thanx ed17

super - !!!! diving right into moi


Is there a smooth function?
Have crumbled/crushed a surface a little bit too much ( off course i can sculpt it smooth) but some kind of a "relax" "smooth" geometry function

happend on a sharp patch corner that was lofted between two curved - a little bit too many control points.

or some way to reduce control points on the fly.

except for re patching the corner

cheers mads

Hi mads,

> but can not see the v3 improvements or have not
> found the right post.

Check out here: http://moi3d.com/wiki/V3Beta

That lists the new features for v3 so far. The main new things are some new deformation tools - Flow and Twist.

But it sounds like the kind of stuff that you are working with is more figure or organic type shapes - that is not generally a good fit with MoI, MoI is more meant for more man-made structured objects.

In general the workflow in MoI is more kind of like a construction based method where you draw curves and then build surfaces from those curves and use other curves to cut material away - but it's sort of more like drawing and constructing objects and not much oriented on squishing an existing 3D object around.

The new deformation tools are kind of still in that "construction" type methodology, you can use them to do a kind of a broad warp of a blocky object to make it follow a curve or hug a surface but it's not for making little localized wiggly bumps or lumps like you would do with your sculpting process.

So the overall workflow in MoI is not relaly oriented towards "sculpting" - it's more like "drawing and construction"... So if you are really looking for a sculpting type method, MoI is not really a good fit for that type of process.

- Michael

Hi mads,

> and can i load reference 2d sketches in V3

Yup, like ed mentions above you can do that in v2 using the View > Image command, see here for more info:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2546.44

- Michael

Hi mads,

> AND - just reading about moi catchup edition 8 page 19 -
> and there is this picture with a surface with tons of control
> points - is that because it is a lofted surface via splines/curves
> - or can somehow apply / distribute control points to a plane?

That one was probably done by a loft. But it is possible to construct a plane that has a bunch of points in it - see here for the details:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1313.2

But that kind of surface control point manipulation is not really a big focus area for MoI - if that's the main kind of thing that you are looking for then probably a sub-d modeler would be a better fit, they are more oriented on that kind of modeling by point cage manipulation.

It can be useful in particular cases in MoI as well, but the main focus for MoI is more of a "draw curves and construct" type method rather than a "squish 3D point cage around" type method.

- Michael

Hi mads,

> Is there a smooth function?

No, not currently - if you're looking for stuff like that it probably means you're trying to do a lot of surface control point manipulation. That means that you would probably be better off in a sub-d modeler that is focused on that kind of workflow, that kind of stuff is not a focus for MoI.

Probably in the future I will add some more stuff related to surface control point manipulation, but just in general it's a kind of restrictive thing with NURBS surfaces since NURBS surfaces are constrained in their topology to always have a rectangular net of points, that means that you can't add control point detail into one small local area of the surface, which is kind of why sub-d modeling is fundamentally better for that kind of point deformation type modeling approach.

In MoI you should generally be using a different modeling approach than that which is that kind of construction/drawing method that I mentioned above - that method tends to be a great fit for mechanical man made type objects but not so much for organic type shapes.

- Michael

Hello Michael - that was a very helpful series of replies - thnaks

have been studying "magic" super posts on the FLOW tool - that is so unique that it could be a plugin for other appplication or even an app in itself.
have tried so many differnet wrap and projection workflows in other apps - but this one is so close to real life that only fluid dynamics can compare.
fascination!.
looking at the result from the speaker mesh - and another one he did with a mesh - ....

well - you might have x-ray'ed my workflow/app combination - and i appreciate your suggestion.
looking for the digital material with the power of nurbs and the freedom of subd.

something like the nurbs-cage-superstructure with subd/pixar surfaces grown with voxels. and all united as quads.

trying to find a digital workflow to add digital value skills to the traditional craftsmanship of the sculpturing artist - but that would be a long story

and always keeping the focus on the most important thing - an output into real word materials must be granted.

one important thing is also to load 20>40>60 million polygons from a high res details 3d scan - and still be able to run - chopping up the mesh is not always

i will follow along what is happening here.

would it not be an idea - for you or some of the others nurbs scientists to make a full featured flow, deformation, elastics and - there are parametrics, grasshopper around in various version - but they are not "intuitive"... and i would not consider them as a Tool to work with in daily 3d changing and various needs.
with elastics i am thinking about the way "glue" react when between two surface and you pull and turn these two surfaces apart. flow deformation as a reaction to the change of space between objects where the deformed solid can be adjusted by volume and different fall off.
to me it looks like a great niche on the marked next to fine things like moI3d.
or maybe i have not been through all the apps out there and it is already there.

or i am just day dreaming already before 10AM!

thank you so much
very much appreciated

best regards

mads

Madsen,

Have you seen this? http://www.geometrysystems.net/default.htm

I have not tried it myself yet, but it's on my list to evaluate. There are numerous products out there that handle poly to nurbs conversion, but as far as I know, there is no app that will let you model in nurbs as "easily" as in polys.

T-Splines was definitely going in the right direction, although where its going know as part of Autodesk is unclear. The hope of T-Splines for me as well as others was that I could take a poly model and convert it to nurbs, and still easily modify it. However, the purpose of T-Splines, I keep reminding myself, is actually to creat a control mesh or low resolution proxy, to easily modify a nurbs object. It was never promised as a poly to nurbs converter simply because it is not designed to handle the sheer number of polys that are present in a detailed model or scan.

Geometry Systems is interesting because they seem to indicate the poly model, from a scan lets say, is tied to the nurbs model, so if you modify the polys, you also modify the nurbs. While superficially similar to T-Splines, they actually handle the full scan data. In theory this sounds great, but in actual use of the software, I don't know. I have to try it for myself.

Chris

Hi Chris - no - i have been crossing their homepage as i was looking for a 3d scan system - but have not look into their studio etc software.
will do - thx for the hint
cheers mads