1) I am really enjoying how easy Moi is to work with. Its amazing.
I am a beginner so i don't know really how it compares with other big apps in feature sets, specs for modeling
Can you give me a few points as fact or/and opinion what Moi has that
the other don't that make you work with it. And vice-versa.
I have no basis for comparison except for Blender which i can't complain since its a free program.
I just think this is way easier and quicker to get results.

2) What programs do you like to work with after you model in Moi?
And why? I will need to consider where i need to go after Moi.
I want to go with C4D. I've seen nothing but impressive work on that.
The photo-realism is the best i've seen.
Thanks!

MoI is a nurbs modeller and not really suited to things like characters animals etc but great for mechanical objects.

You would need to compliment MoI with software like C4D or Modo which both have good rendering engines to produce final artwork with it if that is your goal. Also having a polygon modelling software allows you to model stuff up that nurbs is not good for.

Google Sketchup can also be a cool complement in box/ poly modeling prog because it has the same spirit of easy ergonomy!
Specialised in architecture but now it can make many more and the version 7 is coming soon ;)
(and it's free so not a great risk to try it :)
And more important of course MOi has the SKP export file format for it! :)
http://sketchup.google.com/
Another thing : in 3Dwarehouse you can find any 3D models of anything in SKP format
That can be time saving for many works!
Loading is direct from the GoogleSketchup prog!
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

Thanks for the feedback!

1) I must be missing something. Is there a reason why when i model a 'wing' that has 3 equal parts
then extrude it on the Z-plane that a couple of the parts are hollow and 1 is filled? (The 2 just extrude
the outer points but not filled.

2) When i try to combine the parts using the boolean>union, it doesn't work?

Can you post an image or a file in 3Dm format (zip compressed if big file) button "Attachments"
Very more easy for answer you ;)

Hi jiro, it really helps if you can post a .3dm model file that has the objects in it that you are having problems with.

Otherwise it can be difficult to guess what you might be running into just with a description.

> 1) I must be missing something. Is there a reason why when i model a
> 'wing' that has 3 equal parts then extrude it on the Z-plane that a couple
> of the parts are hollow and 1 is filled? (The 2 just extrude
> the outer points but not filled.

When you extrude a shape, it will only get automatically capped into a solid if it is both a closed and planar shape.

It's likely that your outlines either have a gap in them somewhere where 2 endpoints are not meeting up, or they could have a point moved up in z so that they are not planar. Probably something like that. If you post the .3dm file I can give you some more precise information.


> 2) When i try to combine the parts using the boolean>union, it doesn't work?

Tough to say without seeing the model... But from your first question above it sounds like you may have some pieces that are not fully closed solids, that can create some difficulties when you try to union them.

- Michael

Thanks again all. Pardon the newbie q's. Yes, i was using freeform and i didn't close the gaps properly.
Here's the file anyway. It is an interface i am drawing for website. I will probably tweak it more
but you get the idea with the 3 parts in the middle.

Hi Jiro, It looks like you are making good progress now.

Yes, I can see the part where you had pieces that were kind of hanging off one another, it is pretty easy in that situation to have the "hanging off" piece not be a completely closed loop on its own.

If you want to have stuff like that all at the same level, then you may want to use the Edit/Trim tool to kind of cut away the interior connecting piece and have just one bigger outline.

Like for instance here is a curve that is hanging off another curve:



If you want this all to extrude as one block, then you can select the one that it is hanging off (shown selected in yellow above), and then run the Edit/Trim command.

Then pick the right-side piece as the cutting object and push Done (or right-click which is a shortcut for Done).

That will slice up the first curve into pieces and you can select this piece:



And then push Done or right-click to remove that piece:




Then once those pieces are touching you can use extrude to build one single block out of it.

- Michael

Thanks again Michael.
I have one more Q on this.
I imported this .obj file into Blender
and noticed that in that environment, there are alot more
'points' on the object then what I did in Moi.
I would guess there are at least 3X more editing points when
exporting to my 3D app. Is this normal? Anyway to match
what i did in Moi?

Hi jiro - when you save to an OBJ file, MoI will convert its surface data into faceted polygon data, which is a totally different type of data than what you are working with normally inside of MoI.

You can control the density of how many facets will be created - there will be a "Meshing options" dialog that will pop up and it has a slider on it. Move the slider towards the left where it says "Fewer polygons", and that will reduce the number of points used.

But since each facet is a flat piece, if you use less of them your model will tend to get a more jagged type of appearance, if you want your result to have a smoother look it helps to use more polygons for it.

Is there any particular reason why you are so concerned about the number of points that you got in Blender? I mean is it causing you a particular problem?

- Michael

Ok. No, its not a prob. Just wondering about that.
I was considering how much more 'post-editing' i would need
to do in Blender and seeing how it all comes into play with
the workflow. Still learning what i need and how to begin and
end with a final product.

Hi jiro, just a bit more info for you - MoI uses a kind of object called NURBS surfaces and Blender currently uses a type of object called a polygon mesh.

They're different ways to represent objects, so you can't get the exact same structure in blender as you had in MoI until the time that Blender will be able to have NURBS objects in it, which I guess is something that is being worked on.

So that's why your object looks a bit different in blender - when you export to OBJ format it gets turned into polygon mesh data instead.

- Michael