Best Blender add-on for cutting

Support Modeling
#1

Hi,

In Blender 2.79 I frequently used the Carver MT add-on to easily cut shapes and holes from / in a mesh.

As Carver MT hasn’t been updated for Blender 2.8 yet, I’m looking for the best alternative, and I’m a bit lost in Blender’s hard-surface add-on world. There are a number of add-ons that seem to have overlapping tools, such as Boxcutter, HardOps and MeshMachine.

I’m mostly a modeler of organic shapes (characters), so I’m not looking for hard-surface kitbash and beveling tools, but I’m looking for the easiest add-on for:

  • Cutting circular, rectangular and arbitrary shapes through a mesh.
  • Being able to choose between cutting all the way through a mesh and cutting into a mesh with a fixed distance.
  • Cutting a mesh into separate parts.
  • Easily drawing and extruding 2D shapes (circles, rectangles and arbitrary shapes) for Boolean union with a mesh.

Many thanks for your feedback.

#2

Boxcutter, simple as, it is flat out amazing how fluid you can build things with it. That said, for working in general, if you can, I’d recommend all those 3 and DecalMachine when it comes across.

But with Boxcutter, it’s just insane. check out some of the recent youtube videos:-



Speaks for itself. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#3

Thanks @colkai! I’m going to watch the videos.

#4

Prepare for your jaw to hit the floor :wink: Even though it’s Masterxeon donig the demo, trust me, it really is that simple and quick. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#5

I’ve just started watching the basic introduction video and I’m already pleasantly surprised. :slightly_smiling_face::+1:

#6

I’ll put together a video of me gonig through some of the same processes, so you can see how even a novice user can get to grips with it. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#7

Here you go, not the full thing, but enough to show how quick it can be, even with a bit of tweaking.

1 Like
#8

Cool, thanks! :+1: I’m impressed.

#9

No worries, I am only a user, but when I see something worth supporting, I do, between BoxCutter and HardOps, it improves the worklow a huge amount. If you do hard-surface stuff, really, they are essential. Yes, you can do a lot using BoolTool and setting sharp edges etc as I do in that video, but I was trying to avoid using HardOps. Normally, I’d use CSharpen, t-thick, q-array etc and they take a lot of the heavy lifiting out of it. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#10

This Add-on is not as advanced as those mentioned above but it does its job very well and it is being improved very actively:

1 Like
#11

Thanks @txusmiCG. I’ll have a look at Fast Carve as well.

Does anyone already own and use Fluent? It looks quite intriguing too. I wonder how it compares to Boxcutter, Hardops and Meshmachine.

#12

The only thing that still makes me hesitate to buy one of the add-on options is that all demonstrations put an emphasis on hard-surface modeling starting with low-polygon simple primitives like a box. The shapes are added on broad faces with clear normals.

  • But how do the add-ons perform to create a quick cylindrical or spherical hole or protrusion on a high-poly organic character?
  • And do the add-ons work inside Sculpt Mode?
  • And is there an add-on that allows freehand drawing of shapes in stead of only circles, squares and ngons?

The add-ons all seem to be very geometrically oriented.

1 Like
#13

If you watch the eye one, you can see it works well on a sphere, as the object builds though, the geometry is far from simple. I’m amazed, when you look at some of the demos, just how many booleans you can throw onto a simple shape and still have it non-destructive. On scuplt, I’d imagine you run into issues simply because of the use of the multires modifier and dynatopo. To be honest, if you’re dealing with that level of detail, I don’t see that cutters really come into the game. If you want to cut freehand, I’d guess your just revert to using BoolTool, for most things, the build in options work. Regarding Fluent, from what I’ve seen, it’s not really any different to BoxCutter. Of course, workflow wise, as a new user, some may find it suits them, but HardOps & BC are part of my workflow now and I wouldn’t see the point in buying another cutter style addon.

1 Like
#14

Thanks, @colkai. You’ve provided a lot of useful info. :+1:

#15

No worries, as I said, I am a bit of a fan of then addons, they are quite addictive in terms of playing with them. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#16

Maybe this is what you’re looking for:

1 Like
#17

Wow, this toolset definitely looks interesting, thanks for the tip. Too bad it isn’t available for Blender 2.8 yet. :frowning:

1 Like
#18

Adaptation under 2.8 in the process. + new features

2 Likes