Are components bullet proof now for speed and reliability?

[rhodesy]

I used to be an avid formZ user (r7 and r8) until just over a year ago when I decided to in many ways downgrade to sketchup full time. There were several reasons for this but in terms of tangible software reasons my main gripe was the dangerously poor component implementation of formZ. I tried on numerous occasions to use them in projects only for them to lag massively or crash formZ or even worse go missing when reopening a file. They just seemed to have over complicated them as all they need to be is a dynamic copy of a group of objects - the same thing just appearing at different co-ordinates, not being written to a separate file somewhere. I keep an eye on formZ though and noticed that components seem to feature heavily in the latest update, so have they actually been fixed or is it another false dawn? Sorry if it sounds a bit blunt but I really did love many things about formZ and wish I could have stayed with it, but doing arch viz I really got sick of just copying and pasting objects instead of using components.

 

Whilst I'm at it, other things I like about sketchup that I would love to see in formZ if anyone is interested and perhaps I've overlooked some of these...

 

Eye dropper for materials to select a faces material and load it into the paint bucket.

 

Nice clean AA thin lines and mat shading. It's mainly aesthetic but I find sketchup much more architectural to look at compared to formZ which has quite thick lines and still quite jaggy AA on its best settings. I know there was quite a bit of work on the AO display feature but for me I would have rather had delicate clean lines for objects and imported cad.

 

Snap got its nickers in a twist quite often on heavy drawings with imported cad. Spent many a frustrated minute trying to snap to a specific point but found the cursor jumping all over the place. Dropping right down to just end points helped but in the end you shouldn't need to do that. Adjusting the tolerance didn't help much unfortunately either. But at least you can turn snap off if you really need to unlike sketchup!

 

Floating working Windows and pallets. Crikey it's 2016 and the main working window is floating around all over the place with pallets hear there and everywhere like its the late 90s. I wish the interface was a bit more modern and organised. It's great having flexibility and I love the pop up cursor pallet but a bit of structure would make it a more reassuring experience. Something like c4d that is clearly laid out and soft greys with colour coded accents.

 

Intelligent vertex / edge / face selection. It's great manually selecting that we want to only select edges or faces but it can be quite cumbersome and slow. An option to select whatever the cursor is over would speed things up at times.

 

Copy modes, again nice to have the options for multiple copies is great but I seem to remember cursing a lot when I've left it in copy mode rather than just move and end up dragging a copy instead of moving an object. And then also the other way around- I can't remember if ctrl would make a copy or not if you had started to drag an item but I don't think it did?

 

Ghosting. I like how sketchup fades the rest of the model out when working in a group for example where as formZ switches it to wireframe which can get a bit confusing visually in a complex model.

 

Snapping to grouped objects. From what I can remember you couldn't use objects in a group as a snapping reference for working planes which was annoying.

 

That's all that springs to mind at the moment but the real deal breaker was the components which just work much better in sketchup. So I might try the demo of 8.5 if it's the latest version with these fixes?

 

Sorry for the rant and there are many many things formZ is much better at when creating solid geometry. And I wish there was a combo of the two programs. I always see it where formZ creates the best solid models and is much more difficult to break the solid but it's easier to fix a sketchup 'solid' once you get a missing face for example.

[Des]

Hi rhodesy,

I think the components are improving a lot but are not quite as bulletproof (to use you term) as they were in version 6.x.x (symbols back then). In fact up to 50% of all my models were made up of symbols then. They are getting better though.

I also miss clones which were great, but have gone since v7 I think. It's been suggested to bring them back.

 

Regarding your points and comparisons with other software such as SU & C4D. I've been a user of those on and off in the past and I think that a lot depends on a users taste, for example I prefer FormZ floating pallets to C4D anyday, but that's just me.

The display of lines/edges can be changed to suit your taste (whether you use Silhouette Edges, Antialias, Edge Colour, Line Weights etc.), there is a lot of control there. I find the snapping fine but I would suggest having Intersection, Perpendicular & Tangent off unless you need them on for a specific task, especially on a large model.

When it comes to selecting object parts like edges and while being very different to v6, is IMO much better as it is much faster than before. Getting used to using the tab and command and alt etc., while in a transform tool is so fast when editing, not to mention shift for alignment. I think ADS want it that way to preserve the quality of the model so there's less chance of bad geometry, I think they've succeeded there.

 

We all use softwares differently (I'm a layers person) and each has its own personality so I suppose everyone can find things they are not happy with. This is more noticeable especially jumping from one app to another as it begs comparison.

 

One other thing; no other developer listens to it's users like ADS do. From years of reading/posting on this forum, it's easy for me to say that, I've literally watched suggestions, bug reports, opinions etc. being taken on board and dealt with live.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Des

 

[Tech]

Hi Rhodesy,

 

Yes, initially there were a number of issues with Components in certain cases, and we have been working hard to make them as fast and reliable as possible.  And yes, our latest update does include a number of corrections to issues that were reported.  If you did have any issues in the past, we would highly recommend giving it a try again.  (One issue we are still aware of -- and are working on a correction for the near future --  there is still a possibility of an issue if you have Components nested inside of other Components, so we would recommend avoiding this if possible for now.)

