Hi Michael,
I've spent the last week looking at various Nurbs/Solid Modeling applications to complement my main OS X poly modelers (C4D & Modo with an ample sprinkling of Sketchup too) and have spent a fair amount of time with Moi (around 20 hours). I've used Rhino a fair amount over the years so the core 'modus operandi' of Moi made complete sense to me (I also downloaded the latest OS X beta of Rhino too, seeing as it's currently free to use and it also enabled me to asses if there was much from the Rhino toolset that I'd miss in Moi).
I love the whole streamlined design ethos of Moi, it really clicks with the way I like to work. Even though Moi's nurbs modeling toolset is a very different beast to the parametric poly modeling of Sketchup, IMHO they are very similar from a user experience perspective. Both of them allow you to quickly sketch out ideas whilst maintaining true CAD accuracy; where Sketchup has 'inference locking', Moi has 'construction lines'. These modelling aids alone are the things that make all the difference to me in both applications.
I really could make do with the Rhino OS X beta for the moment as I know most of the toolset relatively well but Moi enables me to achieve my goals in a fraction of the time.
However I do have a couple of bugbears from my time with Moi so far:
- My first is that the OS X version runs via Wine (at least that's the case with the V2.52 beta, not sure if the V3 beta is now a native application seeing as it's only available to licensed users) but to be honest it's not that much of a hindrance and it's certainly more flexible than giving over a ton of resources to run Moi via Parallels. My main concern is that the copy/paste workflow between Moi & Rhino doesn't function on OS X as it does on Windows.
- I love the fact that the interface has been designed for touchscreen interaction (my 24" Cintiq has never been so happy), although I think the UI needs a few tweaks as it's not very flexible for larger screen sizes/resolutions (lot's of wasted space). And for a program that's centred on simplicity, far too many power features are accessed via scripts (but being a geek I've obviously already customized the demo via stuff I've found here in the forum, via Petr's excellent script page and those in the manual - but this is a general observation about Moi seeing how accessible it is compared to most other nurbs modellers). I get the logic of the layout I just think it could be a little more dynamic, especially seeing as it's delivered via HTML/CSS. I'm aware this subject has been discussed a multitude of times already on the forum so I won't labour my point (too much!). A prime example for me is the number of clicks it takes to get from say a transform action to a boolean action (three separate clicks). Reducing this by even a single click (by allowing the user to both open the construct tab and select the boolean sub menu on mouse release) would make a huge amount of difference to the overall user experience.
These are minor quibbles though in the bigger scheme of things. It's been a very long time since a modelling program has so instantly clicked with me and I feel certain that I'll be purchasing Moi at the end of my demo period (especially if V3 is being released as an OS X native application).
Keep on keeping on.
Jonathan M
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