First off I think I need to clarify something:

I come from an industrial design background, and Im hoping to find a digital workflow that emulates the design process used in industrial design.
That would be ~ Sketch out ideas on paper-> Use clay to develop form/design further-> Build a final model in a foam-material in the workshop

My digital approach: Pen&paper sketch-> MODO rough block-out (to get mass/volumes down) -> ZBRUSH Import mesh, sculpt/develop form -> Final model in NURBS (use .obj as reference and to constrain curves)

This might look inefficient with so many steps, but I want a workflow that is very exploratory and enables me to experiment all the way. I believe these tools in combination provide that.

*****


Thanks for highlighting the "Surface-matching" issue. Lets see if I understand what you guys are saying:
MoI _will_ be able to create all the curves and surfaces sufficiently - however the problem occurs when I will try to connect multiple surfaces together into one complex surface so that everything has continuity?



Michael:
> "Are you planning on physically manufacturing these designs, or are they going to be used only for animations and renderings?"
Only for presentation purposes. Rendering and animation.

> "although again producing models like this in a sub-d modeling program is not going to be what I would term "easy" at all either."
For me trying to sub-d model the final model has proven extremely hard. I dont have the understanding of topology and experience to create a good edge-flow etc. to avoid things as spiders that would mess up the surface. Also just to create sharpness the way I want, and hard surface in general has been very difficult. I do like polygon pushing in the early stages like I mentioned before to roughly see how the design-silhouette will look in 3d.
So far I feel that MoI suits my workflow very nice. I get to have all the creative exploration beforehand. In MoI I can use the .obj importer and build up my curves constrained to the .obj and in the end get clean surfaces with sharp edges where I want - in a speedy manner. Obviously the surface-matching might be an issue, but I like MoI so much Im not going to give up despite the lack of this function. Im giving it a serious attempt and I guess we will see how it pans out.


Andrei:
> "MoI will not allow you experiment/research forms in easy way. In apposite, polygons allow easily change forms by moving vertex, edges or polys for finding the best shapes."
Yes you are right, I hope use the strength of polygon modeling as well as nurbs.

> "If you are still want to Concept with MoI you can check my tutorials about how to make those "organic shapes" in MoI http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6058.1"
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I have already learnt alot from watching some of your youtube videos, great stuff!


2byts:
> "If Moi supported importing a hi poly surface that we could retopologise using splines then this would accomplish a lot of possibilities with more organic shapes."
Im not sure if you are aware of the .obj import script. I attached it below for you.


Mauro (M-DYNAMICS), Burrman, kevjob:
Thanks so much for your input on this. Helped me understand this better.


Again big thanks to all of you. You are all very helpful and knowledgeable.

Nick