First a BIG thank to Michael Gibson for creating MoI.
I've used it for converting IGES files to poly-meshes on some ship and furniture project. MoI has saved my *** a few times.

Anyway.
I do most of my modeling in Modo, but I need to learn Nurbs modeling as well. Got Rhino but MoI is sooo much fun :)
Modeled my cell phone as a test. Not as easy as hoped, but I learned a lot.
Still some part to model, but almost finished.

I like this model - especially all the grooves between the buttons and things - very realistic. ;-)

-Will

Thanks WillBellJr :)

Here's the back of the phone.

Hi J.O. - I'm glad MoI has been useful!

Yeah definitely NURBS modeling is a much different approach than poly modeling, it looks like you've got a good result there so you're off to a great start already...

You'll start to get a feel for the kind of model that works well with NURBS.


If you get stuck on something, please don't hesitate to post questions or ask for advice here on the forum.

- Michael

Thank you Michael.

Go to http://www.varierfurniture.com/default.aspx?menu=654&view=config&config=6007 and check out the configurator.
I had little over a week to convert from IGES and render all the chairs. I could NOT have done that without MoI.

-J.O.

Hi J.O., the configurator is really cool, those chairs turned out great.

Wow, a week seems like a pretty tight deadline!

- Michael

Tell me about it. I did some preparation days earlier, but the last week was crazy. :/

Very Nice modeling there J.O. Rust really nice detail. Are planning on texturing as well? Looking forward to seeing that. Take care.

Thanks Moe.

Sure I will give it some nice textures and render it in Modo.
Soon I hope.. :)

Put a render of the phone in the gallery. Hope you like it. :)

Really nice rendering ! (and modeling :))

Yes, looks great, very realistic environment too!

Mr J.O.Rust is here...I am a big fun of you work and is nice to see you here...Yes MoI is fun to use...cant wait to see more renderings.

Thanks guys. Looking foreward to more MoI modeling myself. :)

yes nice phone model mate and ive just tracked down the render which is pretty good. look forward to seeing more moi from you

Hi J.O. appart from the great modelling, those chair designs are definitely 21st Century, not to mention the website which is brilliant. Like to set up something like that for myself!

Impressive model and renders. I'm also a modo user and was wondering what method you used to get this model into modo. Do you use ngons or just quads and triangles?

Also did you do all of the edge bevels in MOI or some in MODO? I've been messing around with some models in MOI with mixed results when brought into modo to render (odd shading errors).

Did you use the vertex map that comes in from moi or did you delete it and let modo handle it?

Thanks for your help! Keep up the good work.

Hi rado.

I try to use ngons when exporting the LWO. MoI export really nice, clean and "small" meshes.

It depends on the model and how dense I export, but usually I delete the vertex and UV maps. Some model I get is big and messy so it looks really bad with the vertex maps.
I do clean up the model so it looks nice with a smoothing angle of 10-20% in modo. The Merge tool and Merge in modo is great to "fix" the model.

See images below. This model was modeled in MoI and exported as LWO and rendered in modo, with and without (first image) vertex map. As you can see, keeping the vertex map usually is a good idea. :)

Hope that helps. Feel free to ask more questions. :)
-J.O.

Well it's a bit a pitty to remove or lost the vertex map in modo, this is a really important data to have clean render without surface smoothing glitches.
There are many solution to export your model, using .lwo or .obj. ... but there are some rules to keep the vertex map clean.

- Do not copy/merge object in a new layer inside modo, or you will lost the vertex normal info
- Do not modify the geometry inside modo for the same reason.
- I was able to do some mirror, seems to keep the normal info ok, if the mirror result is in the same layer.

When exporting in .lwo, you can use ngone without problems (at least I didn't had any problems so far), however, if the object is complex, you can have thousands of little objects (layers) inside modo, and it's not very handy to manage. And as you can't merge them inside a new layer without loosing the vertex info, it might quickly be a problem.
(Every little object has his own vertex map info)

In .obj, you can use the MergeOBJ editor tool that Michael creates, it will merge every little piece in on single object/surface ... and that's really cool.
However, .obj in ngone comes with some troubles (flipped surfaces), but a little Polygon > Align in Modo will solve the problem

Using Quad/Tris is a good solution to avoid any flipped poly problems, but the mesh is a little bit messy and no easy to uv unwarp for example (there are a lot of micro triangles that are not handy to select).

I'm quite please so far by exporting in .obj + MergeOBJ + Polygon > Align in modo ... but you still have to check the geometry closely to be 100% sure that every normals are in the right direction.

Excellent info PaQ. Thanks for sharing. :)