 

In general, it does work best to enable only the Object Snaps that are necessary at the time, and with complex files it is possible that the Intersection and Key Point snaps could be a bit slow, or that Tangent or Perpendicular snaps could interfere. but we are not aware of any snapping issues that would cause "nickers to get twisted."   If you ever encounter an issue where snapping (or anything else) is not as quick and easy as you would like, if you can send a file that shows this, we will do our best to address it.  You should not need to adjust the Snap Tolerance, but in case you didn't try it previously -- there is a Snap Option to Stick to Edges that will snap to an end point or midpoint (or other) if the cursor is over any part of an edge -- and not necessarily within the snap tolerance distance.   If you check that option, does this do what you want?

 

As far as the interface, yes, you can arrange any and all palettes where you want them, and perhaps it is a bit too easy to get things "mis-aligned."  This is an area we will be focusing on in the near future, and we will do our best to keep it very flexible (for people like Des who like it this way) and also make it more "integrated" and locked into place.

 

For Picking parts of objects, are you aware that simply holding down the Ctrl / Command key will pick the part of the object beneath the cursor (instead of the whole object itself)?

 

When you Isolate object(s), the other objects will be Ghosted -- but if you don't want to see those ghosted objects, just select Hide Ghosted from the Display Options.

 

We are not sure what you mean by "snapping to groups."  Please try a quick test, and if you have any questions or issues with this, please let us know.

 

(Thanks also for your other suggestions, we will consider these for the future.)

 

Yes, the Trial version is always the current version.  Give it a try, and let us know if you have any questions or issues, we would  be glad to help.  

 

Hi Des,

 

Components are intended to also function as Clones if you use them with the Edit Menu: Unlock Components option, and in the Component Management, have the Component set to Update Automatically.  This should work ~90% like Clones, but we are aware of a few cases where Clones had an advantage, and we will see what we can do to add that functionality for the future.

 

Thanks for sharing your opinions and suggestions.    

 

[rhodesy]

Thanks for the reply. I will give the latest trial a go. And good news that there have been substantial improvements in components as that was the real deal breaker for me.

 

The holding alt to sample a faces colour is a really handy one I use all the time and hopefully easy to implement?

 

Also double clicking when using the reshape tool to use the previous input amount is a speedy one. No need to input any figures.

 

A personal one for me in terms of general behaviour with the reshape. I prefer to click drag and release to finish the command rather than clicking to initiate and then clicking again to finish. I find the first way quicker and more accurate with less chance of the point moving when pressing the button again. Is this an option already?

 

Regarding the UI I'm all for customisable pallets that can be undocked but for me the main working window at least should be locked and air tight so to speak.

[rhodesy]

Re the hide ghosted thanks for that. I understand the option to hide ghosted but what I was meaning was there a way just to fade out rather than turn to lines as it's often much easier to see what your snapping to, as sometimes it's just a sea of lines.

 

Sketchup also has a good transparency mode which lets you see through objects and snap to things behind the working face but at the same time you can still see the volumes and geometry rather than the sea of lines again which can make your brain hurt a bit.

 

I also remember when it came to overlaying a cad elevation on to a solid and I wanted to then trace the windows with the cut out tool (which is a great tool) formZ thought I was trying to cut through the line work rather than the solid so it didn't work. I had to resort to creating cubes and booling them. This was quite a pain. I think it just needed a way for the tool to recognise only solids and ignore lines (but still being able to snap to them).

 

I also agree tech support is very good for formZ no denying that and a big plus.

[Tech]

Hi Rhodesy,

 

Ok,thanks for your clarifications and suggestions.  Please note that we do have a specific section on our forum dedicated to user suggestions:  

 

http://forums.formz.com/index.php?/forum/6-form•z-suggestions/

 

(But it is not necessary to repost your suggestions there -- just for future reference.)

 

Regarding inserting and CAD Underlays, if you want to insert on certain objects, and the CAD data is getting in the way, you could simply lock the layer for the CAD data, and then the Insert would only operate on other objects.

 

Please let us know if you have any further feedback, we would be glad to help.  

[rhodesy]

Ah that's a good tip about locking the layer. That sounds like it will solve that problem. Thanks

[Peder]

Picking up this thread again as I too have been burned by attempting to use components in the past. Are u saying they are safe to use now? I would hate to end up with crash and loading time problems again. At the same time working components seem to be a real great time saver so tempted to give them another go. Any preference wether to keep them in file or as a separate library. Its the same to me.

 

Materials mismatch looks like a potetential pitfall. Any recommendations on how to avoid it?

[Tech]

Hi Peder,

 

Yes, you should be able to use Components in a project.  If you don't specifically need a separate component library, you should just use the Embedded library instead.

 

(Currently there is not an option to sync materials amongst multiple materials, so you would need to edit each component and adjust the material individually to make them all the same.)