...in few days! http://twitter.com/AndrewShpagin
< (14 July 2009) So, support of 3DM files and nurbs in general is coming soon (one or two months).

Cool, that will be great to have even more options for using MoI in combination with 3D Coat!

- Michael

Awesome! Can't wait...

thanks for the info! Pilou. Now that is cool.

I'm hoping he can come up with a polygon editing toolset that can replace Silo and Hexagon since they both have fallen off.

The only other commercial polygon editing app at the moment is Modo, that that's not even dedicated poly editing like it was in the beginning.


If the retopo is any indication of what Andrew can do with polygons, I think he could come up with a nice polygon editing tab that could rival Silo and Hex.

That with NURBS support would be an awesome product.

MOI / 3D-Coat / Cinema4D -> Unity - I'm straight!

-Will

New precisions :)

< First stage - just import 3DM.
< Second - manipulating nurbs surfaces in 3DC shell

< What about export - I will see how it goes.
< Andrew

As I questioned in the thread, having MoI, I'm not sure I see the need for direct NURBS import into 3DC - except to eliminate a step?


Being that MoI's exports are so clean, I can get a MoI OBJ in there and do the same?



Granted, as a Rhino v2 user, I can see an advantage - but I thought I read somewhere they were going to try to improve their exporter for the next version (if they haven't already)?


Getting MoIs into ZBrush are still a problem for me (ngons) so I can see that as an advantage over ZBrush.


Before I had saw Andrew's statement, I had mentioned that I thought a t-spline implementation from him would be as revolutionary as his Voxels (the best of both sds-polys and NURBS) but I don't think that's what he'll shoot for...

-Will

PS - Now if Andrew is going to import a NURBS object directly to a Voxel object that looks >EXACTLY< the same as it does in MoI then cool - I can see working with hard-surface voxel objects in addition to the soft, smushy ones.

What are the benefits of using 3DM import over MoI's clean polygon exporter?

< What are the benefits of using 3DM import over MoI's clean polygon exporter?
Maybe for reuse directly database 3dm models from mechanical industry?

In regards to texturing - i don't see much benefit for importing Nurbs directly, because of the problem of UVs which don't match to the original source application. How will Andrew resolve the issue of 3DM polysurfaces which were derived from any # of CAD applications? Many of those applications don't even have a method to create or use unwrapped or packed UVs. Rhino can pack UVs, but how will 3DCoat match Rhino's nested UVs exactly? The UV layout is based on the display mesh, not on the Nurbs surfaces themselves. Unless 3DC can also read the attached render mesh and it's UV coords, then I don't see how to generate maps that apply properly in the source application. Think about this, even MoI does not support Rhino's packed UVs because it does not read Rhino's render meshes. How will 3DC accomplish it? If you export a 3DM from a CAD application, it will likely have stacked UVs and 3DC will need to create it's own packing before you can begin to paint. Unless of course he plans to have 2,000 maps for one object and then assign by each face in the original app? Sounds like a lot of fun... to watch, but not to do by yourself... :) The best way to guarantee proper map assignment is to work on static meshes...

In regards to modeling - I can see where this might be interesting for voxel sculpting. But what benefit is there which could not be achieved by importing a very high-res mesh? Perhaps it can lead to some interesting deformation tools (such as Rhino's UDT functions which are based on UV space of Nurbs targets)? or it may evolve to accurate editing/rebuilding of meshes for the needs of manufacturing, etc? Probably not his goal though...

I do think the best application of importing 3DM is regarding Nurbs curves, which can be awesome for spline painting and deformation targets.

Who knows though? Andrew's a really smart guy. And he may come up with some brilliant solution...

I think what it comes down to is "who do you think is converting the NURBS data the best".

I think Michaels mesher has taken the next step. Can this other guy write one just as good or better?

This would be the reason why you would want to use the import rather than the export.

Hi Will,

> Getting MoIs into ZBrush are still a problem for me (ngons) so I
> can see that as an advantage over ZBrush.

Yeah the last time that I looked at this, ZBrush did not handle n-gons properly. It seems to just assume that every n-gon is convex so it triangulates them by connecting all the points to a centroid point.

That will cause incorrect triangulation if you have an n-gon that is not a simple convex shape.

So because of that, you need to use the "Output: Quads & Triangles" option when exporting to ZBrush, rather than Output: N-gons.

- Michael

"I think what it comes down to is "who do you think is converting the NURBS data the best".

I think Michaels mesher has taken the next step. Can this other guy write one just as good or better?

This would be the reason why you would want to use the import rather than the export."



Exactly, which is why I'd prefer to see him take a leap that worthy of him - t-splines.

Being able to work with Voxels, T-Splines and polygons within 3D-Coat would be an awesome achievement.

The T-Splines would pretty much replace sds-polygons so effectively you'd be working with Voxels and NURBS which could then be quad'ed down to polygons for export like he does now with voxels...


From what I saw of the suggested videos to watch, I don't see all that much a need to >>import<< NURBS curves?? Mostly, they were drawn by hand to match the geometry. 3DC already has similar curve drawing functionality?


I guess when creating models within MoI, I could create curves at the same time with the goal to use them as manipulation guides but as it is now, I usually toss out curves after I create things so that would have to be a mindset change for me to use that workflow...


I guess time will tell what Andrew will do with "NURBS" within 3D-Coat.

-Will

Well, we'll have to wait and see some more details on what is involved with the 3DM import I guess, it is not very clear yet how that will work.

But from what I can understand about the voxel mode editing, when you bring in a mesh for voxel painting, the mesh is only used to turn on a set of voxels and then the polygon mesh data is actually discarded, and you work on voxel data from there on out until you are finished and do a conversion back to polygons at the end.

So for that style of editing, the starting mesh topology itself (whether n-gons or just a big bunch of triangles for example) does not really matter so much since the polygons are being discarded and recreated at the end anyway.

At any rate, it may end up being a nice convenience to be able to import 3DM directly, and it possibly won't matter so much for that kind of editing if the generated polygons are just triangles since you won't need to work with that mesh after it has set the voxels anyway.

Maybe there is some possibility to set the voxels more directly from where the NURBS surfaces intersect them instead of having an intermediate polygon mesh at all...

- Michael

"So because of that, you need to use the "Output: Quads & Triangles" option when exporting to ZBrush, rather than Output: N-gons."


Hi Michael, yes, I learned that previously from your comment here in that other thread.

That's why I said that would be a nice feature since it's lacking in ZB but still, my previous thirst for direct NURBS import within my other apps has been satisified by MoI... ;-)

-Will