Full Version: Newbie question about texturing and rendering models

Hi,

I'm new user and currently trying the 30 day trial version.

I love MoI!

Exactly what I wanted. Something easy to use without having to learn 900 pages of instructional material and 10000 buttons hidden somewhere in the proggy's interface...

However, I just did my first model and it worked out great, BUT:

Now what, where do I assign materials, animate and render it?

In other words, what's the workflow once the model has been designed?

I can't afford 3ds Max etc and honestly am too lazy to learn another 900 page manual just to use Blender etc. (and don't have the time to spend the next 3 month to learn) , there's got to be an easy way (just like MoI is for modelling) for the rest of the chain, materials, animation and rendering.

If there is, I am ignorant of it. I am sure that people here know what else is like MoI, easy and fast for the rest of the workflow....

What I am looking for is an easy to use program to import MoI fieles into, then add material and possibly even another program (if need be) to render it (maybe with animations?).

Thanks for your kind input, and please don't hate the newbie questions, but that's exactly what I am: a beginner...

Jack

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Hi Jack ..
Welcome to the forum.
Have a look at SimLab lite. It is free and the learning curve is not heavy. At some point you may want to upgrade to the paid version 'SimLab Composer' but the lite version is pretty impressive.
Enjoy Moi3D.
eric

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Thanks for the info, but these guys are in Jordan, who knows where the money spend on their products goes to and how long they are going to be around... ;-)

Anyway I want to model in MoI it is very cool and the ease of use makes it perfect for me. It's the next steps I am not sure about.

Someone here must already have this figured out and can hopefully share that with me.

So far I found ArmorPaint for texturing/painting, but it doesn't seem to recognize different parts/models of MoI's object file and paints all over it instead of specific parts.

Rendering and animation, don't know that yet either...

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so take a look of the new one! :) (free in 1024 *1024)

https://boxshot.com/owlet/

works like a charm :)


In their gallery

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Blender works nicely. And it's free. And it's been around for a long time. The new 2.8 version is so much easier to use than previous versions.

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Hi ...
First, I do not consider that I am an accomplished renderer. I have Blender, Octane and SimLab Composer but little real expertise with any. I just tried the free/lite version of Owlet and I am impressed. It is intuitive and fast. I got a reasonably good, illustrated render of a small cabin with about 15 materials in about five minutes without reading any tutorial material. I just opened it, loaded an obj file and began changing reflectivity, colors, shades of materials, etc. It only took seconds to respond to change and to produce a pretty good and clean image. The other tools are very good in my limited estimation but I am tempted to buy this one for quick illustrations of architectural models.
cheers,
eric

I have been working with Owlet and SimLab Composer today ... I had some problems with Owlet making holes in large solids (like the ground plane) and when all the materials were applied the render time is pretty slow. If I had to make an evaluation today ... I'd give Owlet a 5.5 out of 10 and SimLab an 8.

It is probably not a fair comparison. I was using the free version of Owlet and the Pro Version of SimLab.

cheers,
eric

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Thanks for the info!

I tried Owlet, it is nice, but the renders seem super slow. However, it loaded the object file without a hitch and applying materials was a cinch. So that was really great!

Right now I am downloading blender 2.8 beta to see if the object import keeps all the MoI info. Is there a printable (like PDF etc) Blender 2.8 manual anyone knows about? I am the old school, "love to have a paper manual" type of guy... ;-)

I also talked to Lubos and he will try to get version .6 of ArmorPaint to work with MoI models, that would be great for texturing and painting MoI models and extremely affordable.

I really appreciate all of you guys taking the time to help me out, this is a great community!

I also tried Virtual Spaced UV and that is awesome for unfolding a model, but too pricey for me. One real killer program I found for that is BFF (still not finished, but man!), it unfolds mathematically perfect.

But it seems it isn't even necessary with Owlet...

Thanks to all of you for taking time out to suggest and educate, much, much appreciated!

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BFF is this one ? https://github.com/GeometryCollective/boundary-first-flattening

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Yup, that's the one.

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