What's everyone using for model creation?

Soldato
Joined
11 Jun 2003
Posts
5,145
Location
Sheffield, UK
Just curious what folks are using on the front end software side (beyond downloading and printing stuff from thingverse or whatever the modern library is these days). Had an ender (3.. I think) for aaaaages. Used to do a bit, it's been sat on a shelf for ages but... I'm thinking it's high time to get an idea I've had for a long while modelled.
Nothing too crazy but my previous "go to" for simple stuff (tinkercad) is perhaps a BIT limiting for what I have in mind.

I guess autocad/similar is a possible? I've played a bit with them but... something a LITTLE more approachable would be quite welcome. Only really done 2D stuff in autocad, weirdly I know.

If there's a good spot for anywhere that has "starting points" for decent mouse shells (as it's a mouse idea I've got, still not seeing it appear elsewhere 5-10 years later so it's time) that would be rather handy too :)
 
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My go-to suggestions would be Blender or Fusion360 (I don't have much experience with anything else except maybe sketchup)... There's probably easier tools out there (tinkercad gets mentioned a lot)
 
Fusion 360 , the free / hobbyist version is a bit buried away on their website.
understatement of the century.
I've seen a few open source cad applications advertised recently but not tried them. most seem to just be libracad with bells on though


[edit]

Ondsel! that's what it was called. Libracad but dark and moody. with guides.
 
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I'm actually using quite an eccentric pipeline - mostly using an old and basic program called Milkshape 3D, but either building some parts in Blender or Tinkercad or swapping over to them to finish up i.e. if I need high quality curves. Just a personal thing but I find MS3D easier to get what I have in mind into actual geometry.
 
I learned OnShape several years ago but not sure if it's still going/free. Reverted to TinkerCAD for most stuff, but I've just installed Fusion360 as all the cool kids keep mentioning it :P.
 
Tinkercad, but I keep meaning to sit down and learn Blender. I figure Blender will give me the most flexibility for any other 3D/video tasks I might ever need too.

And if I can wrap my head around it, OpenSCAD. I fear that my programming skills will not hold up to OpenSCAD though.
 
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