First of all, hello to all you MoInites this is my first post and I think it’s going to be a long one, so I’ll give my apologies now, I just need to get something off my chest after looking around Moi3d.com
I work as a designer for a company who manufactures plastic injection molds for a multi- international brand. We use a high end CAD/CAM package and I enjoy 3D solid modelling as a hobby, this is where I have tried to find a modelling package that I could play with in my spare time, without worrying about how to make it and just flow and create it without any restrictions.
Now because I come from an engineering background I need accuracy, not microns, I mean scale and reference to size.
I wanted a package that gave me this, I’ve tried packages that you could push and pull surfaces to unimaginable shapes but referenced to nothing, like a piece of clay, this is ok for artists but I needed something with reference still with some artistic freedom and ease of use, I’ve used packages that were ok but you needed a PC with a 2 trillion gigaflop CPU, graphics powered by a small supernova, a degree in quantum physics and Bill Gates’ bank account.
All I wanted was something where I could sit under a tree in the backyard with a coffee and my laptop and design in 3D like the freedom of sketching designs on paper.

I sort of gave up looking for a while until the other day while searching for a portable DXF translator for work, and as you do when surfing the net, got side tracked, mmmm this looks interesting, click here, click there hang on, what’s this, a new 3d app, moi.
Downloaded the trial, WOW! I think this is it, simple, intuitive, clean, accurate and powerful, what! Designed for tablet laptops, well there’s my sketch pad.

Fantastic job Michael and congratulations for the release of V1.0

That’s it for Hello.
Like I said earlier on, looking around moi3d.com everything looked and felt good,
top group in the forum, the tutorials, the resource page and the gallery, all great.

Then I came across the wishlist and as I was reading it, I thought, no, no, NOOOOOO!
Guys what are you thinking, I know there could be a few more functionality niceties for MoI, the extra specialty scripts are cool, but come on! some of the things in the wishlist are high end functionality and I think there are enough packages out there that handle this stuff. I just don’t want MoI to end up a cumbersome and buggy design package with an incremental maintenance release every month, like the professional package I use at work.
I feel the gallery says it all , the stuff in there is amazing and they were all created with MoI as it is. Just have a look at Phils Galacteers (Rocket) project, wasn’t that inspirational to see something go from thought to design to reality from a $200 package.
Let’s all come back to earth and model and design our imagination, and use MoI as a seamless tool to show our thoughts and not to allow it to control us.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers Danny
-

Hi Danny,

>>I just don’t want MoI to end up a cumbersome and buggy
>>design package with an incremental maintenance release every month...

In my first post here I expressed a similar apprehension about Moi's future versions... but after spending many hours by reading Michael's comments on this forum during beta-stage of development and so on... now I have complete confidence in Michael's abilities as a software engineer, definitely!

Petr

Hi Danny, thanks and I'm glad that you like the light and quick feel of MoI!

Don't worry - it is a big priority to keep this fundamental essence of MoI in place through future upgrades.

The wishlist is just a big glob of ideas that people have posted. I just like to gather them in that spot there instead of having them dispersed through a hundred different forum posts.

It is not a literal "todo" list, there are some things on there that probably will never be implemented in MoI because they just aren't a fit with MoI's direction. But I don't like to edit stuff out of there so much because there is some potential for me to draw out some elements from some ideas even if the whole thing doesn't happen.

- Michael

Thanks Petr and Micheal for giving me the 'warm and fuzzies' about the future of MoI.

>>The wishlist is just a big glob of ideas that people have posted.

Yeh, I realise that, but going through and seeing some of the wishes got under my skin and
I had to say something, but that's it, I'm here to enjoy MoI and help out as much as I can.

Cheers
Danny

Hi Michael,
I am a new user of Moi3d and i like it because
it's more easier to use than Rhino3d.
So i agree on DannyT.

Would it be possible to eliminate Loft and Sweep,
keeping only Network.

Paolo,
Thanks for agreeing with me but my point was if Micheal can implement new features without sacrificing the functionality and feel of MoI then I'm all for it.
But to remove Loft and Sweep ??? Why ?

Cheers
Danny

Hi Paolo, thanks, I'm glad that you like MoI!

I think maybe you mean combining the functionality of Loft, Sweep, and Network all inside of one single command?

Hmmm, I guess that could be possible, but I think it would require some extra steps.

Like I suppose that Loft and Sweep could be combined by having a "no rails" option at the stage where it asks you to pick sweep rails. Then if you clicked the "no rails" button, it could do a loft.

But that is then one extra step than Loft currently needs...

Combining functions too much can make it more difficult to streamline them.

- Michael

Hi DannyT,

I have no problem to study and learn many commands,
but the three surface commands give almost the same
result.

Michael, if you could make single commands more powerfull,
even artists who hate using commands would buy your
product.

I agree with Michael on this. There is no benefit to combine 3 functions into 1, if it means the 1 will just become more complex. I think it makes sense to combine certain types of commands (such as extrusions, booleans, blending, etc) because your input objects can be used to determine which sub-command you intend to use. But for Network, Sweep, and Loft they are all using very similar combinations of curves and/or edges as input. So MoI can not sense your intent...

jonah

Hi Paolo,
first, my apologies, I have to learn that there are people on this forum that haven't experienced
3d modelling software before, it must be very confusing at first but keep using Moi you will get the
hang of it and will benefit in the long run.
Just to give you an uderstanding on where I'm coming from.
At work we use a 'high end' 3d modelling package and when I want to make a surface I must decide between,

Swoop
4 point surface
studio surface 1x1
studio surface 1x2
studio surface 2x0
studio surface 2x2
studio surface nxn
Ruled
Through Curve
Through Curve Mesh
Swept
Styled Sweep
n sided surface

when I started using MoI and seeing just those 3 surface commands and actually achieving the same
type of complex shapes as the 'high end' product I thought this is brilliant, and if I ever met Michael I
would give him a Hug............in a masculine way of course :)

Cheers
Danny

I understand that i am pretending to much for the moment.
Maybe over 5 years from now someone get's it done.

Bye Bye!

> Michael, if you could make single commands more powerfull,
> even artists who hate using commands would buy your
> product.

Hi Paolo, it is definitely a general goal to make each command more powerful when possible, instead of adding new ones.

Actually Sweep and Network already are combined to a certain extent - Sweep combines Rhino's Sweep1 and Sweep2 commands, and Network combines Rhino's NetworkSrf and EdgeSrf commands.

But even though these 3 are similar, there are enough differences that make combining them further kind of difficult.

For example even though Network and 2-rail Sweep are kind of similar, the calculations that they go through to construct a surface are different and have different options in them (for example "maintain height" option in 2 rail sweep). Even when you use the same curve setup between them.

Also another example is I want to make sweep more powerful in v2 so that if you select say 5 rail curves you will be able to do a one-rail sweep around each of those 5 curves to make a large number of pipes all at once. It would generally be more difficult to add this in if Sweep and Network were combined and instead having 5 rail curves triggered it to do the Network calculation instead of Sweep.


I'm just not very confident in this particular case that I can combine them without adding too much complexity inside of the combined command.

It is a big benefit to have a reduced number of individually more powerful commands, but at the same time there is also pressure to make each command not too complex and not too many steps or options in it.

- Michael