Hi Paulo, for that kind of sculpting-like approach I'd recommend using a polygon modeling program just like in those videos - just generally overall a polygon modeler is more suited to that kind of modeling technique, both in toolset and in the model structure itself.

NURBS modeling like MoI is based on is not good for that kind of modeling approach, NURBS are much stronger in generating things from profile curves rather than that kind of "point sculpting" type method.


> and I think this would be the perfect addition to moi since these are
> perfect for fast modeling and design concepts.

It actually takes a quite high level of practice and skill to get proficient in sculpting type workflows, so in a certain sense it's actually not very fast unless you have spent a long time practicing the techniques.

If you do want to try some of those techniques on NURBS models you might try the tools in ViaCAD that steve was mentioning back here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5721.26

In general though that kind of point sculpting mechanism is a very different approach than the "draw profile curves" based approach that MoI is focused on using, so I don't really anticipate including something like that anytime soon, it's just not a very natural fit with MoI's primary modeling strategy.

Different programs and technologies put emphasis on different kinds of techniques - if you want to do point manipulation/sculpting with dropoffs, polygon modelers put a large emphasis on that kind of technique so you would want to use one of them for that.


Someday in the future I would like to try to incorporate polygon modeling tools inside of MoI as well, but that's a long ways off because it requires a very different toolset. And also there are several different polygon modeling tools out there already so that's another reason why it hasn't been a primary focus also.


- Michael

Hello,

There is control point modeling as a feature of the VSR Shape Modeling plugin for Rhino. I find that it works well. The downside is that the VSR shape plugin is twice the cost of Rhino, and over four times the cost of MoI. That said I think it is one of the best plugins I've seen for the Rhino platform in terms of features and the quality you can achieve without being an expert at surfacing. I'm confident MoI will get to that point, and actually greatly prefer the MoI way of working, it's just a matter of time. You might also want to check out Clayoo for Rhino. I've been kicking around the idea that it might be a good addition to the toolbox, and it looks like a T-Splines alternative assuming you have Rhino.

Indeed :)

I did play with Clayoo and on my machine it slowed down very quickly.

Win 7 pro, 64bit
64 bit Rhino
8GB ram
7200 RPM harddrives.

TSpline, from my messing around, maintained good performance through pretty complex modifications. Clayoo is pretty cool too but it seemed to be more of a CPU hog.

>Hi steve,

>> Not I, yet :) but they look like they should be helpful :)

>Do you have a particular goal in mind for where they'd be helpful?

>- Michael

I was thinking that they might help with organic modelling without having to resort to mesh tools.

Not that I know anything about about how moi works :).

Can someone tell me about T-Splines, seen plenty of videos and results and a lot of rhino users love them,
Are they a mesh tool? Or are they some sort of advance surface type?

Hi Steve,

> I was thinking that they might help with organic modelling without having
> to resort to mesh tools.

I think you'd have to have some fairly limited organic modeling target goal for just that tool to really do the full job of that.

It's very unlikely that you would be able to sculpt a face for example with a limited detail tool like that.

If you do think it would help you with something, you can always test the one in ViaCAD and see if it helps you or not.


> Can someone tell me about T-Splines, seen plenty of videos and results
> and a lot of rhino users love them,
> Are they a mesh tool? Or are they some sort of advance surface type?

Sort of both of those - they're basically a polygon modeling tool but that can generate NURBS surfaces as their output instead of only generating polygon results.

- Michael

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Spline_(mathematics)

... patent...

edit, end semicolon is supposed to be part of address.

...nurbs and CAD 30 years together
very cool synthetic article
http://isicad.net/articles.php?article_num=14940

I think it will probably be called NSided.

- Michael



Hi Michael,

Does it really have to be a seperate command ? I mean it looks really close of the blend function for me, on steroid.
I'm pretty sure there are reasons you dont merge the 2 functions ...

Hi PaQ,

> Does it really have to be a seperate command ? I mean it looks really close of the
> blend function for me, on steroid.
> I'm pretty sure there are reasons you dont merge the 2 functions ...

I may still attempt to do something like that, but the problem is that it could be possible to give regular 2-sided Blend a similar set of inputs when the 2 sides touch each other at their ends.

When 2 functions can take the same inputs but do somewhat different things with them that's when it can be difficult to combine them in one single command.

- Michael

All this looks great, Michael.

I sorta dropped off for a bit cause I know for a time, you were mostly focused on the Mac build, but this is that kinda stuff that grabs my attention every time!

Great work!


-Will

You really are a wizard with the new routines Michael, the NSided function or routine really does add more organic modelling to Moi, which is a boon for 3d sculpture work.


Hats off to you in the development of Moi Michael, it really is a "Moment Of Inspiration" that should not be missed..