The Future of Wings3D

[Geta-Ve]

I would really love to get the official line on where the current devs stand on the viability and developmental possibilities of Wings3D.

We are all people with personal lives, families and financial responsibilities, and at this point in my life I understand the value of free time, and how hard it can be to dedicate ones self and ones free time to unpaid work, even if it is for the benefit of ones self and others.

So, what should the community expect, or even hope for, from the Wings developers? What do you guys see, or perhaps, where would you guys like to see Wings go from here?

There are a few quirks that I would definitely love addressed at some point, as well as a couple of features I wouldn't mind seeing implemented, but what about the devs?

I'd also be interested in hearing what the developers think of things like ZBrush + TopoGun vs the Wings workflow, and UV Layout / UV Master (ZB plugin) vs AutoUV. Without diving into the paid vs free debate, do you guys think that Wings is still an option?

As a user, I certainly do. Though, I seem to use it more for low poly work these days than anything else.

I apologize if this post has come off as abrasive or judgemental, that is definitely not my stance or position. I am coming purely from a curiosity point of view.

[puzzledpaul]

Awww, G (M) ... not this old chestnut again?

You're going to get what yo're going to get -if and when the people actually doing the work decide they want to do it / have the time or inclination to so do.

Even asking this Q (to me, anyway) is asking a question of the very people who shouldn't have their time wasted having to answer such Qs.

Would you rather any coder who's currently in the middle of a 'purple patch' ... ie fully inspired and with time on their hands ... stop coding, to think about answering this ... or carry on coding?

Also, if they do decide to answer - which'd no doubt require a group discussion between themselves to reach a consensus - and then lay down a roadmap for the future of wings ... it's going to sit there, in the open - as a reminder to everyone - so that when things seem to be falling behind schedule, people start asking questions / applying pressure - which is almost guaranteed to kill motivation on a voluntary project.

As regards you mainly using wings for low poly work (implying that you use other apps for other stuff) ... whoa ... what a revelation ... that's exactly what it was designed / built to do ... big, big surprise

Knock our socks off by showing us some stunning models you've created in both w3d and the other apps - telling us why you had to use t'other apps for relevant models.

Btw - I have absolutely zero idea of what the future holds - so am in the same boat as you

pp

[Geta-Ve]

EDIT: I had a full on reply here, but, instead I will say this.

The devs will either respond or they wont. No big deal.

[optigon]

Geta-Ve,
I think in your question you already intimate that you know the answer. Life and Wings cannot always occupy the same space, but we enjoy coding when we can.

Any specific future changes can be discussed in the Design & Development fourm.

[Geta-Ve]

Fair enough sir.

[powwerpuff]

These stick out like sore thumbs to me.

1: I know it's meant for low poly work and maybe it's just the machines I use, but It'd be nice if it could handle heavy meshes easier.

2: Sometimes you want to get rid of an edge, but the inner workings won't let you dissolve it and you end up trying weird work arounds just to make it possible to delete the edge.

3: Maybe I don't know how to adjust the pan settings, but panning barely pans the view.

4:If maybe there was a way to do poly by poly in spite of the weds. I know holes are allowed.

5:A cut tool that allows arbitrary number of corners within a face.

6: wings is very efficient and well thought out. I find myself wishing other apps could do what it does because it makes sense to (for example) being able to move all selected faces according to their individual normals, or to scale edges by shrinking individual islands of selected edges, or being able to set an arbitrary vector to do an operation on such as extrude or move.

7 (ha!) Maybe a c++/opengl fork/re-implementation of wings3d to take advantage of the huge pool of cpp coders available that could potentially push wings3d to unheard of levels. (maybe once they get how it works on c they could hop over to erlang and well, do great things with it. -or vice versa.)

8: I understand the value of free time, so I'd be happy with just one of these being met eventually

[Geta-Ve]

Regarding Wings being a low poly modeler. As far as I am aware it was never marketed as such. The home page doesn't even state that fact, unless I have completely missed that?

The only reason we regard it as such these days is because it can't match any other program in polygon limits these days. However, 10 years ago it was up there with some of the best.

This is actually one area I would truly love to see Wings improve, is its polygon limit / performance.

[puzzledpaul]

Well, it didn't take long for this thread to drift, did it?

NB Optigon's comments (post 4) re where specifics should go.

pp

[Justanother1]

Wings3D is Fantastic as it is, as is Sculptris!! ... And together great things can be accomplished very easy ....
Some of you may have may have seen These Vids but I'll post them for those who haven't. Wings3D is a good place to start for good edge flow. It's possible build geometry similar to Zbrush - low poly with edge-loops in Wings3d. For starter geometry it's faster and easier than Blender, with more keyboard shortcuts available just for modeling.
With the exception that I do hope development continues as far as keeping it working on the newer operating systems, Wings3d is good as is ....

[boredom]

Wings3D is Fantastic as it is, as is Sculptris!! ... And together great things can be accomplished very easy ....
Some of you may have may have seen These Vids but I'll post them for those who haven't. Wings3D is a good place to start for good edge flow. It's possible build geometry similar to Zbrush - low poly with edge-loops in Wings3d. For starter geometry it's faster and easier than Blender, with more keyboard shortcuts available just for modeling.
With the exception that I do hope development continues as far as keeping it working on the newer operating systems, Wings3d is good as is ....

Agreed. Wings has great fundamentals which keep it relevant regardless of development.

Incidentally, Sculptris is great too, but I always struggle getting .OBJs from Wings3D imported into it. Importing almost never works for complex models. It's such a shame.