My impressions so far:
The good:-
-Okay I'm going to admit that the Shell tool does indeed look interesting if not promising as a starting point for developing a more robust modeling toolset.
It reminds me a lot of the Polygon modeling tools in programs like Maya with how you can create shapes by using and connecting the vertices, nodes or hotspots and corners of objects.
Although I'm still not sure of the workflow since the videos demonstrate someone who's obviously already very comfortable with the commands.
The fact that most of these new modeling tools allow you to work almost exclusively from the 3D window is yet another plus as that tends to indicate that they may have vastly improved ArchiCAD's ability to handle High polycount objects and projects.
The jury is still out on how well these tools and forms display in the 2D windows (plans, elecation and sections), or if at all.
We all know the fiasco that is SEO representation on floor plan.
-Really good and really vital if your focus is going to be on the modeling aspect and working in the 3D window. Basically a natural progression from having to flip between the plan/elevation windows and the 3D windows and guesstimating for a lot of elements the way we have to do now.
Wow, releasing the program in May seems to indicate that they got all the parts fitting together rather quickly unlike the time they delayed it from the usual June/July to September.
This can unfortunately also be abad thing as it might mean that we should expect to see a whole host of hotfixes before the program is truly stable and ready to use. Also I doubt most of the third party plugin and addon developers are ready with their addons, so for people relying on those products, upgrading now will probably not be a good idea.
But still, a May release date is still rather impressive (even though, I think we can all agree it was largely provoked by a certain competitor who releases their competing product in March)
-The brochure says new parametric object libraries, but since they don't really show those objects or the parametric properties we can really make assessments on that end.
But since we know that this is one of the areas that they've needed to improve (the object libraries) the fact that they indicate that they paid attention to it is at least positive even though the jury is still firmly out on what those improvements are and just how useful they'll eventually be to users.
-Too little information was provided on the Renovation Option filter or workflow for me to give an opinion on it's usefulness. So while it would be good to have a tool or a means that facilitates that aspect of the design and documentation workflow (along with an integrating Change manager and/or phase and alternate concept Manager), we all know that the devil is in the details of how they integrated the actual tool.
For example, the curtain wall tool was nice in theory, but it's implementation in practice and in many respects left a lot to be desired when it came to a creative design workflow.
-Unfortunately (and I may be wrong here) it seems like yet again, nothing was done to improve or overhaul the godawful Stair Tool even with all the improved modeling tools that they've added.
Again, I would have thought that this would have been a naturally obvious thing to improve alongside the enhancements to the modeling toolset.
Again, I know I could be wrong here (and I really hope I am) since they haven't really released th program yet, but it seems like if they had improved it, we would be seeing videos of the new Stair tool in action.
No new stair tool videos ergo, no improvements
Again, with no additional information to confirm otherwise, I would surmise that this still remains the default method of creating truly parametric objects in ArchiCAD, despite all the new modeling tools.
GDL programming is a relic of the very old past. A dinosaur of the DOS era and BASIC programming.
It honestly has no place in an environment where other programs offer Ruby, and Grasshopper as means of creating powerful parametric objects and shapes in their programs.
Graphisoft really have to abandon this methodology and start trying to develop a new intuitive and GRAPHICAL visual way for their users to be able to create custom PARAMETRIC objects, particularly if they will persist in ignoring the library objects (again the Jury is still out on those new parametric objects they claim they have, but as we all know there's no one-size fits all type of parametric object)
The videos make it seem as if they focused a lot on improving the Roof tool, which doesn't seem to me like it was a tool that was in dire need of improvement and addressing (like, say, the Stair Tool for example).
I don't know if this was deliberate of GS' part or just an unfortunate aspect of what they chose to focus on in the advertising brief for this version, but once again it gives the impression of developers going off on their own tangent and focusing on or improving tools that not that many people asked for improvements in while ignoring those that a lot of people are constantly asking them to improve.
yet another by-product of what happens when you basically tune out and shut out your product's users and customers rather than listening to them and actively engaging them.
But then again, I suppose we'll know more once the actual program is released.
The rendering aspect seems to have been ignored yet again, but since we all knew that this version (and possibly the next version as well) will focus on modeling tools, I suppose we shouldn'thave expected anything on this front and we really shouldn't expect them to improve anything in this regard any time soon.
I would suggest either get rid of Lightworks completely and implement a more mature and robust render engine especially one that allow GS to improve the material and texture mapping options and capabilities.
Either that or completely abandon the idea of having a render engine at all in the program.
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Somethings I would have loved to have seen implemented along with these new tools.
-Instancing* would have been nice. I don't know if they implemented it, but from the videos it seems not.
(* - Create one object and then rather thanmake a copy make an instance of it, and any changes made to the original or to any of the instances are automatically propagated to the rest of the instances. This is a major time saver in a lot of modeling programs and also ensures for accuracy in representation.)
-2D line and element representation and manipulation in the 3D window would have been nice as well. Especially now that guidelines are also available in the 3D window. It seems only natural and an extension of what already exists in natural modeling tools like Sketchup.
It makes it easier to create shapes (as with the shell tool) and control elements in both 3D and 2D Windows.
-A Gimbal - Basically a move/scale/rotate gizmo that shows up when you want to transform or transpose an element. The pet palette that we have right now is nice, but it would seem to be a bit clunky when working in the 3D window with these new tools and with the new X,Y,Z coordinate axes indicator, it would only make sense that you had a move/transform tool manipulator that reflected those axis changes in one consolidated tool instead of many different palette options.
-Improved foreign 3D object import capability and options.
Even with all the improvements to the modeling tools, the fact that they still leave the creation of custom parametric libray objects to the mercy of GDL coding, means that a lot of users are still going to rely on importing externally modeled objects into ArchiCAD to address their needs.
Now the Google Sketchup import tool is nice, but as we all know it only serves one side of the Computer OS platform world (unless that has changed with this release).
And we all know the 3ds import Goodie addon is a hit-or-miss disaster of sorts especially when it comes to Heavy polycount objects and with getting imported objects to display properly. Sooo unless GS are planning to resurrect Maxonform (which I doubt) then this is yet another are they seriously need to improve alongside the collaboration improvements that they've made especially in regards to IFC import/export.
That's all for now.
I guess we'll know more as they release more information in the coming days,
