Wings 3D 1.5.1
nobody1954
Posts: 933
I don't remember seeing mention of this October update. We now have another updated free modeler. Now with 64 bit support. Documentation seems a little sparse at this point. I've been playing with it, and I like what I see so far. I'm interested in what others think of it
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I've been using it a little while now on win8 64bit as you'd expect its faster and reading the forums seem to be able to handle more polys.
I've also kept the 1.4.1 version as it didn't over write it. The Erlang window is no more, likewise the N-Cube primate.
I've not used wings that much so cant give you much more info other than its definitely worth it if your running 64bit.
Interesting that you started this thread, nobody1954. I almost started one yesterday after I discovered the new update(s) as well, but I decided against it because there hasn't ever been a lot of interest for W3D here on these forums (and I'm a long time user of both).
I usually check at least once a month for the new version to finally drop, and somehow this fell through the cracks for me as well. But, low and behold, there are two versions available, 1.5.1 and 1.5.2. Although 5.2 is slated as a dev build it is mostly fast bug fixes for the 5.1 release, and there was talk of it becoming the stable release soon. I found no issues with either in my quick testing yesterday.
Love a few of the new enhancements, especially the dynamic "auto"-change preview parameters for the primitives. Also, creating a grid plane yielded mirrored polys where usually it was always a single plane. Sides still remained n-gon, but is easily rectified with quick quadrangulation.
I haven't installed the x64 on my workbox yet since I am usually on this crappy x86 laptop, so I haven't tested the new OpenGL GLSL real-time normals/bump maps in view-space (something I wish DAZ would someday get around to implementing into Studio). This was something I have been looking forward to for a long time now. I tried a 1.5.1 alpha snapshot earlier this year, but could not get it working on my rig (or with my card).
It will only work if you have shader model 2.0 or greater, I believe. Won't work on my 32 bit laptop (as with Blender's GLSL), but it should work on my 64 bit (as does Blender's).
Another thing I like about the new release is the new sub-d proxy multi-level preview for those who have a card with OpenCL. It will be a while before I can utilize it, but for those who can now, have a great advantage.
Thanks for the reply. I've been dabbling in Hexagon. But wanted something more up to date and stable. Blender is a little awkward for me. I thought I was doing well, and then found there were features I never even been able to locate (I've been using a mouse for almost two decades, hot keys aren't something I like to work with). Perhaps a little to big and disorganized for a beginner.
I have a fairly robust desktop and just purchased a long overdue WIN 7 64 bit laptop. Have a couple of trips in the spring.
I thank you again for your informative post. I'll try out 1.5.2.
I tried Wings 3D years ago, and even though I found the UI easy to get around in, and I was able to model a number of things following easy tutorials, the one thing I found I couldn't deal with is that it was mouse-centric. IOW, as a long time Wacom pen/tablet user, I found it hard to get a lot of things done with my pen. I often had to use a key combo to open a dialog box to set specific parameters.
I happen to be used to using keyboard shortcuts, but I find using my Wacom a lot easier, so I'm wondering if this is still true of the latest version. Anyone have any idea if that's true?
I'm tempted to take a look at the new version, even though I haven't used Wings since I discovered (and finally figured out how to use!) Blender.
I have it but one of the things that annoys me is that I don't know of a way to rotate, move or pan the scene, just the objects.
You click the Middle mouse Button to rotate the Scene, LMB to stop, and RMB to go back to where you were. MMB held in and drag to pan.
OK, thanks. Are there options to reassign to left button using the Ctrl and Alt buttons? That's what I'm used to.
Yes, RAMWolff, go into your preferences settings, camera settings, and you can change them there.
I use "Two Mouse Buttons" (two button trackball) "Blender" setting which is Alt + Left click for rotate (you do not need to hold down Alt once you initiate the command), Alt + Ctrl + Lt Clk for zoom/dolly, and Alt + Shift + Lt Clk for pan/track. Three buttons Blender is probably different, so may yield different results. Only difference for me from Blender is I cannot invert dolly as I can in Blender, so I have two different zoom mechanics going between the two apps.
You have many default presets to choose from besides the default Wings3D such as Nendo, Mirai, Blender, 3DSMax, Maya, Motionbuilder, and SketchUp. Just find one that works to your liking.
Plus, there are a lot of other settings you can play with to get W3D customized to the way you like it.
Regarding the rotate around scene to object; The default is scene rotate around world center (0,0,0) which can always be reset to default view rotate/world scene with "r" key. Even if you have an object selected, and rotate around object selected (Shift + A) enabled, it will default to rotate around world center. You just need to zoom in/out for your scene viewing preference.
Thanks so much! :-) Much appreciated.
Me too, though I plowed through Blender for several years before I really felt I was figuring it out.
If I still used a mouse I would probably still be using Wings as an alternative to Blender, but I suffer from chronic CTS, so a mouse is out. ~sigh~
If you've got an older Mac then you're SOL - because it needs Grumbling Gerboa (or something, I can't keep track of all these stupid names) ... anyway it won't even start under 10.6.8 and Apple have decided that you cannot upgrade Mac OSX to Mavericks if your Macbook wasn't built within the last four years or something!!! So, for me, Wings3D has taken wings and flown away.
Me too, though I plowed through Blender for several years before I really felt I was figuring it out.
If I still used a mouse I would probably still be using Wings as an alternative to Blender, but I suffer from chronic CTS, so a mouse is out. ~sigh~
Have you considered/tried using a trackball.
I switched to one when a mouse became to hard to use and find a trackball works great.
Have you considered/tried using a trackball.
I switched to one when a mouse became to hard to use and find a trackball works great.
I tried a friend's once years ago, and I couldn't seem to get used to it. After several hours of trying to do some work on his computer, I gave up. I guess, like most things, it takes some getting used to.
I don't like touch pads on laptops either. Call me weird. ~shrugs~
As a result of reading this thread I thought I would try Wings3d and made a simple shape after watching some tutorial videos on Youtube.
But Studio seemed to go into a loop near the end of trying to import the obj and I had to cancel the program.
But Hexagon read the obj file OK and I got it over to Studio via the Hexagon bridge.
But I liked Wings3d from what I have seen of it so far but I think I need to try Hexagon as well.
The box modeling tools that Wings have can result in a model with a lot of n-gons, polygons with more than 4 sides, Studio does not like n-gons.
Would this mean that Wings is not a good choice for creating objects destined to be used in Studio?
And that I should concentrate on using Hexagon instead?
No, it means you need to be aware of the problem and clean up the mesh. Blender has just added the ability to use n-gons, they can be quit useful when editing edge flow of a mesh, but it means I have had a few models that exploded in Studio because I forgot to fix the n-gons.