Adobe Substance 3D Collection vs. DraftSight vs. EVOLVE Electrical

Big and mid-sized firms can really leverage the flexibility and value using the different tools all available at one place in the collection and also the integration with Adobe apps like photoshop, really makes it a seamless experience especially in fast paced production environments like advertising. For many film and game studios the whole collection might not be that much helpful as only painter will be of much use. For the small and indie studio it might be a costlier option and they can consider similar free or cheaper alternatives.

Incentivized

2D design work

3D design work

Large area (500m²+) analysis and assessment

From product design, including production drawings to lay out of large (10m x 1m footprint) layouts DraftSight is a cost effective solution providing all appropriate interfaces for BIM.

The level of detail during rendering (while it can be slow) is good for visualization and for use in installation and training materials

Incentivized

• Great performance
• Excellent Adobe support
• Fast and easy

• You can easily bring in a dwg format drawing into the programme and it will display the information just as well as AutoCAD.
• The programme supports shortcut features or one-click buttons for the most commonly used operations.
• Script files can be used which is a bonus.

Incentivized

• The substance painter is easy to use but its interface could be improved to be a bit more user friendly.
• More assets can be added to stager, so visualize products better. Also AI workflow can be added for backplates.
• Substance designer learning curve is very tough. Many people not able to grab it. It could be simplified.

Incentivized

• The text search and replace is very crude and barely works. Needs a major revamping.
• The layout tabs are very clunky and hard to use. Needs to be fixed.
• DraftSight will fix a problem in one version, mess it up in another version, then fix it again later on. And so forth, and so forth, and so forth. Very poor software update control.

Incentivized

It has given us, a small startup, the ability to compete effectively with far larger competitors by evening the playing field at a low cost.

Incentivized

The overall usability of substance stager and painter is quite easy. Many people will be able to use it without much prior experience. But designer is very complicated to learn and not many resources available for that. I think if they integrate the AI and provide better resources in the general interface, it could be a 10 on 10 in usability.

Incentivized

Easy if you know how to use CAD software. But is not very difficult to learn using DraftSight if this is your first CAD software. As soon as you get in to it the work flow will save you a lot of time and its simple interface is very nice.

Incentivized

Other than a bug created by a VAR tech support that didn't get resolved until I installed the next version, DraftSight has worked fine.

In general it's very quick to load drawings...now it depends a lot on the file we're opening or working on.

Incentivized

Technical support seems to be overseas with broken English and difficulty to read English. I asked for a trial license to try the fix but it was declined. Ask pratiksha.dahotre and gayatri.keskar for details. In summary, they released a broken version, I helped to fix by providing feedback and error logs. They claimed it is fixed but I can't test it.

Based on some knowledge of AutoCad, using Draftsight took a short time before I felt comfortable using it.

Incentivized

Take time to get used to where commands are and how the interface can be customized to suit your needs and work style. The keyboard commands are very helpful and can make work more efficient if time is taken to learn them.

Incentivized

For texturing, Adobe Substance 3D is much better than the other options. In other fields, it's another story. I find it excellent for game engines and realistic renders, but it only solves textures. We, then, move to Blender because it has more compatibility with exports, and we can import them into our preferred render engine. We mostly use Unreal Engine, but also Blender3D to do the final rendering.

While SketchUp is free, DraftSights cost is minimal and its abilities are much greater. It is so much easier to layout and modifies a system design. Since DraftSight is compatible with all versions of CAD, it makes it easy to collaborate with customers on their specific system design. We spend less time and see greater sales on our projects.

It's a typical contract for cad software. It was inexpensive at the time I started. But now the more useful features are on the more premium (priced) version.

As a startup, we really appreciate scalable software or tools, and because we use it for diverse types of projects, flexibility is key.

Incentivized

Quite responsive when I have an issue, and with little to no delay in responding. They are professional and know the software so have been able to solve all of the issues that I have had with both using the software and also with making revisions as required. Non-technical issues like invoices have also been resolved quickly.

Incentivized

• We saved time when texturing models
• With better looking assets, it's more money in the bank
• Less time testing, more time doing

• Draftsight has been very cost effective, it was free a few years ago then £79 a year, which it still is if you have the standard version. Now the minium level is Profession edition at £159+ VAT per year. Which is still very good value for money, just more that what we currently pay with the standard licences we have.

Incentivized