Thank you Mr. Clough,

It's worth a lot! Thanks much for your input and support - sure you know how frustrating it can be when you're learning. Everyone here has been nothing short of very helpful. I won't give up. Just need to give it a rest for couple weeks - taking it too seriously. Love the program and the folks here have been fantastic. Some are some amazingly talented people and it's not hard to understand them loosing patience with a Newbie. By this time next year I should be pretty good at this. :)

Many thanks again, Neil

Hey Neil,

Took a look at your model tonight. Getting better...but few issues as you'll see in the attached pix...which stem from the "basics".

- Alignment of curves/surfaces are still off.
- Not sure how you built some of your surfaces but you can see the density differences.
- With the curves/surfaces alignment off...you won't get a true "water tight" solid model.

...practice the above "basics". ;)

M

Yep knew the headstock was badly done where I attempted to use scripts - but I like the heel. Thanks for the advice Mat10x


Attached is a neck I did from scratch - hence the odd headstock - used Barry's method of filleting. I need to get better at the process - but the main thing is it's solid and there are no big mistakes :)
 

N

Really like the look of this one - but alas it still has issues as it is all surfaces and not solid. Learning to use the rebuild command has helped a lot. This was done with basic commands and one script for the headstock transition area. The heel is just freeform curves built and then surfaced with the network command. Using trim and blend has been really helpful too - but it is tricky sometimes it works perfectly and other times not - and can't seem to figure out why.

Neil - When I started using MoI about 10 years ago I had no prior experience with a modeling program. I didn't even know how to spell "3D" :)

Initially I was having all sorts of problems, then from reading the forums, learned that precise alignment of curves was critical. I was just moving curves, and if they looked aligned & connected, I assumed the Construction Tools would work fine. Only after I began using the Alignment tools did the light bulb go off in my head.

I recommend downloading and installing Max's Custom UI. It places the alignment tools front & center where they are easy to reach. I find that I use these probably more often in a modeling session than any other tool. I suspect Max does too because of where he placed them in his UI.

I operate with Straight Snap & Object Snap turned on and normally with Grid Snap off.

Good luck and keep at it. Enjoy seeing the finished designs realized in wood.

Ed Ferguson

Hello Ed,

Will do! Wow 10 years - many thanks for sharing your experiences, suggestions and encouragement. Not sure where to find the file you speak of but I will do a search. Thanks again for the guidance!

Neil

Update: did a search and can't find Max's custom UI - Daves pops up though.

If you are using MoI ver 4 then look here:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6507.268

Ed Ferguson

Works awesome -can't wait to get started using the new interface tools - woo hoo! Thanks again Ed!

Hi Ed,

Michael pointed me toward this more recent version as well:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6507.1

Still failing at networking - if there are any videos or tutorials that concentrate on networking freeform lines on organic shapes - please let me know.

Hi Neil,

re:
> Still failing at networking

Do you mean in a strategic sense, or are you talking about one particular set of curves that you are not able to make a network out of? If it's the latter please post the 3DM file with the curves in it.

re: Tutorials - well, there is the one you found previously here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaPAeKPuqA

You might try searching for Rhino NetworkSrf tutorials.

- Michael

Am working on a screen cast of me apparently ruining closed crv's. Lol. I start out with shapes that are solid and closed and stand up to the naked script. Then during the process of networking or installing faces the joined shapes must be unjoined or partially so to use the network command. Then when rejoined or attempted - the naked script lights up everything including the originally closed shapes. So - that means there are gaps and spaces correct? If I assign blue to the heel shape and cyan to the profile shape - when I install faces I get a blue wall on one side of the heel and a cyan wall on the other - that can't be right. So I will post doing this so you can see where things go wrong.

The video link posted of the guy doing a neck in Rhino is helpful for a beginner (hello) to a point - especially the heel - in fact I'm pretty good at heels. When he does the headstock he uses more advanced modeling techniques - and as I'm still learning the basics and commands are a tad different in Rhino I'm not exactly sure how he goes about it - although I can see how easy he makes it look (see photos). I'm trying to do the headstock transitions using basic networking first before I move on to the method below.

Conversely, the fillet, trim and blend that I've learned from Barry has been incredibly helpful/useful and am continuing to practice those methods everyday to get proficient. However, want to learn the networking because it lends more control over the shape, length, height of the transition area.

Hi Neil,

> Then during the process of networking or installing faces the joined shapes
> must be unjoined or partially so to use the network command.

Can you please post a 3DM model file that has one of these cases where you have the curves prepared and you're ready to use the Network command?

It's very difficult to tell what you're running into just from a written description. Certainly a screen capture video would help too but really the best is to post the actual geometry that you are talking about. It also helps if the file you post is stripped down as well - instead of all sorts of other objects unrelated to the network if you can post only the curves that you are about to network that makes it a lot easier to figure things out.


> Then when rejoined or attempted - the naked script lights up everything including the
> originally closed shapes. So - that means there are gaps and spaces correct?

Yup.

- Michael

This one is done with basic commands only - seems to be solid but the naked command lights up everything. The faces are pretty nice looking - nevertheless a failure. The lines I start with (see photo) are closed crv's and stand up to the naked script - after networking the entire neck - everything lights up when the script is used. So somehow despite magnifying everything and using the object snap and straight snap I'm getting the faces all wrong. That said I'm getting more and more happy with their basic look and shape. I would post just the part that I'm having the problem with - but that's basically the entire neck. I apologize for being so lame - I really am trying to make sure things are connected - spend hours and hours doing it over and over - but obviously failing at it.

Hi Neil, please post the 3DM model file with the curves you are trying to network - that way I can examine them and give you some information on what might be going on. I can't really do that with just screenshots alone.

- Michael

For some reason it fails every time I try to upload it - I will e-mail it to you.

Hi Neil, I received the file through e-mail in it but when I open the file I didn't see any curves, just a joined surface.

To be able to help you with the Network problem I'm going to need a 3DM file with the curves in it that you had set up to do the Network.

- Michael

Hi Neil, so from the last file you sent I think there are 2 things tripping you up currently:

Number 1 is that you’re probably running the Join command with a whole bunch of curves that touch each in a kind of branching structure selected. Join is only expecting to have a smaller more targeted set of things selected, just enough to make a closed loop or open chain and not something like 3 or 4 curves branching out from a single point. So you’re getting some weird long chains of things from that.

Number 2 is that you’re trying to construct something on one side from one of your original curves and on the other side using Network to a rebuilt piece that was rebuilt using a tolerance of 0.01 . That will make too large of a gap, it’s better to have just one single curve used by both sides and so if you use Rebuild you probably want to delete the original so you have both sides using the same exact thing .

- Michael

And just one more comment on Rebuild - one of the other uses of Rebuild is to simplify a curve's control point structure. That's why the default tolerance is 0.01 units, because a tighter tolerance also needs more control points.

But 0.01 units deviation will be too large if you want to build joinable surfaces using the original the the rebuilt one for surfaces that meet up.

Things need to be no more than 0.005 units apart to be joinable.

So you'd need to use a rebuild with something more like a 0.001 tolerance for this case, or really it's probably better to discard the original curve and only use the rebuilt one for all the next surface construction so all the surfaces come from the same curves.

- Michael

Or it may be possible for you to avoid doing a separate rebuild at all - if you have a curve made up of multiple segments that are tangent to each other, Network will actually automatically rebuild that for you with a tight joinable tolerance already.

- Michael