Hey Mike,

thanks for the super-fast response. It's not so much what I'm trying to build - I'm a hard-surface modeler with a taste for the mechanical. It's what I'm trying to do. To me, rotating and scaling just seem counter-intuitive within MoI. I don't get the reference-point thing. And, I can't seem to transform individual elements (edges, faces, vertices) once they are part of a "solid". Guess its just the polygonist in me. So, that's what I mean by trying to grasp how MoI works. Are there features I'm trying to use that are not present yet? Or am I approaching it wrong?

Let me give you an example of the workflow I'm most used to (taken from wings3D). I start with a closed mesh - a cube lets say. I want to scale one side of it. I drop into face mode - select the face I want to scale, choose the axis for scaling (world coordinate or normal) and BAM, it scales. Now, in MoI, after extruding a solid from a base, closed curve, I fillet it. I want to scale the top and bottom "faces" of the solid, but leave the remaining geometry intact. How would I do that in MoI? Or, I want to move one curve segment along the top of the solid I've made. How would I do that? The rest seems learnable thriough use - though I get some interesting behavior with the booleans. But the element transforms and transforms using reference points seems unfathomable for me now.

Does what I'm saying even make sense? 'Cause I'm pretty much confusing myself at this point. MoI's still a great tool though - and worth the frustration I'm feeling.

Thanks again.

You have to not look at it like a polygonal model. You can select faces and edges but they are only kind of a visual representation of the boundaries of the surface.

Instead think of it as a solid block of metal or wood. If you had a cube and you wanted to taper it on one end you would either shave off some material or add some on the other end. Either way you are changing the volume of the material not pushing it around like clay to get your shape(polygonal).

> I don't get the reference-point thing.

Simplest explanation is that at times it's very helpful to scale an object in relation to another one. Let's say you have two cubes with coincident sides. You want to scale one of the cubes, but keep the side in contact with the other one. You can set the center of your scale to be on the edge where they meet so you don't have to translate the cube after scaling it. If you'd like I could put together a better explanation with pictures and stuff.

> I start with a closed mesh - a cube lets say. I want to scale one side of it. I drop into face mode - select the face I want to scale, choose the axis for scaling (world coordinate or normal) and BAM, it scales.Now, in MoI, after extruding a solid from a base, closed curve, I fillet it. I want to scale the top and bottom "faces" of the solid, but leave the remaining geometry intact. How would I do that in MoI?

Control points! The object you're usually looking at isn't a poly cage like you're used to seeing in a SubD modeler. It can be thought of as the actual subdivision surface. When you turn on the control points you're essentially turning on the control cage. Select an object and click "Show Pts" on the Edit tab. You should now have some points floating around the object (some objects can't have control points... although I'm not sure that's true in MoI). You can then move these points to alter the NURBS surface the way you would a SubD surface. Be advised that NURBS act differently than SubD's so you'll end up working with them differently.

> Or, I want to move one curve segment along the top of the solid I've made.

Do you mean like grab one of the edges and move it around? That can't be done. You have to turn on the points and edit the shape that way.

Let me know if you want more info on this.