> I would like to throw other "different" objects out there to see the most
> efficent way of constructing such shapes.

Definitely, please do! It's a lot easier for me to help when focusing on a specific shape like that, those make for good tutorials.

It will probably take a little while before the NURBS modeling approach starts to feel more comfortable for you since it is such a different approach than polygons.


> also wanted to let you know that I appreciate the UI of Moi. I'm visually
> impared and find the larger, clearer fonts and icons help me out, it's one
> less thing to deal with in learning a new package.

Great, I'm glad that this helps you out! Personally I think that too many programs rely on tiny cryptic icons as the main part of their UI. Those tend to be difficult to use really for everybody. I end up constantly hovering over things to see the tooltips to find out what stuff does.

Have you also seen that you can adjust the size of the UI under Options / General / UI size?

You can move that up a little bit to increase the size of all fonts and buttons to whatever you want. The number there is the font point size that is used, you can put in anything there from 3.0 to 30.0, you're not just limited to a choice of "small or large" icons. Of course many programs don't even give you those 2 choices!

- Michael

Hi Will, well there are usually several different ways that you can go about doing any particular model.

Of course anything that gets the job done will be good, but some ways will be a lot fewer steps.

Over time you'll get more used to associating certain tools for certain shapes, like when you see something that has an even thickness it is generally good to think of Shell.

There are a few operations that bundle up a bunch of operations within them. Like for instance Shell in this case combines offsets with lofting between a bunch of edges. Similarly booleans bundle up intersecting and trimming surfaces and automatically discarding different pieces and then joining. All of the "low-level" tools are available to you, but if you steer things towards using the functions that bundle up many of them for you, you can get them to do a bunch of work for you and save some time.

It sounds like (with projecting etc... ) you are getting more comfortable with working with curves and applying them during the modeling process. This is really good, because that generally tends to be the way to start things moving.

- Michael

Yes, I've become very comfortable now using most of MOI's tools - I'm just wondering is there any tool I'm missing to construct these kinda shapes more easily:




Typically I draw my curve across my object where I need it and then project it onto the surface. Then while holding down ctrl, I drag a copy directly backwards. I move the original curve forward a bit in preparation for a loft.

Actually another question arises here; when I draw my curve (from the side or front), it usually ends up on the inside of my model (at 0,0), requiring me to then hide my surfaces (thanks for that Alt-W script posted previously - hella handy!) Is there a way when drawing a curve to "move it out from the origin in cases like this??

Anyway, lofting a non planar curve unfortunately doesn't cap the ends, extrusion or shell doesn't work for shapes (curved) like this either.

So then what I have to do is run the network from curves command and then create the closing front and back surfaces and join them together. Then I boolean onto the main object, fillet if necessary, rinse and repeat where needed...

I'm wondering if there's anyway to directly shell surfaces like these since it would save me a bunch of time for this model and similar projected curves?

Again, just looking for best practices here! ;-)



With this being my goal, I have to say MOI has made it really easy to get this model constructed! Granted, the majority is texturing but I had initially attempted this in XSI and boy, using NURBS is (as usual) always the way to go for stuff like this!

-Will

Hi Will,

> Is there a way when drawing a curve to "move it out from the origin in cases like this??

One possibility is to place the first point in the top view away from the origin, then continue drawing in the front view. Your curve will end up planar to the front view but going through the initial point you picked. I do want to add some construction plane manipulation tools for a future version which would probably be more exactly what you need here.


> it usually ends up on the inside of my model (at 0,0), requiring me to then hide my surfaces

Hmmm, normally this shouldn't be a problem that the curve is inside your model. But it looks like you have turned off "Display hidden-line curves" and "Display hidden-line edges". Go to Options / View, and turn those back on (at least the one for curves) and you will be able to select your curve even though it is inside the model. I guess the part that is not explicitly mentioned in that option is that not only does it enable the display, but it is implicit that if it is displayed then it is also selectable. That's one reason why I haven't made it a big priority yet to add a wireframe mode, because hidden-line mode already gives you most of the capabilities of wireframe mode.


> Anyway, lofting a non planar curve unfortunately doesn't cap the ends

Yeah, the problem is with a non-planar curve there isn't really one single well defined surface that can be put there, there are usually different possibilities with different amounts of bulging, etc... Particularly if there are more than 4 curves. With a planar end it is clear what the shape should be.

I suppose it might be reasonable in the case of 3 or 4 curves to do a Network surface as the "cap"...


> I'm wondering if there's anyway to directly shell surfaces like these

Hmmm, I don't think so... Looking at the top view, it looks like your protrusion there is not a constant thickness. I mean that the outside curve has a different curvature than the inside part (as viewed from the top). This generally means that shell won't work for this situation, since it creates things using offset and offset constructs parallel shapes.

Since the outside shape is no longer a sphere surface, you will definitely need to use something like Network to create a new surface out there... Maybe in the future it will be possible for me to add some more options to several of the commands to specify that you're doing a protrusion from a base surface. If there was a way to specify that then it could probably do the boolean stage for you. But it will be a while before I'll be able to work on that.

- Michael

Thanks for your consideration Michael - YES, I do believe I have the ghosted lines turned off - and I definitely didn't realize that I could select using the ghostings! If I had I prolly wouldn't have turned them off!

YES it would have been great having a network cap to those surfaces! Perhaps as you said, there might be something like this in the future.

I included the full picture in my post just to give you an idea of what it is I'm attempting to construct. Of course the picture has artist drawn perspective distortion (which in itself may not be accurate) but it was still easy for me to develop a decent rendition (imo) using the orthogonal views.

Being that this project is my way of teaching myself MOI, I'm sure if I were to do it all over again I'd do it much easier (it's always easier the 2nd time around!)

But yes, I believe that was the answer - if the shape has 3-4 curves on the end just attempt to network close them into a solid - that's certainly what I'm doing anyway!

-Will

Just a quick note - if you find yourself wanting to toggle hidden line display on or off frequently, put this command on a shortcut key:

script: /* Toggle hidden line display */ moi.view.showHiddenLines = !moi.view.showHiddenLines

EDIT: updated script to work with v2.

- Michael

Thanks Michael for the script - added!

(Boy these script drops around here are like nuggets 'o gold!)

-Will