What happens when one man leaves the company? My money would be lost, but even worse the time spent learning it too? :-(

Ah! Everything is impermanent ... MoI, money and even you. Stay in the present moment and enjoy MoI for its startling contribution to modeling.
:)
eric

If Michael was 'beamed up', my license would expire?

Hi s7r83dg3 - the full release versions of MoI won't suddenly stop working or anything if I leave the company, is that what you are concerned about?

Many of the skills that you gain using MoI should also be pretty helpful if you want to later on use other CAD-like systems. MoI is easier to use than other systems like this but many of the overall principles and strategies are the same or pretty similar at least. So experience that you gain with MoI is not necessarily completely lost or wasted if you do need to go away from it in the future.

But I guess my advice to you would be that the best way you can ensure that MoI won't go out of business is to purchase it! :)


As a bonus you will be helping to support a small independent business rather than an indifferent soulless corporation... Kind of a cool thing to support!


- Michael

> As a bonus you will be helping to support a small independent business rather than an indifferent soulless corporation... Kind of a cool thing to support!

The smaller the company it seems the better the support and the more input the user can have on the products development. Not to mention the extra care which seems to go into making the product and the total dedication of the developer! Keep up the good work Michael and thanks for making a remarkable product.

I hope you will be developing moi for many years to come!

I spent $1800 last year and upgraded my Softimage XSI from v6 Ess to v7.

Is Avid-Softimage still around today??
...And they were sort of a big company...

A quote I like to use often: "100 years from now, all this won't matter..."


As already suggested, use the package now to get your >work done<.


Tools and techniques change yearly in a lot of cases. Hopefully what's learned today will be helpful in the future. Hopefully things in the future will make what's done today easier and obsolete!

Above all else, don't worry about the future - an asteroid may hit us all anyway :-P

-Will

what a funny topic :)

I think thats one of the best (and most impressive!) things about MoI, it makes it thoroughly thought out, and keeps it small and lightweight. I will not sprawl out in all directions..
Like everything in life, you can't take it for granted. So enjoy it while it's there, it's one of the coolest 3d apps around.
Im sure michael will keep on for a loooooong time still :)

-Fredrik

(quote92420.1) What happens when one man leaves the company? My money would be lost, but even worse the time spent learning it too? :-(


That makes no sense !......
You still get to keep the software, so your money is not lost.
You time is also not wasted if you used it to learn the software since:
A.you learned the software
B. you still have the software
C: you can use the software to create 3d models

Supporting moi by buying the software is the best way to ensure that development will keep going for a while to come....

I have to agree with okapi, the best way to insure MoI's sucess is to keep purchasing the current/future versions. In today's economy, Moi and Triple Squid software are about the only things I feel comfortable investing in!

Michael T.

"an asteroid may hit us all anyway :-P -Will"

Geeez... Thanks a lot for reminding me :P

"A one man show"

The reason MoI is so Stable and focused anyway!

Ok, ok, ok I BOUGHT it :-) Now if only the download link would work ... I'll check back later. I almost bought Spaceclaim LTX though ;o) But I don't like Rhino at all !! And spaceclaim doesn't support free forms. Or does it? Whatever at least I saved 600$ And can start learning this nurbs thing ^_^ Hope my poor Macbook will run vista.

Hi s7r83dg3, thanks very much for your order, I really appreciate it!

re: download link - I have sent you an e-mail with an alternate link for you to try if you were having problems with the regular one. If you still run into any problems, please send me an e-mail at moi@moi3d.com and I will get it figured out.

Re: Spaceclaim - Spaceclaim actually does have some freeform modeling tools but they are limited in some aspects. It kind of has more of a general focus on making modifications to existing mechanical parts. Even though it also uses NURBS it has a pretty different way of working than MoI, so one is not really necessarily a replacement for the other.

But if you want to use NURBS as a way to do mechanical or "hard surface" type models from scratch to supplement some other animation or rendering type packages that you are also using, then MoI is a good choice for that kind of thing.


NURBS does have a pretty different way of working than polygon modeling. Probably the best way to get started is to check out the tutorial videos that show how to draw some things from scratch here:
http://moi3d.com/1.0/docs/tutorials.htm

Those go over some general principles for NURBS modeling, such as drawing profile curves, constructing shapes from the profiles, and booleaning pieces together and placing fillets.


Thanks again!

- Michael

Hi s7r83dg3 one other thing to keep in mind is that you don't generally use NURBS for every single kind of model, there are some kinds of models that work better in subd and some kinds that work better in NURBS.

Generally the way it works is that things that have a mechanical, industrial, or man-made nature to them work better with NURBS. These types of things tend to involve lots of holes and cut out parts, things involving booleans tend to be a big strength of NURBS.

Then on the other side, highly organic things, like faces, monsters, characters, things that aren't very well defined by 2D profile curves, these are the kinds of things that generally work better with a sub-d polygon modeling program rather than NURBS.

- Michael

And that's why I bought it too.
Fryrender, Modo, rhino all small companies and very innovative with focus on quality, performance and workflow.
Now MOI joins my favorite apps for the same reason the other two did. Customer driven and innovative....I feel confident we'll see a more robust toolset in the following iterations of the software......bye bye Maya and 3dsmax and RIP.

...and don't forget they are all good value for the money too! no maintenance charge, and no forced upgrades! :)

50% of those apps you like were written by the one and only!