Hi Steve,

> Carrara (and some other apps) will give option on import for smoothing

Yeah, but in that case the smooth vertex normal will be created by averaging polygons that surround a vertex. This will only be an approximation of the true normal from the original NURBS object, and there are frequently problems with this kind of approximation in areas where there are polygons of different sizes adjacent to one another. Things like a small sized polygon will tend to have an undue weight applied to the averaging and have a visible shading effect on the larger polygon.

These problems are eliminated when you can carry the original vertex normals from the precise NURBS model to be used for the final shading.

OBJ is able to contain these normals, so that's why you can avoid many potential shading difficulties if you use OBJ format instead of 3DS, since 3DS has no facility within it to store the vertex normal information.

This all depends on your program reading the normals in from the OBJ file of course, there are some programs like Max which skip them. But I believe that Poser will use them if present.

Some programs will only use them if you turn MoI's welding option off, since some programs expect to have one normal per vertex, instead of being able to have faces that share one 3d point but have unique normals per face which is what happens if you have welding turned on. So that's why for maximum compatibility it is not bad to turn welding off for this, I probably should switch that to be off by default instead of on by default.

- Michael

Thanks everyone
I think I understand most of what you have told me. This time last year I hadn't even bought the magazine with Bryce on the cover that led me to Daz, that led me to carrara, that led me to Moi and so on. I thought what a time saver! instead of searching flicker for images to composite into a painting I can just make the scene complete with lighting and paint straight from the render. I have only completed two painting since and that was when I managed to tear myself away from the PC. I was painting one every couple of weeks before.

I think when Daz say "Unleash the artist within" they mean "pose V4 with no clothes and a sword" not "Get obsessed with 3d and make things in Moi". The learning curve seems to be a vertical line sometimes so its great to have such a friendly forum and Michael's instant advice.

Thinking about it I have little trouble with the Moi side of things and can usually make whatever I want in a very short time, its when I start to use Carrara that the fight starts. If only someone would make texturing and lighting as easy as modeling in Moi.
Keith

Ps I knw this is a stupid question but where do I look for my license key?

Hi Keith,

> Ps I knw this is a stupid question but where do I look for my license key?

It should have been sent to you through e-mail when you ordered MoI.

Also if you have installed v1 and entered your license key for that previously, it will be in a text file in this location (on XP, Vista is slightly different):

C:\Documents and Settings\ [your login name] \Application Data\Moi\moi_v1_license.key

Open that file in notepad and you will have your license key in there on a single line.

If you still can't find your license key, go ahead and send me an e-mail at moi@moi3d.com and I can look it up for you.

- Michael