Hi !!

Obviously, Moi is great as additional modelling tool for all those coming from poly-modellers
like Cinema or Max.

But what about Rhino users ? What do they find in Moi what they dont in Rhino ?


Regards TOM

Hi Tom,

> But what about Rhino users ? What do they find in Moi what they dont in Rhino ?

One big area is MoI's n-gon meshing technology - I've heard from a lot of Rhino users who use MoI alongside of Rhino to get cleaner polygon mesh output.

There are also people who just enjoy MoI's alternative UI and fluid workflow - MoI has a very different UI structure than Rhino. For example you can model in MoI without ever touching the keyboard. Some Rhino users enjoy the speed and just general overall feeling of working in MoI for the initial drawing (things like the display, selection feedback, there are a lot of little things), and then bring their data into Rhino for more operations.

Rhino and MoI actually make a great combination together because it is really easy to share data back and forth - you can even use Copy and Paste to move objects between them.

Of course, there are also plenty of Rhino users who are happy using Rhino and aren't interested in MoI.

- Michael

Thank you for replying.

As Cinema-user, I am trying to find time to try out your tool as
I often have modelling tasks which may be faster an better modelled
with a nurbs modeller.

As I told you, I found Rhino a bit difficult to get in - Moi seems much
more intiutive to use.

The nice thing about Cinema4D + MoI is that Cinema handles the n-gon .obj export from MoI really well.

You end up getting poly models that have a lot of the same feel as the original NURBS model, they aren't just a big jumble of triangles with a messy wireframe.

Here's one of the early examples of the n-gon export to Cinema4D:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=162.21

You can kind of see what I'm talking about there - that mesh has more of a "hand-tuned" type feel to it, even though it was generated from NURBS.

- Michael

I bought Cinema 4D XL specifically because MOI models went into it pretty much perfectly compared to my Lightwave, and XSI packages - what I was seeing in MOI I was seeing in C4D >without hassle<

I absolutely had no interest in C4D before I started using MOI and I told the wifey to directly blame Michael for causing me to spend 2K+ on C4D XL w/ additional plugins! ;-P

Having Rhino v2, I just find MOI to be more forgiving as to how I "think" when modeling; I can get my forms out pretty much the way I want, and quickly too!

I feel the ultimate advantage MOI has over Rhino (and other NURBS modelers) is its clean meshing routines - what good is it to be able to easily create your objects if you get ugly looking objects in your rendering package??!!

-Will

I use Rhino 4, and have had good use of Mois meshing, using the beta. I also think the interface is smoother and lighter, more fun with a wacom too! So I will buy a copy for our product design office. We can also have it on our laptop for emergency modelling when we travel. The whole project is highly interesting and it is fun follow. It's good value for money.


Regards,
Fredrik Wenstop

Thank you all for answering. That model is pretty impressive, Michael.
It looks like MoI-exports can be overworked in Cinema regrading the
quality of the mesh. Pure quad-meshes would be ideal.

Although nurbs-modelling seems so easy, it is a bit difficult to get into
a different thought-frame when you only have worked with poly -
modellers before.

I am working on a simple ring-model in Cinema now. When finished I
will try to rebuild it in MoI so I will have a direct comparison.

If you dont mind I will post it when finished in Cinema so I may be
able to catch up some constructive tips how to handle it in MoI ;-)

Hi Tom, pure quad meshes are a pretty different thing, which MoI does not do right now.

Pure quad output would definitely be useful for doing sub-d type edits on a generated mesh, but it would also give a lot denser mesh with a more complex wireframe.

For example here:



Trying to do a pure quad mesh would mean creating a whole bunch of little quads on that top planar face instead of having just one n-gon there.

I would like to work on pure quad generation in the future but it is a much different problem.

MoI's current output is friendly for direct polygon editing, but not really for sub-d smoothing type operations.


> Although nurbs-modelling seems so easy, it is a bit difficult to get into
> a different thought-frame when you only have worked with poly -
> modellers before.

Yup, it is a very different approach.

I've definitely heard from many people who get a bit confused in MoI because they expect it to behave similar to a polygon modeler.

But the differences in behavior are also kind of why it is useful as an additional tool - if it worked exactly the same as a poly modeler then you would just use your poly modeler to do the same stuff.


> If you dont mind I will post it when finished in Cinema so I may be
> able to catch up some constructive tips how to handle it in MoI ;-)

Certainly!

- Michael

One thing that MOI seems to do a lot better than Rhino is boolean operations. I always seem to have issues in trying to do these in Rhino.

Maybe like these 3 variations on an idea?
(Who says MoI is not up to organic modelling!)

Hi !!

So here is the test.example I modelled in Cinema and which I pretend to rebuild
in MOI. I think it should be way faster to build up this kind of shape in MOI.

One thing I may miss is a symetry-object which gives you a real-time
update.

I am adding an image of the object and a C4D-file of the "spline-sketch"

Would be great to get some suggestions from you how i should proceed
in MOI to rebuild the same shape.

Regards TOM

I have just bought MOI and am very pleased as it feels easier to generate models compared to other Nurbs modellers (I've tried Rhino and Maya). I can also say that I'm very impressed with the Nurbs to Mesh conversion, especially the ngon conversion. I imported an .obj model into XSI, it had some really interesting curved surfaces, booleans and a number of fillets. I have to say I was really amazed at the quality of the import. It looked identical to the one in MOI and no seams were visible!!

Regards,
Alan.

Hi !!

