Hi all,

This was my entry for the Nurbs and Polys 50's sci-fi competition. I think there were three of us using MoI for this, me, Paq and Danny. [edit] actually there were four, Anis also used MoI for his entry[] This is the Brain Amplifier, a machine of my own design. All modeling was done in MoI then exported to modo and rendered.

I really enjoyed this competition and using MoI was a joy. I used the latest beta for the whole thing with no issues except the mirror normal flip problem. I found I used the cplane and new size display/edit control a lot too. This model really pushed my machine though. I had the mesh angle up as high as 50 with inflections turned off and navigation was still very sluggish, probably due to all the fillets. So I'm looking forward to Michael s mesh speed up coming along.

Here's some views of the completed model as rendered in modo:










and I've attached some screen grabs from MoI.

Cheers.

Hi Tony, Wow! My brain feels amplified just looking at it, let alone sitting in that chair! :)

What a great amount of detail in all the controls!


re: Mirror flipping normals - this one is fixed for the next beta, hopefully not too much longer for that. Still working on just a few more export meshing speedups at the moment.


re: Sluggish view - that is not particularly surprising given the amount of detail that you have there... But it is likely for your case there that curve/edge drawing is actually taking the largest amount of time. If you still get a sluggish display with the mesh angle turned up to 50 and "add detail to inflections" unchecked, then the other thing that you can do is to hide the edges on pieces that you are not going to be actively working on. That will probably give a significant boost.

Curve drawing is always done to a rather fine level currently, it does not get adjusted to be coarser when the mesh angle is set to coarse. A bit later on in v2 I'm going to try to adjust the fineness of the curve drawing to be a little more jagged in denser scenes which should help.

Also turning off Options / View / Display hidden lines will speed up curve drawing, since having hidden line display on requires 2 curve drawing passes.

- Michael

I remember the brain amplifier for the 50's movie the Forbidden Planet.

Very nice detail, which looks impressive.

Are you going to texture it too ?

Cool precise modeling indeed!
Mad dentist :)

Remember this sort of thing ;)

Thanks for the comments.

Frenchy:

>>Mad dentist :)
Yes, the chair was based on dentist chair pictures I found on the web ;-)

>> Remember this sort of thing
Yes I do - you should see under my desk :-)


kevjon:
Yes, I plan to texture as well.


Michael:
I turned the the hidden lines off for the major assembly stuff. I usually had 3 or 4 instances of MoI running at a time with various view settings depending on the complexity of the part I was modeling. Easy to cut and paste from one to the other. I set up the scene as I went along and made good use of the cplane when adding bits. In the end I had to keep the panels for the main control station (the one with the monitors) separate from the main assy file.

Should be easier to manage when you have the grouping stuff done.

Here's a grab of some of those nice ngons MoI hands over to modo :-)

Hi Tony !

<< I usually had 3 or 4 instances of MoI running at a time with various view settings depending on the complexity of the part I was modeling>>

Hey, but that's my workflow :)

Really nice entry, I really hope you'll lit this scene anytime soon !
I really enjoy using MoI for this project too, I will never get the time to experiment every surfaces shapes like I did if I had to do it with poly's.
That having said, now that the model is finished and exported, I'm starting to see a quite huge bottleneck in my workflow, called uv's.

With traditionnal (well it's traditionnal for me) subd's process, you always get a light version of you're modeling, and everything is smoothed at the
rendertime. So even with complex object, I never build more that 100.000 or 200.000 poly's (mostly quad) for my cage object, and it's quite easy to unwarp everything
with some good uv's tools (I mostly use UV-Layout).

But with models coming from MoI, I put so much detail in that I finish with huge mesh (> 2.000.000 tris), an even in ngone, unwarping this kind of models is
a big pain.

I have no idea how resolve this, so I'm really curious to ear how you manage this in modo for example, as you produce some heavy mesh too.

