I've been in the game industry 10+ years, I used XSI starting out, Modo ever since. I'm seriously seeing potential where i could stop using modo. I honestly thought i'd never say that.
So. I'm a lead character artist, i have to do weapons, and props and everything else you can imagine. I work in unreal and i've used almost every software out there. I've seen many times from the AUTODESK videos where they say they listen to their users. So, i REALLY hope you guys do listen because i'd LOVE to switch full time to 360.
Right now though, some things are really driving me nuts. it's possible these feautes exists and i dont know about them. i've only been using 360 at work for about 5 days.
0. Custom Hotkeys?! My friend who showed me this program has been using this for 4+ years he said. "Still no custom hotkeys" we cant assign hotkeys? custom pie menus? That was one of the first things i tried to do once i got my bearings. This is kinda insane to me that this has no custom hotkeys or pie menus. Those are used in maya, modo, blender. theses are both SO USEFUL from an efficiency standpoint. PLEASE implement if this doesn't exist already. this kills me.
1. i do TONS of instanced type duplication, array, radial duplication. the pattern tools are amazing. but, i CONSTANTLY need to duplicate things out and snap my start line to an edge, or a vert or something, have something evenly spaced between an edge and the beginning of my asset.
if i want to do that in fusion, it's AFAIK, only possible with using sketch curves, finding ALL the lengths, doing math, it's a HUGE pain in the ass right now. in modo for example it's a piece of cake to do anything like that. The duplication tools are SERIOUSLY lacking from what i've seen. i'm new user but i feel like this area is seriously hurting for improvements. any character, env artist will tell you how much they do stuff like this.
luckily i've only had to do some pattern type duplications a little bit. PLEASE give us the ability to snap our manipulator to edges, or verts, it's so handy, especially when you're trying to be accurate as possible.
2. Camera to Ortho snapping. AFAIK, i have to go click on the camera cube icon for an ortho face. In zbrush, many other 3d apps, you can hold Shift+ mouse button and your camera snaps. i switch to ortho SO MUCH in 360, this seems like a no brainer, please let us have some sort of hotkey that is intuitive for snapping the view to ortho.
3. ctrl+x to DELETE STUFF!!! this is killing me having to SLOWLY press delete. ctrl+x is naturally under your hands, we can copy and paste, we cant cut? it would be SO useful when sketching curves, deleting edges, deleting everything. everything the delete key does, i wish i could do with ctrl+x.
If i go into a sketch a few things that seem odd or broken to me happen.
1. my grid is there in my view once the camera changes. perfect, BUT, if rotate out of that view, the grid is ONLY on the axis i pointed it do. in modo we have a work plane. this way there is ALWAYS some grid on the screen. as someone who does TONS of accurate grid snapping i NEED MY GRID. always. i always want to see a grid if i have 'grid turned on' world space or workplane.
so can we have the grid of the axis, as well as a less opaque grid like modo's workplace. this way we always have a grid to see. i always want my grid depending on the camera plane. if i'm looking from the side and i see a grid now i look forward, i still might want to move something vertical, i cant see a grid, NOR can i snap to a grid. seems the only way i can snap to grid is when drawing out points of some sort. i cant for example grab an edge, and snap it to the grid. that's messed up! we need serious snapping improvements.
4. Is there no way to hide anything while sketching? i often get LOADS of cray refernce lines going, things get cluttered. why can't we hide and un hide AFAIK. if this is this case. PLEASE let us do this. from a workflow standpoint, it's so fast to do what you want to do when you can hide and un hide. again, that seems like a no brainer.
5. i cant seem to find a FRAME SELECTION for navigating. if i click in a face in the model view, i wanna press a hotkey and have the camera go zoom in on it. that's a standard in ANY 3d program. for the life of me i cant find a way to do this though??? that's HUGE for navigating efficiently.
i do a lot of 3d assets for env builders. i LOVE a good grid and grid snapping tools, modo and unreal have amazing snapping tools. i'm blown away by the constraints on curves. so powerful. but. there are many issues with snapping.
6. there seems to be NO VERY snapping? i'm constantly trying to snap curves to my reference files i've brought in from zbrush. the curves to no snap to any of my imported geo?
7. we can hover the mouse on a component in the sketch view, then move away in a straight dashed line. that's SUPER useful i love that.
8.how come there is NO SCALE on certain manipulators? that to me is bananas. why cant we always scale? is there some bizarre technical limitation why?
9. let us snap the MODEL toolbar on the sides. these are HUGE buttons, i personally hate anything on my screen when i'm modeling. i really dig the browser, it's there but not there. if i could move that tab that'd be dope. OR, if we had pie menus i'd probably never even look at it.
These are a few of the more obvious things i've seen. I hope you guys do listen because this can be so crazy damned good, just needs some workflow tweaks. again. i'm a new user, some of this stuff may possible. but some of it i definitely know doesn't exist.
cheers.
