressed) Some ideas: Updated YouTube channel would be great. More short tutorials on how to use each tool. More tutorials on how to produce a specific thing or rendering look. Perhaps guest vlogs with real Z users illustrating how they use the software. An Instagram channel. An improved showcase on the website. Maybe a showreel video each year. All efforts should be targeted at the target users of the program. The more specifically targeted the better. I now teach architecture at the University of Colorado. Happy to help implement there if I can in some way. SketchUp, Rhino, AutoCAD (hard to believe anyone still teaches this), and REVIT dominate. I don't have any input into the software options students use, but if there is a way to get a foothold there I would do it. Perhaps if someone from Autodessys came out for a free training for students I could help facilitate that. It may be hard to convince the faculty given Z's small market share currently, but maybe they just don't know how great it is. Most of the faculty still think of it as a program from the 1990's and can't believe I still use it. sadly. This year I finally have my work in order to start producing some great renderings and animation! The more we can produce as users the more Z has to work with. Hopefully I can start pulling my weight.

Your modeling speed it tied to the speed of your single CPU cores, given FormZ only uses one CPU core for modeling at a time. Rendering takes advantage of multiple CPU cores or in your case GPU cores. I would imagine that Justin is correct - Mac vs. Windows operating systems won't make too much a difference in modeling speed. It is the hardware setup that matters. I don't run PC's, but I find v8.6 models quite fast on the latest iMacs.

I have already posted requests for most of these, but why not something to refresh your memory! Top Ten FormZ 9 requests: 1. Hidden line DWG export from within FormZ (not from Layout) at 1:1 scale and from common 0,0,0 point. I can't express enough how much this would streamline and improve my workflow. I still need to look into if this is possible from Layout, but it would be far better to have it export directly from FormZ. 2. Return of midpoint snap 3. Select by Criteria material selection box improvement - material name list view and larger selection box 4. Operand & Edit menu palette - Status palette showing Edit drop down current choices (Keep/Delete/Ghost, Group lock/unlock, Component lock/unlock, Selection Preview on/off, etc.) 5. Real time light intensity sliders for shaded full 6. Improvement to components - stability & reliability…less buggy 7. Step by step reveal (reversing step by step isolate) 8. Loss of input box upon mouse pan and/or guideline placement - a bug since v7! 9. Shaded Full ambient occlusion on/off option box for individual objects, similar to Override edge display option 10. Fixed numeric amount Reshape option 11. BONUS = Fix clipping plane color and add normal lineweights for cut line - color choice is buggy and doesn't always show the correct color. Instead of 1-5 just have normal line weights for the cut line. 12. EXTRA BONUS = Fix Imager!!! I have posted on how & why it is broken beyond repair for me currently. For context I am an architect working on single family residential projects. I also dabble a bit in commercial and furniture design. I use Vectorworks for 2D plans, detailed 2D sections and architectural details, and notes/dimensions. 3D model is built in FormZ. I subtract 2D elevations (shaded full renders and hidden line DWG export for CAD lines) and export to Vectorworks for notes/dimensions. I of course also use FormZ extensively for the design process, virtual live client walk throughs (desktop software and iPad app), and rendering. Layout just isn't as robust yet as Vectorworks and the graphic qualities of Vectorworks + the amazing set of floor plan tools keeps me there for 2D work and composing my printed sheets. For anything and everything 3D I use FormZ from start to finish on every project. I do not rebuild a BIM model in Vectorworks. The more I can take advantage of my FormZ model the better. Thanks for listening!!! Excited to see the new version...

I have a huge deadline tomorrow...but I'm still downloading right as I get the email!!!

At times the Tool Options palette goes blank. I close the palette and reopen - still nothing. It is always fixed on restart. Mac OS 10.12.6 FormZ 8.6.5 build 10275

In other words - hope v9 solves components!

Sweet!!!!

I'm looking to outsource modeling of a shipping container. Standard size 20' long container. I know there are Requirements: FormZ 8.6 Quality geometry Vray materials that also work in Shaded Full render mode Anyone out there let me know if you can help out and what your rate would be.

Thanks everyone. So far those samples look great for my purposes. Much appreciated!

Not sure about OBJ, but 3DS export has a quality setting for curved surfaces (polygon count) and choice to export textures as jpg or png

I have a Layout file and it links correctly to my FormZ 8.6 file. If I change something in the FormZ file it asks me to update the sync. I do and it updates. However, the windows look like there is nothing in them. I have to close and reopen the Layout file to get the windows to update. Sort of a pain to have to open/reopen file after every update! Thoughts? Mac OS 10.12.6

Updated to Mac OS 10.14.5. Problem still persists.

Hard to say, but the delay could be due to the spinning hard drive getting up to speed.

Without a doubt!!! Go SSD. Night and Day compared to most spinning hard drives. At least that has been my experience.

+1 for View Groups and Scene Groups

I would love to see the return of Axis lock. The ability to be restricted to only drawing in the X,Y (or whatever plane you are on) direction. When there are a lot of objects I often have to pan out into space to find the axis and hold Shift to lock onto an axis. Plus there are times when I want to do a lot of operations with axis lock on. Having to lock onto the axis by holding shift every time is not ideal. This should be a basic feature by default that one can turn on/off. Holding down shift to lock the axis works well and is a great feature - I would not want to get rid of that functionality. Why can't we have both?

The right click "show controls" works to adjust the size of the window box, but it is quite slow and tedious. Could we get a tool that upon hover auto highlights the window box and will reshape the box by click and drag? Or have a "show all controls" so we can have all the window box controls turned on at once. The mouse would highlight the box being adjusted at the time (helpful in case the boxes are overlapping). Thanks for considering.

The interface and workflow between FormZ and other programs is certainly a slowdown. Same with other modelers also of course. I would love to see FormZ integrated into an established BIM platform. Vectorworks would be a great fit. Works on both Mac/PC, excellent graphics capabilities. Good price point.

I would love to see a Global Material Override option in the Project Rendering Options in the Display Options palette. This option would turn off material overrides for all layers. Yes I know I can implement a Layer Groups or multiple levels of groups. However sometimes I individually set colors to work with and also make photoshop selections. To turn them all on at once is tedious. I know I can use Vray to get a material id output for photoshop, but this requires more work. A Global Material Override option would improve my workflow. To be clear: this would be an option, similar to Unlock Groups perhaps, that would allow or disallow Material Overrides in the Layers palette. Thanks for considering. For example: While working in shaded full I see this: However, at times I want to just see things as a bunch of colors to make modeling easier and also then in Photoshop it makes creating selection sets a lot easier. I use Layer overrides to achieve this: If there is a way to do this currently - please let me know.

Alternatively some indication in the Layers palette that the layer has an override on would be nice. button or the layer text is a different color.

My previous comments doesn't really work. Even with a layer group I would still have to set multiple layer overrides and turn them on/off individually for each layer/color desired. A global setting would be really handy.

I have started to add the FormZ Lab tools. The Paint tool is so cool! Wow, what a fantastic add. Thanks to whoever wrote the script!!!

If anyone finds this: I realized if I put all the layers in a "master" group I can control the settings easily through layer overrides.

I was just suggesting a computer restart first. I have not had undo's broken before.