But is it an GUI that is worth $199? I mean - That's what you have to play compared to absolutely nothing for a Prusa slicer. I don't want to be mean here, but I have the feeling that is a little bit overpriced (yes a bit of sarcasm here). I think I will stick with the cheaper solution if you don't mind.
I agree about the GUI. I'm a S3D paid up customer and a few months ago attempted to convert to PrusaSlicer. I was disappointed in the UI experience, and realized I would need to put more effort than I anticipated to become accustomed to it. For context, I'm an IT guy that's done windows and web GUI design and implementation during my career, and quickly become impatient with less than ideal GUI designs.
@@evo-labs While I used S3D in the past on a system in my workplace, I now use the Prusa slicer at home. While I fully agree the interface of S3D is very nice, I did not had to "invest" very much time to get used to the Prusa slicer interface. Once you know where to find stuff, it's pretty much an easy ride. It takes some more time (in my honest opinion) to get used to Cura. That interface is not very intuitive, because all setting are in one panel. I like the multiple tab approach from the Prusa slicer a lot better. As said - S3D has, without doubt, the most easy interface. However, if you take in consideration that I have to pay €240, just to use a slightly more easy interface, it suddenly becomes a lot less appealing.
Andy your not wrong. The total to upgrade was $83.14 CDN. Now I have to test it and see if it is a good buy or will I recommend that people stick with the free options.
Simplify3D is committing a business suicide by charging their loyal customers for an update that was always part of the deal. With som many free options out there, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
They side stepped the update issue by claiming they would support their customers who purchased the software when they first announced V5 in 2019. Customers would get a free upgrade with in 12 months of their purchase but it took 3 years to release making the 1 year upgrade null and void.
@@TheFirstLayer I left the printing world for a few years, come back and they were exactly the same as I left it, and now they are introducing what I have actually just learned with Cura.. I dunno, I can't see going forward paying more for what I see others are offering. I get it that they are independent and I appreciate that a lot. I like the full model build simulation also, that is really awesome, and still the best IMHO. It feels like they left the printing world also for a while also. I did because of work, they did because of? lol We shall see what ends up happening from this all. Thanks for the reply!
I came into 3D printing during the Ender 3 height, and started by using Cura. Then moved to Prusaslicer and that's what I use daily. I believe that anybody like myself who has come in using the free slicers, and have seen them grow so much in the last 3 years, would never go to paying for something that is just barely maybe equal to what we already use. Also, knowing that it took them so long to upgrade this, I would never go to the Simplify anyway. The other slicers are miles ahead and make 3D Printing Better because of it. Great video Richard!
If they give us all who stuck with them for many years a lower price on the upgrade. say $25 then I will maybe upgrade. I have started to learn Cura and I am adjusting.. so I am still on the fence.
Before dismissing S3D I'd like to see print finish comparisons w/ PrusaSlicer. After all that's a critical objective. fyi, PrusaSlicer and S3D ALWAYS gave me better looking parts than Cura.
I tested all New versions of Cura and Slic3R for last 3 years and results were allways better with S3D 4.1 for my Ender3 ! Cura sometimes give amazing results on some pieces... And terrific results on others, with the same filament ! S3D allways gave me constant results, once I tuned it for my printer and filaments. S3D is the best if you want constant results on complicated pieces... "Features" on the paper does not matter ! The result matters !!! If you're not watching on quality, free softwares are a good choice 😉 I'm allways surprised people not looking for the best quality in FDM printing...
Two things you have to take in consideration. The license goes from 2 seats in 4.x to only one seat in 5.0. And for new users the price went up from $150 to $200. For users in Europe and other country's that include VAT into the pricing the price increase is even more dramatic (from $180 to $240). That's a LOT for a single seat software license. I think most new users that would compare the features of this software to features of the slicers that are available for free now, will have a real hard time to justify the $200 to $240 price for themselves. I personally keep using the free slicers, because with a little more work in them I can spare myself $240. In short - I think the guy's at Simplify3D will have a rough time ahead convincing people to buy their software.
