Hello,
Just as the title says. Are weapon artists in these Triple A studios using CAD to save-time? And no, I'm not talking about Junior 3D Hardsurface/Weapon Artists, I'm talking about Senior level here. I'm sure a senior who has a lot of experience can, or probably should be allowed to use the software of her/his choice if it gets the job done faster. I've heard from someone that most outsourcing studios are using CAD programs like MOI3D or Fusion360.
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Though I've worked in studio's where some have "lied" about experience with particular software, and have installed their own versions of a different package to do the work
Who was that ?
"... that most outsourcing studios"
That's a very bold claim
"... are using CAD programs like MOI3D or Fusion360."
Just because CAD might be suited for a a given task or production, doesn't mean that it is suited for all.
And even though they are both CAD packages, MOI and Fusion are completely different beasts in the way they operate. MOI is very intuitive and is very tightly designed, but it is 100% destructive. Fusion is completely parametric in nature, but comes with an incredibly badly designed UI/UX that can be very detrimental to one's workflow (and sanity) - but of course people who never experienced anything else will be 100% convinced that it is "just fine" and will act as evangelists.
Anyways. All you have to do is to remain curious and willing to use the best workflow possible. And don't worry about things "you've heard" if it doesn't come from people who actually have production experience.
"I'm sure a senior who has a lot of experience can, or probably should be allowed to use the software of her/his choice if it gets the job done faster."
Not necessarily. A studio may be paying for a certain piece of software because it comes with a support package that another doesn't have. Or perhaps a studio has some strict IT policies for software deployment, even if it is free or open source. Every place is different, so don't worry about it. Just focus on doing the best possible work.
possibly, but it may be as simple as they get the CAD drawings from the manufacturer.
@Bozurk I'd say simply focus on being as efficient as possible with mesh-based modeling, while *also* practicing the CAD package you feel the most comfortable with (very likely a pick between of MOI, Fusion and Plasticity. And perhaps Solidworks if you have access to it. There's also Rhino, but MOI is pretty much its spiritual successor).
In my experience MOI is absolutely the most intuitive to pickup and opens up great workflows very fast. Fusion is very powerful but as said I also find in incredibly awfully designed in terms of UX, making some simple operations infuriatingly frustrating to perform. Plasticity seems extremely promising, especially with the way the author seems to understand that CAD applied to game art/scifi fantasy designs involves a lot of freeform input (like drawing guide lines directly in perspective), which is something that both MOI and Fusion are quite poor at by default.