Hi guys!

I'm still alive and kicking, and believe it or not, I still enjoy Moi about every day. It's been especially handy at work where 3D type and other implements are a cinch.

This one is a concept piece blending the layout of a vintage tube-type radio with that of a city. It's taken about two weeks to complete from thought to rendering and I put way too much detail into some of the elements.

Warning: Everything is NOT to scale! ;-)

I think SU would have made it easier to create the city elements, but I haven't used that program in a few years, and frankly, Moi is just too much fun not to use.
Each of the foreground buildings include interior floors, walls and appropriate lighting!
On the inner block, the two leftward buildings are apartments and the strange looking one is some type of academic center. The small park is a general-use municipal center, including the same lamp posts found on Bourbon Street in New Orleans... (I've got a couple of assets built over time)
The Moi file is about half a gig in size and not so easy to manipulate - this because of too many fillets.
I only laid out what was necessary for the camera view I wanted.

I hard part was rendering. Since I am not made of money and I still haven't grasped Blender, I used the clunky and buggy old program Kerkythea (Boost), which is free.
Plus, I'm a believer in the Metropolis Light Transport (BPT) rendering engine which suits my style of using as many illumination elements as possible.
I suppose, getting into something more powerful like Cinema 4D is still far off for me. But even with this rendering in Keryky, I've learned so much more about using materials and layout.

For the record, I am NOT completely satisfied with my result. My glass materials are a struggle and I'm not using a good program that can handle high polys as well as mastering materials and UV mapping, like V-Ray. Plus, I'm missing a lot of elements I desired to include, including people and vehicles. Kerky just couldn't handle much more without crashing.
I'm also a little (and only so little) disillusioned by the lack of instancing or grouping in Moi. Sorry Michael, It didn't become a wish until I actually ran into the need, yes, the material selections and naming helped - but that's not to say that Moi has every advantage that dwarfs this minor inconvenience. I'm with you on your philosophy concerning Moi's strong suits as it is perfectly crafted for what it does well. I mentioned that this type of layout was best suited for a poly app like SU.
I still would be nice to say, "hey, I don't like the design of a street lamp that I have 40 copies of, positioned ever so nicely... lets fix that quick."

But how often does one need to blend custom industrial design elements like electronics and mechanics with architecture? Ha!

Anyways, I would still like to tweak a few more elements on this one, but the main goal of getting the next cover page for the newsletter is done, and I am satisfied.


You can see that I've included the audio speaker from my tutorial.
Speaking of tuts, I know it's been over a year since my last one... I'm itching to do another one, but life is way different for me now, and who knows. ;-)