I agree they are going to have a tough time making this upgrade a value upgrade to new and some existing users. The die hard fans of the product are going to update regardless.
I'm happy with S3D Ver. 5. I got a Genius and used the profile what they recommend. Done. With other slicers it takes days for the same result. Days for 39 Dollar? Also the UI are more intuitive as other slicers, my opinion. I agree, the delay for Ver. 5 are not okay, but finally they did. Again, I'm happy with it and will continue
I was (emphasis on 'was') a big fan of S3D years (emphasis on 'years') ago. Back in the day (emphasis on MANY 'days' ago) it was the best slicer going. Now the horse is not only out of the barn after the door was closed, it boarded a ship that sailed... and sank. Sorry, but the free slicers nowadays put S3D in the shade. Because I liked it so much in the past, I have to say one thing positive about it. It had (has?) the best user interface of them all.
Not to defend them but, they do state in their terms of service agreement that upgrades ar for 1yr from the time of purchase. What bothered me most was that they announced this update more than 2 years ago.
@@TheFirstLayer _ Agreed. Free updates for 12 months are useless if there are no updates. So basically false advertising by implying there would be updates. The Benchy has sailed on S3D for me!
Thanks for that statement. Same feelings from Germany. I'm done with that company. Too little too late by too expensive. Here's what I postet under SF3D's release video here on RU-vid some days ago: "As long as the payment process is obscure as ist is I will not update. Perhaps this is because I'm just an old European. I bought a boxed version in 2017 including lifetime updates. Obviously I changed my existence from "living" to "vampire" or so. Okay - so be it. But as long as nobody tells me how I can pay before checkout I don`t need an update. Great software. Shitty policy. Pardon my French. But it is what it is." Was the software worth 150 Euros in 2017? Hell yeah! Is it worth 190 Euros in late 2022? Hell no! Will I update for 55 Euros? I couldn't watch myself in the mirror again if I did. Classic vampires' problem, you know ...
Soooo, literally 30 minutes after I got the promotional email that s3dv5 was released, I wanted to print something and now my s3d installation doesn't want to start up anymore - coincidence? Probably! Still going to switch to Superslicer now
One important thing to note... I have upgraded my license to 5.0 and... they took away the possibility to activate the software on 2 machines! The forums and their facebook are full of angry customers. (However you can still run the activated version 4.1.2 on one machine and the 5.0 on another)
I swore by S3D for years, even when Cura and Prusa pulled well ahead of them in terms of features. I bought it long ago and had it and everything worked on it so why change? That was until Cura and Prusa Slicer started doing things S3D COULDN'T do and was faster, simpler, and easier about them. The dam broke and I adapted to Prusa slicer and have never looked back. At this point there is a snowball's chance in hell that people would be willing to fork over that much money for otherwise free features they'd find in any other slicer. On top of that even if S3D 5 HAPPENS to have one or two features that you can't get anywhere else, the other slicers will inevitably add those features and fairly quickly because THOSE slicers actually put out consistent updates. I'm sure there's some companies who's entire production pipeline is completely built on S3D but for the average consumer there's just no practical incentive at all. You can't compete with free unless you're a major game changer and that's just not was S3D5 is.
I am disappointed that you make these assumptions based on what you have read on the web site instead of actually testing it. Generally I have consistently been getting better prints from my Simplify3d 4.1 than Cura,, PrusaSlicer and even superslicer. I agree that they should have done more to get the update out earlier, but it's here now and it works great! Yes I have purchased it already. BTW I've been 3d printing since 2012 and started with Cura back then, tried Slic3r and a number of other slicers. I have never regretted purchasing S3D!
I tried so hard to use it but hated the menu layout etc. S3D has always worked for me and I've stuck to it. Just paid for the upgrade and will be interested to see the results.