Hi Michael,

<< If you still get a sluggish display with the mesh angle turned up to 50 and "add detail to inflections" unchecked, then the other thing that you can do is to hide the edges on pieces that you are not going to be actively working on>>

Well that's what I do most of the time, using this script :

script:var breps = moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects().getBReps(); var hide = true; for ( var i = 0; i < breps.length; ++i ) { var edges = breps.item(i).getEdges(); if ( i == 0 ) hide = !edges.item(0).hidden; edges.setProperty( 'hidden', hide ); }

The problem is with this script

- I'm hidding/showing edges from the entire scene, would be cool if it's possible to hidde edges only on selected models
- Everytime I manipulate the object (move, scale, mirror), edges are automatically on again, so it would be nice if the 'hidded' state is concerved.

Now I can imagine this workflow will be obsolete with the layers incoming too.

Hi PaQ,

> - I'm hidding/showing edges from the entire scene, would be
> cool if it's possible to hidde edges only on selected models

Just a minor change to that script will do that:

script:var breps = moi.geometryDatabase.getSelectedObjects().getBReps(); var hide = true; for ( var i = 0; i < breps.length; ++i ) { var edges = breps.item(i).getEdges(); if ( i == 0 ) hide = !edges.item(0).hidden; edges.setProperty( 'hidden', hide ); }

This version will now only turn edges on or off on selected objects instead of everything.


> so it would be nice if the 'hidded' state is concerved.

Yeah I think that should be something I can tune up before the end of v2.

- Michael

Hi PaQ, also another variation:

script:var gd = moi.geometryDatabase; var breps = gd.getSelectedObjects().getBReps(); if ( breps.length == 0 ) breps = gd.getObjects().getBReps(); var hide = true; for ( var i = 0; i < breps.length; ++i ) { var edges = breps.item(i).getEdges(); if ( i == 0 ) hide = !edges.item(0).hidden; edges.setProperty( 'hidden', hide ); }


This one will do just the selected objects if there is a selection, otherwise if there is no object selected it will do everything.

- Michael

All this double dutch--stuff that I really don't want to know----

Now, if it was a one click, clearly explained, in the shortcuts list?

Brian shows his age--- again!

Hi Brian,

> Now, if it was a one click, clearly explained, in the shortcuts list?

I guess that would be interesting.... But to pre-populate the shortcuts list with every single possible action script that every person wants for every possible action, would seem to require me to be able to foretell the future!

I'm sorry but I haven't figured out how to do that yet!

I agree it would be cool if I could do it though, do I need to get strapped into the brain amplifier machine to make it happen? :)

- Michael

YES!

Brian

Looks like it might be painful though! :)

- Michael

Yes!
I had friends in the 1940s who went through Labotomies and electric shock. NOT funny!

Add the attached to the maybe/wishfull/future potentials/ideas file.

Brian

FOR SALE

One slightly used crystal ball, future telling 95% accurate :)

I already know who is going to buy it :P


---------

My Dad never flew in a plane. (Or sailed "overseas")
Back in the days of the 1920s depression he built radios in the back shed of his grocery store at night.
At the time the only local radio station was in a tent on the citys parklands!

We have here at home the Pianolla--and all the old rolls---which he swapped for one of the radios he built!

I wonder what he would make of all this 3D stuff I am involved with now?
(He was very upset when I branched out on my own to be a "photographer" and got involved with "art" and painting in the late 1960s.)

Brian

ps--To get the mind going, for those interested in Art History, my dad was born in the year the "Impresionists Movement" ended. (Note, truly, would you believe---ended!)

Looks like the plugin Gallery! All those commands in one moveable window. When it all is settled in, I will make it small like that if you prefer. and per another thread, We will make sure your UI is set. When its done. It's like baking a cake. If we keep opening the door, it will never be done. If we let it finish cooking, It tastes great.

Lovely mate!

Nothing like having a man of few words!

Can you teach my bride, of 55years on the 16th, how to not burn the toast?

Brian

Hi Tony,

> Here's a grab of some of those nice ngons MoI hands over to modo :-)

Love to see those clean wireframes! :)

- Michael

very nice and detailed mate