Hello everyone,

This is my first post and I'd like to say that I think MoI is a very clever piece of software. It's the first genuinely intuitive piece of 3D software I've tried in a long time. I've only ever polygon modeled because none ot the nurbs implementations I've tried have been to my liking (in other words, I couldn't work out how to use them!) I'm going to test MoI out now on a proper project but I have a question.

I'm going to model a boat. In my current modeler (truespace) I use flat plane polygons to hold my plans, which include top, side and section views through the hull. I paste the plans onto these as textures and then align/rotate the polygons as required. The planes themselves are sized to be exactly the same size as the images pasted onto them, ie. a plan of 1024 * 256 goes on a polygon which is 1024 * 256 units in size. I realise MoI has the background images feature (very elegantly handled too) but I can't work out how to accurately align my plans in the various views. Basically I need to do something like what is in the attached truespace screen capture.

Many thanks for any advice you can give.

Mark
http://www.homepages.ihug.com.au/~mabrown/index.html

Hi Mark, welcome to MoI!

I like the front page of your web site - it's got a nice panoramic open feel to it.

For your image alignment, probably your best bet would be to first use Draw curve / Rect to place a rectangle, entering in your precise width and height in the upper-right corner options. Then when you are adding a new image plane with View / Image, you should be able to snap on to that rectangle to get your image to your desired size in units.

It would be better if you could just specify a width and height in units directly inside of the image placer though, I have made a note to add this for V2.

Thanks, and let me know if the Rectangle trick does not do what you need.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Many thanks for your very quick reply. The rectangle as a guide trick has worked very nicely. I now have my top and profile views in place.

You mentioned you might include the ability to specify width and height in the image placer. Would it also be possible to allow adjustment of background images (size, position and rotation) after initial placement?

I am impressed with how clear the background image is. Much nicer than truespace.

Cheers

Mark
http://www.homepages.ihug.com.au/~mabrown/index.html

Hi Mark - great, I'm glad the rectangle trick is working for the time being.


> Would it also be possible to allow adjustment of background images (size,
> position and rotation) after initial placement?

This is actually possible right now - the image placement is editable while you are inside of that View/Image command, you should see a kind of frame appear around each image while you are running that command. Once you exit that command the image locks into place and the grips go away, so that they don't interfere with selecting or editing regular objects.

While you are inside the View/Image command, you can click and drag on an image to move it - grab near the corner on the inside of an image to get the corner with an "end" snap. Drag on one of the corner grips to size it (they will highlight when you move over them), and drag on the rotation grip to rotate it. Also if you click and release on the rotation grip instead of click and drag, a tri-ball type of rotation gadget will appear allowing you to rotate it along 3 different axes. Check out here: http://moi3d.com/1.0/docs/moi_command_reference5.htm#image for some more details on this.

This editing is focused on mouse manipulation though, if you want a precise numeric edit (like scaling up exactly by 1.5 or something like that), you will probably need to again create a reference rectangle and manipulate that, and then snap on to it.

For version 2 I also plan on working on a kind of object browser system with a property editing panel for editing an object's numeric properties, this will probably also be a good place to have a way to numerically edit background image's numeric properties as well.


One other note on background images - right now you should avoid using an image greater than 2048 pixels in width or height, because right now anything even a little bit above that will actually consume 4096 pixels worth of texture size, which can start to chew up all available memory pretty easily. I'm going to try and tune up this issue for the v1 release though.

- Michael

Many thanks again for the comprehensive answer Michael.

I now have all my plans in and looking the same as they would if I was doing this in truespace (but sharper and easier to see). I'm impressed with the quality of the transparency. Very nice!

The object browser / numeric properties system sounds like a great idea. There is something similar in truespace which I use a lot when polygon modeling. I find it really useful when trying to model real world objects.

My plan for this model in MoI is to model one of the ship's boats for the warship on my web page. Doing hulls using polygons is hard because of the smooth curves required. I SDS'd the one on my page which worked OK. A recent attempt at a submarine wasn't so good though and has prompted the attempt to learn nurbs. I like a lot of things about truespace but its nurbs isn't one of them. I'm already finding MoI easier.

Mark
http://www.homepages.ihug.com.au/~mabrown/index.html

Nice work Mark.

I purchased TrueSpace three years ago. I gave up on it after weeks of trying to get good results - their weird user interface drove me nuts.

After doing research and trying several free trials, I've settled on MoI and HyperShot as my modeler and render tool set ($400 for the pair). I'm having more fun with these two programs than a six-year-old with an etch-a-sketch! ( Do they still make those?)

A guy just posted a boat on the HyperShot forum - he used Rhino. I assume he used a photo of an existing boat for his backplate in order to get the boat's wake, and just placed his model over the original boat.

http://hypershot.hyperboards.com/index.php?action=view_topic&topic_id=355

Ed

Hi Ed,

Truespace seems to be a love hate thing. It is actually the interface which has kept me using it! The trick I think is to get all the icons you will actually use on screen in a layout that is comfortable. The truespace UI is highly customisable. The biggest problem for Caligari is that there is a lot of competition in the all-in-one 3D software market at the moment. I discovered that I could getter better render output using the free Kerkythea renderer, rather than the truespace built-in (lightworks). VRay is a cost option in truespace 7 and makes it rather expensive. At that price I would start to consider C4D etc.

What really interests me is the option to use more targeted tools. This is just a hobby for me and I can't afford the time to learn deep software. I'm also not good enough to spend big money. I'm impressed with the thought that has gone into the MoI UI. It works logically (to me anyway). Can't say that about 90% of the 3D software I've tried! I'm not a nurbs guy. Perhaps all nurbs software creates curves the way MoI does, but I have to say, the software seems to have a good idea about the shape of my boat! I created a profile curve and another curve in the top view of the boat's outline. When I looked at the top view curve in profile, it was falling away in a nice approximation of the fall in the drawing! A fluke? If not, I'm very impressed.

Hypershot looks interesting and that boat was very nice. I hadn't heard about Hypershot. Many thanks for the link.

Mark
http://www.homepages.ihug.com.au/~mabrown/index.html

The more I use this software, the more impressed I am with it. The ability to manipulate these curves with ease is something else. I also missed snapping a point in a rib of the boat and thought I would have to redo it (no big deal). Then I found the align tool and it fixed the problem, without having to wade through a 300 page manual.

I've asked my wife if I can buy this....

Mark
http://www.homepages.ihug.com.au/~mabrown/index.html