The Only thing that I saw that was kind of cool was the ability to take custom solid supports that I have made in cad with the model, and turn them into supports in the slicer. They also claim 3x faster slicing, and I've always found S3D to slice the fastest. I think it's still the fastest to date even with 4.1. Will this make me buy it? Um...no, I'm not paying for such little changes when a lot of other slicers do the same already and somewhat better.
I looked at the upgrade price and couldn't bring myself to pay it. I get great results with v4 and some nicely tuned profiles. Would rather invest the same effort into Cura or similar going forward. S3D has a lovely simple UI, but I expected a better upgrade offer, after years of inactivity.
I had accepted that I had been duped when I bought 4.x with the free 5.0 upgrade (whenever I had purchased it). Despite that I really fell in love with s3d. I was so happy the update came out and I’ve liked using it happily printing away voron parts. I would say if you like s3d buy the upgrade. Otherwise the other slicers are still quite a few steps ahead to say the least.
I do agree, i would not likely pay 200$ for this today, but as an existing user, the fee to get V5 is worth it, if as refined in their features as the older software
Wow, I’m super disappointed in this. Been waiting literally years for this update to find out it’s way way to little way way to late. As you said, there are many free options out there that are better.
@@L3Dhelpguide I'm going to take a chance to pay for the upgrade also for V5 because I've been using it since 2016 and very satisfied... but is it a license only for 1 or for 2 computers? Because the original version was for 2 .
@@danieldeslandes2479 It is a one license for one computer. You can have it installed on more than one but you have to deactivate the one(s) not in use. That is not new but was a part of V4.
It sounds like you didn't actually test it though. We would like to know if they are doing anything better than other software out there. A feature may have already existed before, but their implementation could be better or worse. I was hoping for an actual test of the software, not to just hear they added features that already exist elsewhere. They could have seen the other features out there and improved upon them.
When I made this video I had only looked at the website information and that is clear in the video. However I have sinced purchased the upgrade to V5 so that I can give it a good look and do a followup video.
For the infill, you are wrong, s3d is adding something quite new there, namely not a 2d infill pattern being pulled upwards, but a real 3d infill pattern that increases strength of prints in more directions. That is an awesome feature and you should not say that other products provide different infill patterns already, as s3d has a different way of infill. I am not a s3d employee, but i am a s3d fanboy who paid 60 dollars for the upgrade to v5. To be honest, for the main reason I use s3d is the support structure functionality, I always get the best results when manually adding support and that works very well in s3d. But yeah, I am a bit angry that I had to pay an upgrade fee, but then again, it also took them alot of work to build this and they did release it, even though it is pretty late. Dont judge the product too soon, try all the new functions and based on that write a review. People just want to be the first to write a review and that is stupid! Write something interesting instead of only looking at the release notes, you need to try it out for yourself.
@@MrBlackmidi1234567890987654321 I've only worked a short time with Prusa slicer but as far as I can tell you have to change the regions manually while Simplify3D claims do it automatically based on the geometry.
I haven't printed anything with it yet. But S3D definitely does it automatically and there's an option to color the model by layer height that really shows the various layer heights.
S3D never had good customer support. I'm not going to upgrade because of poor customer relations in the past. It is easily seen that writing is on the wall. They are sinking ship. Too little too late.
Weeeelll, if you have a Wanhao D4, none of the other slicers produce a nice gcode. Tried them all, and Simplify 3D works with that machine out of the box. It’s the only reason I’m going to get the upgrade. However, as they have done something… finally, maybe they will do more, for me I need the software anyway, so if they don’t upgrade any further it won’t bother me.
Simplify3D was fine when I first purchased it. But ultimately I wish I would have saved the 150$ and learned the free software like Cura. Once I made the switch, there were a few things I didn't like about Cura (compared to Simplify3D) but as I delved further into Cura, I was pleasantly surprised. It's a joke they announced v.5 and I was even more annoyed I had purchased something I don't get upgrades for life. Very few updates ever rolled out for me on S3D because they took such a long time to release v.5. I am offended they want $60 (soon to be $70). I may have paid them $20 just to maintain my copy.
