I still use FormZ, mainly because I work on a mac. It's difficult to use, but the tools have gotten better, as has the renderer.

I'm still waiting for Rhino to be released on OSX. The beta seems interesting, but limited.

Havent used for 10 years now - but Rhino is just hands down the best modeler out there. Easiest to use, intuitive cad like environment.

yeah, i saw the Ball-Nogues installation. i live right around the corner from the art district, so i always go to the "second fridays" events. they are great...it is nice to see people making art and just opening up their workspace and saying "c'mon in" and being friendly and outgoing.

i am a little disappointed, however, because the extension gallery has had that one installation for at least the last 3 months in there, and they used to be good about changing it up. i did notice that the firm that did it uses form-z and i also thought that was a bit odd...haven't even heard of it being taught at schools for about 5 years or so.

i suppose if you get comfortable with a certain piece of software it might be kind of hard to move beyond that to something better if you are afraid of fronting the personal time to learn the new software, which may be the reason they are still using form-z.

Ted,

Did the plugin they used calculate the catenary curve created by the hanging thread?

That's the shape of it.

i still use formz for modelling. i have customised the heck out of it so haven't made switch to rhino just yet, except for learning some scripting for a side project once.

but i think it is inevitable that i will, eventually. right now am just too busy to learn another software. in japan, where i have own office, the students don't do 3-d modeling at all (seriously, it is all foam core all the time here) so probably when we hire someone i'll put him/her on learning the software and pick it up then.

but for now, to be honest, there is nothing wrong with form-z, apart from the rendering engine, which is largely useless.

i did the switch over in my 4th yr of skl from form z to maya and some rhino on the side, which helped me alot during my last two years.

its not really a question of efficiency in modeling, its more about the possibilities that the program represents.

im a recent graduate, and i have to use 3d max at the office,, i have to say, max doesnt come close to either rhino or maya

also, while im much more comfortable in maya, rhino kicks ass, its just like clamfan said, its just intuitive, you could think of somethin to do, and just type it down and ull figure it out in a short while,, also, its the best program if ur interested in outputing and fabrication..

i havent touched form z in three years, since the first time i used maya

still leaning on it very hard here for my non-office work but want to pick up rhino soon from all the raving i've heard.

I use formz! they have the best support out there. once you get pass the learning curve it can get the job done!

Yup - I still use it. I think its a great modeller with a good interface once you customize the commands.

Then again, I still jerk off manually.

i still use formz.

i think if you do very simple modeling, formz is fine. if you're into parametric or nurbs, you've probably moved on.

i don't see a problem either way. there are those that think the computer will lead us into the future and those that believe the computer is simply a tool. both points of view have their merits.

I use Form-Z too, although I am not doing any fabrication or parametric design with it. Some elements of the old-fashioned interface are intuitive to those who learned to draw by hand!.

The ability to import and export many formats with pretty good reliability is a real plus.

did their new Bonzai every release, i wonder

i prefer Rhinoceros too

I haven't used form Z since '97 and now I just use sketchup...how messed up is that?

pretty messed up

still use it here, too

make,

when i looked at the screen captures, i couldn't quite tell what type of plug-in they were using nor what it was specifically doing for them.

i have never used form-z before (i only know of it and how little it is used now), so i wouldn't really know what its true capabilities are and how it could be utilized with plug-ins like they were using.

ultimately, i was just surprised it was used for this installation. i assumed it would be easier to do something like this in maya or rhino.