Hexagon on main store page.....?

2456

Comments

  • ZippyGuitarZippyGuitar Posts: 782
    edited November 2017
    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    *hugs* ;) That is really great to hear. I couldn't handle the constant crashes I was having with Hexagon so haven't used it in years. I always did like it's ease of use but those crashes, especially saving a file or importing back to Daz.
    Post edited by ZippyGuitar on
  • I'm at that stage where EVERY 3d modeling software hurts my brain when I try to look at it... let alone use it. That said... Hexaagon let the pain barely be noticed. I found it far more intuitive than all the others I've tried working with. It also has a few neat tools that let you do some things much faster and easier. If someone made a plugin that p[ut Hexagon's interface into Blender... I think I'd be in heaven.

    There are some free tutorials on youtube. Most come up with a simple search. I found them somewhat scattered in subject area. So it was a bit hard to compile a logical learning progression for myself. As a result I ended up purchasing Hexagon Revisted by Dreamlight. I found it well worth the money just for the speech he gives at the beginning about business. The business advice is good no matter what field you are in and there is also some specificlly useful to the 3d world. As to the instruction, I liked that too. It was straightforward and logical. Perhaps a bit to basic for someone who already knows something like z-brush or 3ds Max. On the other hand, he does a good job of moving you through different tools and using different methods of the interface to have you choose them. I really liked that. All in all even though I paid 3 times the amount for the tutorial as I did for the program ;-) I was quite happy to have done so.

    (quick aside thought: I wish there was abetter system on this website to send PA's comments. There are many PA's I'd love to thank persononally for their awesome work.)

    In trying to address the questions in the thread above, I should mention I've never had instability problems. I think it only crashed on me once. So go figure.

    I think its great that they've made it free, though I would have rather seen a Hexagon 3 and paid to upgrade. Then again, I already own it. However, echoing what others have said, there is a type of genius in Hexagon in the way it merges the advanced with the simple and basic and it is a shame for it to die. I think it could be a real player if it was just updated and modernized a bit. Carrera 9 would be nice too smiley

    Finally, I should mention that it seems to me stezza's advice is excellent. Get it no matter what just to insure yourself should a Hexagon 3 come out. Not only is there a good chance you could save a few bucks on an upgrade price but you also might better know whether you want to spend the money on Hexagon 3.

     

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,024
    edited November 2017

    I consider this GREAT news.  Thank you.  If the bridge to Studio is also maintained, then I will be doing the happy dance all through 2018.

     

    .

     

    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

     

    Post edited by Diomede on
  • SorelSorel Posts: 1,389
    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    Thank you for this info, this is exciting.
  • ebergerlyebergerly Posts: 3,255
    edited November 2017

    Yeah, good news. Though I don't really recall much about Hexagon, it's been so long since I tried it. Though I recall it had a nice and intuitive interface. 

    But for me at least, being able to model in Blender with just about any tool I could imagine (except for the ZBrush-style sculpting, which I rarely if ever use), and being able to do some very quick and easy UV unwrapping, and then being able to texture with nodes and the super excellent Principled Shader, and then export into Substance Painter for some incredible texturing and painting tools, makes just a simple modelling tool like that kind of irrelevant. Especially now that I've done so much python scripting in Blender to put all my special tools just a button click away, and re-arranging all the tabs and stuff to make them intuitive.  

    Now if they could move some of that Hexagon functionality into DAZ Studio so, for simple things at least, you can make and texture simple props and tweak others, that would be something very cool. Like if you wanted to make a simple clothing mesh for a dForce or other cloth sim....that would be wonderful. It's a pain to have to jump into Blender, load the base character, build the clothing mesh, then export back to Studio. Would be nice to do that all in Studio. 

    Post edited by ebergerly on
  • DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    Well, I'll be damned.

    If you say that Carrara is getting an update next, then we'll really know hell has frozen over!

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    Steve DID say this year had exciting things in store. Between this and Dforce, Daz certainly delivered.

  • JOdelJOdel Posts: 6,246
    Stezza said:

    also applying the 4gig patch for those on 64bit systems may help out as well..

    Is there one of those for a Mac? An .exe file does me no good at all.

  • JOdel said:
    Stezza said:

    also applying the 4gig patch for those on 64bit systems may help out as well..

    Is there one of those for a Mac? An .exe file does me no good at all.

    Have you tried Wine/Wine Stable? It doesn't always work 100%, but it's worth a shot.

  • JOdelJOdel Posts: 6,246

    No. Not at all enthusiastic about the idea of running a 2nd OS on top of the one I've got. Or at any rate, not on this computer. I intend to replace it in the next year or so and will reconsider once I find whether a new one performs well enough at base level to be able to consider that. This one has something that interferes with its performance and I'm not adding to the situation if I can help it.

  • DaWaterRatDaWaterRat Posts: 2,882
    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    Yay!
    Glad to hear it.

  • JOdelJOdel Posts: 6,246

    Yes indeed. Particularly since it evidently won't run on a current MacOS at all. Or not according to the download page.

