Alternatives to Blender that feel more natural to use?

[pepper]

Hi, so:

I want to try my hand at making a little space on my site to host an X3D page where a visitor can explore my character Sodie's spaceship. I have all the dimensions of the ship (the blueprints are both on my site and in my project thread on this forum) and I know what sizes to make all the surfaces. I can see it in my head and move it around, I can touch it and know what the textures feel like and what materials its made of. I know how heavy it is and what the pipes sound like when the ship is on autopilot to the moon and you're lying on the couch in the commons and your sister is making something in the kitchen and the only other sound is the engines humming and the silence outside. I want to put all that out into the world in a way that people can also do those things!

Problem is, I need a 3D model.

Problem with that is: using Blender makes me physically ill! 
This is as far as I got in two hours and i felt so sick by the end 


Let me try to explain what I mean by "feeling ill" with a similar situation as an example. When I first tried getting into drawing using a drawing tablet, back in like 2012ish, I got this same feeling. Using Krita with a Wacom tablet felt so bad. I don't mean "overwhelming," I'm patient and able to learn pretty much anything I put my mind to and I was comfortable with the functions Krita had to offer, as well as the UI and everything. But the physical act of using the stylus on the tablet, looking at my computer screen, felt so bad to me. The minor lag between my action and it rendering on the screen, the disconnect between the two, something about trying to do little fiddly things in that setup makes me feel super squirmy and tense and agitated and physically ill, like ants are crawling through my nerves. Like, motion sickness? Except not nausea, just... feeling bad. I gave up trying to learn digital drawing, and traditional media, pencil on paper, paint, etc, I know how to use, but it just never vibed with me. I liked digital drawing, but it made me physically ill, so I just... didnt draw for 15 years even though I wanted to.

The solution was: I got an iPad Air and an Apple Pencil in 2024 and suddenly I could use a digital drawing software (Procreate) without that squirmy sick feeling! The immediate feedback and tactile feeling, something about it makes me not feel bad when I draw on an iPad. And it's not that something in me changed, trying to use Krita with a Wacom tablet or similar (I've tried several, both high end Wacom Pro and low end cheap knockoffs) will trigger that sick feeling even today, even though an iPad and Apple Pencil (or, I imagine, a different drawing tablet and stylus where you draw directly on the screen) doesn't trigger it. 

  So, back to the question at hand: 

That squirmy sick ants-crawling-through-my-nerves feeling? I get that with Blender! And it's debilitating! I really really want to be able to create 3D models, and I want to be able to use Blender (or something like it on a PC) because I can see that the software can do so much and I want to learn it so bad! But I physically just can't and I really don't know what is going on at this point   

So, finally my question: Are there any alternatives to Blender that I don't know about, that might provide the same sort of relief that using an iPad for digital drawing did for me for 2D creation? Is there a 3D modeling app for iPad that lets you use an Apple Pencil? Do I need to dig out my HTC Vive and buy those Index controllers and a VR 3D model game? ( please dont let that be the solution i can't afford those controllers )

Alternatively: has anyone else felt the same sick, squirmy feeling as me when doing fiddly tasks and happen to know of a way to get around it? I suspect it may be related to my ADHD but I'm unsure? Is this some weird form of motion sickness that only shows up when using design software?

  I just wanna make my spaceship 

[dogbrain]

you might have luck with Nomad Sculpt for ipad! it’s my personal favorite 3d program, and i personally find it a lot more user-friendly than Blender  there’s definitely a learning curve but it’s not quite as jarring in my experience. the only caveat is that it’s ten dollars.. super worth it if you’re willing to spend that much though!!!

i also totally get what you mean by the sick feeling, that would definitely deter me from tablet mediums too. i hope you can find something that works for you :D and your spaceship project sounds insanely cool!! i’d love to see it when it’s done 

[Rubbereon]

Let me try to explain what I mean by "feeling ill" with a similar situation as an example. When I first tried getting into drawing using a drawing tablet, back in like 2012ish, I got this same feeling. Using Krita with a Wacom tablet felt so bad. I don't mean "overwhelming," I'm patient and able to learn pretty much anything I put my mind to and I was comfortable with the functions Krita had to offer, as well as the UI and everything. But the physical act of using the stylus on the tablet, looking at my computer screen, felt so bad to me. The minor lag between my action and it rendering on the screen, the disconnect between the two, something about trying to do little fiddly things in that setup makes me feel super squirmy and tense and agitated and physically ill, like ants are crawling through my nerves. Like, motion sickness? Except not nausea, just... feeling bad. I gave up trying to learn digital drawing, and traditional media, pencil on paper, paint, etc, I know how to use, but it just never vibed with me. I liked digital drawing, but it made me physically ill, so I just... didnt draw for 15 years even though I wanted to.

It has a name, it's called input lag and I've seen it on weaker hardware with low ram when I use especially demanding software like magma (the collaborative drawing app) or photopea (it's kinda bad tbf, I much prefer gimp, but it has some unique features gimp doesn't have and gimp can sometimes have memory leaks or at least it feels this way, so I kinda feel forced to use photopea sometimes).

I don't have your particular discomfort, so I don't know why input lag makes you feel the way it does, but I still think input lag sucks and would be better off done with.

3D modeling software always take a lot of processing power, so I don't think that software you're looking for even exists, but for something a little more simple, there's what Baldi's basics used, I don't remember the name off the top of my head, but it should take like 10 minutes to find what it's called. There's also wings3d that's basically a simplified blender. Lastly, there's this thing that's technically not a modeling program, but if you can find a way to convert cad files to meshes it shouldn't be too bad to use, it's called autocad.

No idea if there's an open source alternative for the last option because I don't really care about 3d modeling roght now. Autocad is normally free, but there are paid optons to unlock more features.

[pepper]

It has a name, it's called input lag and I've seen it on weaker hardware with low ram when I use especially demanding software ...

Unfortunately I don't think this is down to input latency issues :< My iPad has a noticeable lag when drawing using the Pencil and it does not trigger the discomfort. Also, my workstation PC has 32GB RAM, an i7 Intel CPU, and a 4070 Super, and it still triggers this discomfort.

you might have luck with Nomad Sculpt for ipad!

This looks promising, I'll  give it a look for sure thanks!