Primary substation w.i.p

[marcoz]

Having to render a primary substation i started to model the power trasformer,and first the oil tank and the level indicator

[marcoz]

after some issue with bump i finished the gas rele of the power transformer

[enrique.monzo]

Really nice renders, marcoz. I like the final modeling with all the small details. This also reminds me of my old times with Solidworks

[marcoz]

I d like to try sw,it s hard to learn? Are the mesh compatible with modifier like subsurface mod or turbosmooth?

[enrique.monzo]

Well, Solidworks is very different to Blender. While Blender is based on polygonal modeling, Solidworks is based on parametric/surface modeling (Parasolid modeling kernel). I would say that SW is ideal for industrial design (in my opinion it is great).When I was working in the 3D world (now I am an enthusiast), I used to model in Solidworks, export the model to ACIS format (SAT file extension), and import it in 3ds max for photorealistic rendering. The SAT files kept the parametric information of the model and allowed to create a perfect mesh in 3ds max. With Blender it is not possible to import SAT files, thus I guess the only way to import objects from Solidworks is via STL files...

Since a license of Solidworks is really expensive, I searched for alternatives. And I found Autodesk Fusion 360, which is very similar to Solidworks (parametric/surface modeling) with the addition of polygonal modeling. Autodesk offers an enthusiast license, meaning that you can download/install/use it for free if you don't earn a lot of money per year (have a look to the license). I applied for it and it is working great in my laptop. I want to go deeper in Fusion 360 once I control Blender a little bit more