  • Great news. I've had Hexagon for a while, but never managed to wrap my poor tired brain around it. With these updates just round the corner maybe I'll have another go.

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,691
    kyoto kid said:

    Why is hexagon on the main store page, it has been iut forever, why are they suddenly acting like its a new thing that just came out 

    They made it free.

    ..crikey and I spent something like 70$ on it many many years ago during MM. 

    ...and I'm sure the instabilities haven't been fixed either.  Sad, such a nice programme and UI to be hamstrung so badly.

    lol I paid $350 for it years ago when Eovia brought it out, then paid full upgrade price for it here. But it was well worth the price then, and definitely worth a free download now.
  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,691
    That is awesome news Steve, thanks for sharing!!!
    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

  • mtl1mtl1 Posts: 1,500

    Wow, Hexagon getting a stability update is certainly great. Modeling in Blender is a pain because it's, quite frankly, unintuitive when working with primitives and polys.

  • RAMWolffRAMWolff Posts: 10,140

    This truly is fantastic news.  Thanks for the heads up Steve.  Happy Thanksgiving! 

  • DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    Sounds good to me.

  • Hexagon getting an update?  That's about as good as it gets right now.  So there's hope for Carrara and...dare I say it...Bryce?

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890

    Well I hope Carrara/Bryce funtions come to DAZ where they make sense...or at least they use duf / ds formats and apis to would natively with DAZ file formats.

    I do hope these Hexagon updates that are coming include download, install, uninstall via DIM.

  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,873

    For those needing 64bit stability, this too will help - https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/large-address-aware.112556/

    THe tool also allows you to undo it at any point

  • LlynaraLlynara Posts: 4,770
    edited November 2017

    Very exciting news! This is on my list of things I want to learn next year, and it sounds like the timing is very good. I've been picking up Hexagon tutorials and the program itself when they were on sale very very cheap over the last year or two. The crashing stories kept me from doing anything in it. Glad to hear that there are workarounds for it now (didn't realize it until today's threads) and that there is more stability coming. 

    Post edited by Llynara on
  • QuasarQuasar Posts: 568
    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    This is awesome news! I haven't tried a lot of different modeling programs because most of them are just way too expensive for me. Of the ones I have tried, Hexagon has been the easiest for me to use. My disability leaves me with limited use of my hands so having to use a bunch of keyboard shortcuts is a barrier to using modeling software like Blender. I love that I can do most everything in Hexagon with just my trackball, and all the modeling tools are easily accessible in the UI with the click of a button.

    I haven't tried modeling in a long time though because the stability issues and lack of updates in Hexagon got too frustrating to keep working with it. Once it gets updated, though, I'll be excited to try my hand at modeling again. Thank you for the work you are doing!

  • LotharenLotharen Posts: 282
    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    This is really amazing news! Thanks for letting us know.

  • Ken OBanionKen OBanion Posts: 1,447
    Stezza said:

    Is it worth downloading Hexagon? I have ZBrush, does Hexagon do stuff that ZBrush doesn't? Or does it do it easier? 

    it's free

    so if you haven't got it it's totally worth it...

    wether you do anything with it is a different matter though smiley

    Well, hard drive space is becoming an issue, which is why I asked before deciding to download or not.

    Hexagon doesn't really take up all that much space (only 122 MB on disk, according to File Explorer's Properties panel).  And if memory serves, the installer is only about 77 MB and change, so you're not even 'spending' all that much bandwidth to download it, either.

    I've had Hexagon since the last time it was free, several years ago; I haven't used it all that much, though.  Once I found Blender, I turned away from Hexagon, and basically haven't looked back.

  • cdordonicdordoni Posts: 583

    Is it worth downloading Hexagon? I have ZBrush, does Hexagon do stuff that ZBrush doesn't? Or does it do it easier? 

    There are some things that Hexagon is very useful for such as building surfaces from lines or curves, ZModeler can't do that ....

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514

    Is it worth downloading Hexagon? I have ZBrush, does Hexagon do stuff that ZBrush doesn't? Or does it do it easier? 

     

    ZBrush Is all You need, hex is for test your patience

    ..if you have 700$ to spare. Hex is free, a very good price.

    ...and as I undserstend ZBrush's UI can be quite a handful if not extremely frustrating to use.  The only test of patience with Hexagon is the occasional instability, but the UI and it's tools as a complete pleasure to work with.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514
    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    ...

     

  • DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    If you don't mind my saying:

     

    About gosh darned time. THANK YOU! Super happy to see this. :)

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454
    DAZ_Steve said:

    One of the big questions seems to be around what the plans are (and if there are any updates to) Hexagon.  So let me chime in and answer that:

    We currently have a new version of Hexagon in private beta, and expect it to be public beta (including DIM installers) within a couple of weeks.  This new version has minor cosmetic updates and a lot of stability improvements.

    We also have updates planned for Q1 2018 including (but not limited to) 64 bit support.  

    We also have more ideas for 2018 (and the future) and plan for Hexagon to be a key and growing component of our free oferring to customers.

    Awesome!!!!

Sign In or Register to comment.