Plastic Software releases Plasticity 2025.2
Plastic Software – aka tools developer Nick Kallen – has released Plasticity 2025.2, a wide-ranging update to the popular lightweight NURBS modeler.
Key changes include support for HDRI lighting and physical materials in Render Mode, and new commands to improve surfacing workflow, including automatic alignment of surfaces.
A lightweight NURBS modelling app for concept art, not industrial design
Released in 2023, and pitched as “CAD for artists”, Plasticity is a streamlined NURBS modeller.
The software is intended to provide a low-cost, artist-friendly alternative to tools like MoI and Fusion 360, and is aimed at concept art as well as industrial design.
It features a streamlined UI, with on-screen clutter reduced by context-sensitive widgets and pop-up UI panels, and uses key bindings and selection modes familiar to Blender users.
Plasticity 2025.2: new readymade physical materials and support for HDRI lighting
Plasticity 2025.2 significantly improves the visual quality with which models can be previewed inside the software, adding 34 new readymade physical materials.
The materials, which include metal, plastic, fabric, wood and stone, become visible once Render Mode is enabled.
It is also now possible to enable HDRI-based environment lighting in Render Mode, using either a custom HDRI, or one of seven built-in HDRI setups.
In addition, objects now cast shadows on the ground plane in Render Mode, providing better visual context for models.
New shaders help analyze and troubleshoot NURBS surfaces
Plasticity’s Shader Mode gets two new shaders to help analyze surfaces visually.
The Normal Surface Checker shows the direction of surface normals, coloring surfaces red if they face inwards, helping to identify and fix reversed surfaces.
The Topology Shader displays a wireframe on the surface of a model, and is intended to help analyze the form of imported geometry, particularly complex organic shapes.
New commands improve surfacing workflow
The update also improves surfacing workflow, with a new Measure Curvature command displaying a ‘curvature comb’ as a visual representation of variation in surface curvature.
A Measure Continuity evaluates the degree of continuity between selected pairs of edges.
Users with Studio licenses get a new Align Surface command, which automatically aligns separate surfaces, adjusting the target surface to create a smooth transition, as shown in the video at the top of the story.
There are also updates to many of the existing modeling commands, especially Boolean and Bridge Curve.
Other workflow improvements
Workflow improvements include a new Unlock All command, which unlocks all locked objects and groups in the Outliner.
There are also several updates to selection workflow, including new Select All commands for selecting all visible Measurements, Solids and Sheets in the viewport.
In addition, Plasticity now supports the mathematical constant pi and scale unit conversions in its numeric dialogs, in addition to basic arithmetical operations.
There are a lot of smaller feature and workflow updates, listed in the online release notes.
Price, system requirements and release date
Plasticity 2025.2 is available for Windows 10+, Ubuntu 22.04+ Linux and macOS 12.0+. In the online documentation, the release is also referred to as Plasticity 25.2.
Perpetual node-locked Indie licenses cost $149, and import and export files in OBJ, STEP, STL and Parasolid XT format. Studio licenses support a wider range of file formats and cost $299.
Read a full list of new features in Plasticity 2025.2 in the online release notes
Read more about Plasticity on the product website
Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.