I've been using S3D V5 for a while now and i DO NOT recommend it for a few reasons: - They say it's rebuilt from the ground up. That's a big lie. They developed for years and years for just some intrinsic upgrades and maybe max 5-10 extra features. Not even the essential ones that were so anticipated by its community. They just did what they thought was right and barely listened to their users. - we in EU paid upwards 242 euro's for a single-device license. For this.... Please guys, if you want to try it out, try it and pull out. You got a trial of 2 weeks, don't be stupid like I was.
When are they going to release Simplify3d V5 ? Wait just saw on their site the upgrade will cost me 59.00$ that is BS, i already paid for the original.
Damn I just wasted £50 UK upgrading to 5 absolute wast of money ! Wish I had checked out the reviews first but have waited for so long for an upgrade that I thought it was going to be above and beyond all other slicers out there ! How disappointing if anything the free slicers are better ! Don't waste your money on this upgrade use free slicers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lots of complainers. No one is twisting your arm to upgrade. Don’t like it? Fine. Go use freeware. Problem solved. I am, by far, a S3D fan boy but I have been using it since 2017. I tried to branch out and use Cura, Superslicer and Prusaslicer throughout the years 😊but I wasn’t fond of learning a new software. Was I happy about the $59 price tag? Nope. But I put on my big boy pants and paid. No regrets here.
NO! You can only have this new version on ONE (1) computer whereas the previous version you could have it installed on TWO (2) computers at the same time. I did not know that fact until I spent the $59.00. I have asked them about this and they have NOT answered me. I am still waiting for my refund. I say it is a bad deal. I will start using CURA more.
Only being able to use on one PC is a major step backwards in my opinion. I will be doing a thourogh examination of the software over the next few months and reporting my findings on this channel.
Kind of what I figured - which is sad, S3D was awesome way back in the v3 days... And I still blame you for introducing me to it :) My ancient version is now way out of date, but it's still my goto for most prints as it's just comfortable to me... I was really hoping you were going to say it was the best thing since sliced bread - like it once was.
I loved the software when I got it even through the 4.X upgrades, but over time other slicers were making strides and thier improvements caused me to abandon S3D. I am going to pay for the upgrade so I can do some versus videos.
@@TheFirstLayer Looking forward to the head to head comparisons... Yeah it's been so far behind for a while, hopefully these past years of development resulted in real improvements back to the leader not just "us too".
This company jumped the shark. Too slow. You snooze you loose. I wish they were a public company so I could short their stock because they are going to zero.
Since you are a big site, and you can transmit information, SIMPLIFY3D was not dead at all, if you shouf well IDEAMAKER, you immediately recognize the dna of simplify3d, me who am a fan of this software, and who was tired of the prime tower rising to the top when I had no more color changes, I turned to others to test, and that's where I see that IDEAMAKER has absolutely everything of SIMPLIFY3D, but then EVERYTHING, only one thing is missing, I don't really know what, I think I was using scripts to adjust the linear advance in terms of the layer height, so that's why a piece is missing BRIEF SIMPLIFY3D worked for RAISE3D, necessarily, a machine manufacturer, is not going to have fun creating a high-end slicer starting from the blank page, and this is surely what explains the absence of the simplify3d team completely dedicated to the development of IDEAMAKER Moreover, IDEAMAKER has a toy that simplify3d does not have and which makes me prefer IDEAMAKER, these are the modifiable areas, you draw a cube and you give orders to this cube by saying 'everything that is in this cube will have these parameters ', it allows to boost certain places in three clicks etc. BRIEFLY DO NOT BUY SIMPLFY3D, you have it at IDEAMAKER FREE, on the other hand, you have to know a little gcode, and make your own starting files, which you copy on your other slicers etccccc BRIEF stop, there are freebies and better!
Before I condem S3D it is only fair that I compare it to the current offerings. I totally understand the points you make. If I don't give it more than a surface examination I am not serving the comminity. With that said If you have a slicer that works for you than stick with it.
