Hi Rainer, I haven't seen the disappearing-sphere problem before.

If you have an example model that has this problem, can you please send it to me at moi@moi3d.com?

It probably won't be fixed in v2 automatically, I'll probably need to see an example and debug it before it will get fixed.

Also, when you cut a pattern, make sure not to have self-intersecting curves (like something with little curly-cue loops in it) as your cutting curves, those will tend to cause problems like you are describing.

- Michael

Hi Steve,

> But the meshes exported from MoI are very smooth in Cinema. It's
> also about the first time I've seen Cinema's 'normal' tag on the
> imported .obj make any difference to a model :-)

Yeah, getting the accurate normals in makes a big difference with MoI-generated (or really mostly CAD-generated in general) polygon models.

Those normals come from the original NURBS object so they're kind of the "true" normal for that point.

The automatically generated type normals (like what you will get if you remove the 'normal' tag) are usually calculated by averaging together the face-normals of faces that surround a vertex. If you have a sub-d generated model you tend to get polygons that are of a really uniform size and don't have any really abrupt changes in angle between any 2 of them. This kind of arrangement is good for an averaging type approach.

But a mechanical type CAD-generated model will often have things like large polygons adjacent to small curved fillets. That's not good for automatic normal generation by averaging - stuff like a small polygon in a fillet gets averaged with a neighboring really big planar cap polygon and it has too much of an effect on the normal pulling it too much away form the big planar poly... Anyway, it's because of stuff like this that having the true normals instead of averaged normals tends to make such a big difference in mechanical models.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Very useful and interesting information, thank you. This explains why, when I imported a MoI model into Cinema and deleted the normal tag, then subdivided the model, it didn't look good at all. Now I understand why that is :-)

Hi all
I couldn't readily find a place for this question so put under this thread about modelling.

Is it possible/sensible to make models in Moi for export to poser and Daz studio. When I posted this idea to the Daz discussion forum there were a couple of immediate objections

The first objection I received was form someone who said they had tried something similar with rhino and had failed because of problems with the exported mesh. The second objection was that my models would have too high a polygon count.

I don't think the first point is an issue as I have made things in Moi and imported them into Daz studio and most often there has been no problem. I would never the less like to know if there are problems with my idea that makes it a non starter.

With regard to the objection that the polygon count would be too high. Can anyone tell me if this is really going to be a problem? Is there a rule for the number of polygons that are acceptable in a model?

Your thoughts and expertise will be much appreciated.

Oh and in case your wondering why I just don't try it and see its because I was looking to collaborate with someone who has poser and who would be willing to make my models poser ready. I don't really want to have to buy and learn to use poser.

Incidentally I have been shocked to learn that many people don't like nurbs and would prefer to use vertex modellers. Being new to all this I though Moi was the future and everybody would want to make things quickly and easily. So I was very surprised to read that nurbs modelling was dead.
Keith

Hi Keith, I've put a lot of effort into MoI's polygon output to make it work better than the typical kind of NURBS export that those people may have been thinking of.


> I would never the less like to know if there are problems with my
> idea that makes it a non starter.

Not that I know of! Although as far as I know Poser itself does not have a whole lot of detailed rendering capabilities, it is focused on pretty basic things. You may be better off bringing things into a sort of more flexible rendering program like Carrara to be able to have more control over things like texturing...


> With regard to the objection that the polygon count would be too
> high. Can anyone tell me if this is really going to be a problem?

Probably not, unless you are planning on building extremely detailed models or also have a much older machine.


> Is there a rule for the number of polygons that are acceptable in a model?

Not really - if it runs fast enough then you're fine! :) There isn't any one single number that works in all situations because it really depends on your computer hardware. If your computer is 10 times slower than another one, then you'll have a different and much smaller limit than the other faster computer will.

If you have like the cheapest kind of computer available, with the minimum amount of RAM and CPU speed in it, then it can become more of an issue. It is an especially good idea to not have too small an amount of system RAM.


> Incidentally I have been shocked to learn that many people don't
> like nurbs and would prefer to use vertex modellers.

The deal with that is that stuff for very glitzy hollywood type effects like character animation, creatures, humans, very organic models like that have really switched over to be done in a vertex-based modeler.

So people who are really focused on that kind of hollywood special effect type stuff and nothing else will want to tell you that NURBS are dead. But they just are not tuned in to the whole world of manufacturing and product design which uses NURBS almost exclusively...


> So I was very surprised to read that nurbs modelling was dead.

That's pretty much true for that one particular style of "character" modeling.

But certainly not for making any kind of man-made or industrial objects! NURBS are absolutely 100% the standard method used for CAD, manufacturing and product design, there is absolutely no doubt about that.

Modeling is a very wide and diverse field, there are a lot of different possible types of models that people need to build - some types of models like creatures and characters are better to do in a vertex modeler and some types of models like machines and man made objects are better to do in a NURBS modeler.


So I'd recommend not really taking those other people's comments too seriously... :)

But again it is all relative to what specifically is being done - it is quite possible that for what they need to do, NURBS is indeed not the best choice.

- Michael

By the way, the recent MoI review here:
http://cgchannel.com/news/viewfeature.jsp?newsid=7489

can give a pretty good idea on the types of models that work a lot better to do in MoI rather than in a vertex/poly type modeler. Basically things that involve one piece cutting another tends to cause a lot of problems in a polygon modeler.

- Michael

Thanks Michael
I suspect that the customer support of vertex modelers isn't as good with as with moi:)
Keith

Hi Keith, you know I was thinking that the really funny (or odd) thing is that the person who was saying NURBS are dead were probably sitting on a chair designed with NURBS, typing on a keyboard designed with NURBS, using a mouse designed with NURBS, and looking at a monitor designed with NURBS.

I mean they were probably literally physically surrounded by NURBS modeled objects when they typed "NURBS are dead"!!!


I guess the other factor that contributes to that idea is that a couple of big animation packages like 3D Studio MAX and Softimage XSI have kind of let their NURBS support wither away and haven't focused on improving those areas of their applications for quite a long time now.

There has also been a lot more sort of "action" and "new blood" in the vertex oriented modeling area with applications like Silo and Modo.

There really hasn't been much new in the NURBS area for artist-focused people for a while. But of course MoI is changing all that now! :)

- Michael