I lofted the 2 main curves as shown in the 2nd image posted before.

But I dont manage to close the loft. Also wonder how to create
a bevel as shown in the attached image:

Any tips ? Thank you :-)

Hi Tom - If the ends of your loft are not closing then that means your curves are not flat planar shapes, are they bending around somewhat? Automatic capping only generally happens with planar shapes. If you can post the .3dm model file I can see if that is your problem.

One thing that is a lot different with the approach in MoI than in a polygon modeler is that you use booleans a lot more in MoI.

It can be easier to keep caps and such in place by doing booleans to carve pieces away from an initial solid.

So for instance in your case, I would probably go like this:

Start with a profile drawn in the front view. I drew half of it and the used mirror to make the other half. After you do the mirror you can also turn on points for the original half and edit them and see the mirror update, that is kind of a good way to adjust proportions and such. When you are done adjusting, select both mirrored pieces and use Edit/Join to glue them together.



Now use Construct / Extrude to punch out your shape into a solid. I enabled the "both sides" option so that it extrudes from the center out to either direction:



To make it tapered, I will carve away pieces using a boolean operation. To do this, switch to the right-side view, and draw a line at an angle that divides the shape, then mirror it to the other side, like this:



Now you can use those lines to cut the shape and remove material - to do this, select the base ring object, then run Construct / Boolean / Diff, and select the 2 lines as the cutting objects. This will slice the ring into 3 pieces, delete the outer 2 pieces and you will have this:



To get your beveled interior, I would temporarily hide the main shape, then switch back to the Front view, and use Construct / Offset to build an offset curve from the original:



Now just repeat the above steps to construct a similar extruded + tapered cut version of this inside offset curve. But reposition the cutting line slightly to the side so that this new version will be slightly larger than the original, that will give you these 2 different solids:



Select them both and use Boolean Union to make them into one solid.

I hope this gives you some ideas - like I mentioned one of the biggest changes is using boolean operations a lot for regular operations, this is a big shift in mindset from poly modeling where you usually want to avoid booleans as much as possible.

Sometimes you can do fancy surfacing by drawing outlines and then surfacing the outlines, but to start with I would recommend building things more like I have shown here, with different pieces each as individual solids, and then use booleans to cut solids into pieces, or to fuse different solid components together into the final shape.

- Michael

One of the nice things about using more 2D curves to drive things, like cut other objects, is that it is really easy to edit 2D curves so it is easier to do adjustments and variations.

For example here I used a wiggly curve as the cutting profile instead of a straight line to get a different effect:



- Michael

Hey Michael !! You´re amazing - thank you so much !!

Its strange to be in absolute beginners-status again and have to
ask silly questions ;-) If I ask to much just tell me to shut-up ;-)

But I really went through the manual several times and tried
several options . . . I am adding the file where I where not
able to close the ends as well as to extrude them and round
the edges.

Here another question : Is it possible to "insert cuts" in order
to gett additional points for manipulation ? Imagine a cylinder
with no points between its ends. And you want to enlarge
its diameter in its middle ? Or any surface you need to
"subdvide" in a ceratin area as you need to maipulate its
shape there?

Even just having learnt the very basics I realize I may be able to
save LOTS of time compared to Cinema ?

Thanks again for your fantastic support + regards [TOM]

Hi Tom,

> I am adding the file where I where not able to close the ends as well as to extrude
> them and round the edges.

Yup, the problem here is that open end is not planar - looking from the right-hand side and zooming in:






There is some twisting to that profile edge, it is not completely flat. If you slice a little bit off the ends of this surface with a line (same as in the steps I showed above), then the ends will be planar and can be filled using Construct / Planar.


> Here another question : Is it possible to "insert cuts" in order
> to gett additional points for manipulation ?

No, not really - in the future I want to add some more ways to insert points for surface point manipulation, but it isn't really the normal way to construct things in MoI.


> Imagine a cylinder with no points between its ends.
> And you want to enlarge its diameter in its middle ?
> Or any surface you need to
> "subdvide" in a ceratin area as you need to maipulate its
> shape there?

This is another big difference from poly modeling - if you want a single surface patch that bulges, then you don't normally start with a non-bulgy one and then change it to be bulgy. Instead you construct a bulgy one from curves more directly:

Starting with 3 circles:



Select them all and run Construct / Loft to build a bulgy cylinder:



You can edit the curves and the Loft will update, that's how you can do some interactive tweaking. (in this case you could also draw a side profile and use Revolve).


So you don't usually start with a cube or flat piece and then completely re-arrange it to a different shape like you would in a polygon modeler. Instead, you draw curves that kind of form profiles or cross-sections of your shape, and then use those to construct your object (sometimes to build surfaces, sometimes as cutting objects, ... )

I usually say that this is more like directly drawing your object, rather than the point squishing polygon method which is kind of more like sculpting your object rather than drawing it from profiles.

- Michael

So like I mentioned, creating things in MoI is usually driven more off of key curves like profiles or cross-section curves.

This is also one method that can help you when deciding if a project will be good (and really quick) to do in MoI or not instead of in polygons.

If an object has very recognizable profile curves in it, then that will be a great candidate. Typically man-made objects fall into this area.

On the other hand if your shape has no easily recognizable primary profiles and instead has lots of little bumps and ripples, then it will fall more naturally into being being built with polygons/subd instead. Typically faces / creatures / character models fall into this area. (even though a face has a silhouette profile, it isn't the same kind of profile that I'm talking about because it rapidly changes).

- Michael