Blender Vs Plasticity | Is it Really That Good

I never thought that we're gonna see an indie 3D software going through these transformations in just a couple of years plasticity is making ways recently by literally inventing a new Niche or category of 3D software on the other hand blender keeps improving to be a top tier 3D modeling software especially with the recent updates and the progress it is making however the newcomer plasticity instantly showcased that it could be a serious contender in the club of major 3D software so in today's video we're gonna compare these two pieces of software and see which one is gonna fit your needs better so to set the stage for our comparison let's start by getting a better understanding of blender and plasticity so blender can be best described as a free and versatile 3D software which can cover alone every single aspect of the 3D production pipeline from modeling texturing to animation simulation rendering and much more on the other hand we have plasticity a paid but affordable 3D CAD modeling software specifically designed for artists you see well account software are often associated with stuff like engineering and 3D printing plasticity breaks The Stereotype and it does this by being intentionally designed to have a familiar look and feel similar to popular 3D software in the entertainment industry like Max blender Maya and so on this resemblance is evidenced in various aspects including the overall layout use your interface and navigation within the 3D space in fact plasticity goes as far as allowing you to select templates that customize the program's look and feel to mimic your favorite 3D software of choice this is a very smart move I might add because this will allow the transition to be smooth and natural for example from blender to plasticity so you can feel home right at plasticity even if you are a blender user its modeling workflow was also made in a way to make artists feel at home from how you can execute the operations to how you model create assets for stuff like video games and VFX Productions and so on so the question is now which one is better when it comes to modeling the core difference between blender and plasticity lies in the foundation they are built upon for starters blender is a polygonal based 3D modeling software while plasticity is a cad based software which uses norbs modeling now when it comes to polygonal modeling it is a method of creating 3D models by using flat shapes which are called polygons as the name suggests but plasticity is based on both nerves and parasolids instead of polygons these new orbs rely on what we call Curves as their foundation and parasolids are based on mathematical functions in addition to parameters meaning we can infinitely zoom in and add details without any limitations other than Hardware capabilities the beauty of modeling in software like plasticity is the fact that we have an infinite level of detail at our disposal unlike modeling in software like blender where the quality of the model will depend on how much polygons it has and this frees us from the fundamental issue of working with polygons when we perform certain operations in traditional modeling such as using Boolean combining or cutting shapes or even applying a bevel modifier to a smoother Edge it will most likely result in topology and shading issues in curved parts of the 3D model for example if the vortices are too close to each other applying a bevel or Boolean might result in overlapping vertices as well as distortions deformations and sharp lines in flat areas but if we look at the world around this everything seems smooth and free of hard edges this means that with plasticity you have the freedom to model however you want and especially you won't have any limitations or as in blender you need to be mindful of the rules imposed by topology basically considering how the vertices edges and faces are connected and working around it to ensure a clean topology as well as managing bevels and constantly cleaning the topology as you work to avoid artifacts in simple terms we can simply say that it has a lot of work now you might say if the norms-based workflow of plasticity is amazing then modeling is obsolete well this is not accurate because polygonal modeling is still a major way or a major method of how we do modeling in VFX game development and many many other fields because it is very effective and can get a lot of things done efficiently also with the rise of geometry nodes another modeling approach in blender has been gaining popularity which is procedural modeling this approach is a semi-automatic method of myelin using what is known as nodes combining them to create a note 3 which offers the advantage of generating variations of designs quickly additionally editing the models created with geometry nodes can be faster compared to traditional manual modeling but this approach does have some limitations in terms of generated geometry as it doesn't offer the freedom of anything and everything compared to manual modeling so while it might not be the perfect solution for things like hero props and assets with complex details its ability to quickly generate variations and manipulate the geometry through the node systems makes it better suited for creating repetitive assets that don't require specific details and fine-tuning for example background buildings bolts or spaceships or any details that you can scatter around 3D assets or environments so to be honest modeling hard service objects in vanilla blender can be quite challenging the is the case especially compared to cat software in terms of how enjoyable the experience is and a lot of laborious work would be needed to fix all the bad topology from the bullying and bevel operations so one approach to address this issue is by making blender resemble cat software and by that I mean not happy to deal as much with polygons cleaning achieving that can be indeed made possible with the Hub of add-ons although we won't be able to cover all of them in this video some noteworthy add-ons are hard Ops and box cutter in addition to mesh machine decal machine fluent hard orbs and so many others which offer great help in executing and controlling operations such as bevels and Bullies faster and more efficiently however it is important to note that using these add-ons they still result in poor topology so a potential way to address this is by using add-ons like mesh machine which provides a range of Auto optimization to tools including bullying cleanup to automatically connect and guns additionally tools like offset cut offer a way to bypass the geometry limitations and Achieve bevels that would be impossible otherwise another alternative is avoiding using topology altogether using the likes of decal machine which allows for hard surface detailing with the help of trim sheets which is simple words can be described as images of 3D details and textures but the truth is even with these add-ons the limitations of topology and blender still exist and if you consider purchasing all of them the total cost may be comparable to plasticity so ultimately it may come down to what you prefer and the Comfort level you have with the software in my opinion I believe that blender still has an advantage if you are talking about asset creation for video games however with concept art and design and rendering are more inclined towards using plasticity for now the best thing is blender and plasticity can be used in conjunction to get the best out of the two worlds plasticity with its CAD workflow enables you to make unusual shapes but are traditionally hard to make in blender which is very beneficial to achieve complex designs quicker for instance let's consider modeling a Sci-Fi sword you can initially model a weapon in plasticity by taking advantage of his cat capabilities then in blender you can further enhance the design with its sculpting features to add details to the weapon and make it look much better with its scratches damage and so on generally speaking if we put technical aspects aside I think sorting with blender can be especially beneficial for beginners because one of the main reasons is that it is a free software which makes it accessible to anyone with nothing to lose on top of that it has a big online community of artists and this comes with a lot of benefits such as having the ability to easily find free tutorials guides and support to help you learn and grow as a 3D artist and blender being so to speak and jack of all trades can also allow you to explore all the various aspects of 3D I mean the 3D workflow like modeling texturing animation and so on which doesn't exist in plasticity if you are a beginner I highly recommend to start with vendor and don't even think about plasticity but if you are a 3D modeler who is looking for an efficient way to model things especially hard surface models the plasticity can be a great choice or make additional software to add to your Arsenal which will allow you to have much more freedom and work on your projects comfortably in a much more efficient way I hope you guys found this video useful and informative if you did please give it a thumbs up you can also take a look at some of our previous videos thank you very much for watching and I will see you in the next one thank you

Channel: InspirationTuts

Views: 134,029

Keywords: Blender vs Plasticity, Plasticity, is Blender good for modeling, is plasticity good for modeling, what is plasticity used for, what is plasticity good for, why use plasticity instead of Blender, best 3D modeling software

Id: 9216xZK03fU

Length: 10min 31sec (631 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 25 2023