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…
on the other hand for example in Rhino or Moi3d projecting splines on NURBS or do some complex boolean stuff is a dream - no poly modeler comes close to that.
Things like realistic cars wouldnt work because you will need control of edgloops and curvature in an efficient manner. If you want fast hard edged modeling then apps like Moi3d or Fusion use Nurbs and is more accurate then poly modeling.
What CAD Program would you advise? I have used Autodesk Fusion 360 before. MoI3D? / Rhino / Sketchup... So Hardmesh performs worse than Modo Meshfusion since it does quite a nice job of connecting the geometry.
maybe add moi3d to your inspiration list http://moi3d.com/ its designed with tablet use in mind other things that come to my mind are the wacom build in tools where you can tab a specific area on the tablet to execute specific actions or applications.
Moi3d is a NURBS modeler that doesn't have the draw backs of other NURBS modelers of being extremely hard to use. The meshes it produces can be a bit different than what we are used too, but if you have Zbrush they can be cleaned up very easily and very quickly.
Substance Designer is a really big step forward. I'm not sure it even the tech to be honest. You look at Vitaly Bulgarov works with zbrush, softimage and moi3d and it amazing. He also insanely fast. You would assume Vitaly is using some crazy tech, but he isn't.