Hi Dan, I'm glad that you like MoI's UI focus!

re: easy to use renderers - yes they do not seem to be as common as you might think, it tends to be more common for rendering to be part of some big package that does a zillion other things as well.

Some good suggestions above, and there was another renderers discussion not too long ago in this other thread:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3136.1

- Michael

Michael, with BurrMan's kind example in front of me I managed to throw together a lattice in short order. The main "aha!" moment was when I was having difficult aligning the atoms with the "sticks"; I realised that using sticks sharpened like pencils at both ends (i.e. with cones on them) would allow me to place spheres very accurately at the intersection of the sticks. Once that was in place I simply used copy and snap and it made everything very easy. I'd even go as far as to say it was actually fun.

While the on-screen representation is OK, I think I need to play with the lights and other options further as my screenshot is not as pretty as the one BurrMan uploaded. Either that or keep looking for renderers - the thread to which you referred me was useful.

I have a question: the lattice is simple but there are many elements: 90 sticks and 60 atoms per lattice and I have two lattices plus in addition another couple of hundred atoms hanging around between lattices, a product of the array tool. This slows the PC down a little. Can I do anything to speed things up? For example, if I do a boolean union on the sticks (which presumably just touch each other at their points) and the atoms in the lattice, would that make life easier for MoI?

Thanks
Dan

Hi Dan,

> For example, if I do a boolean union on the sticks (which
> presumably just touch each other at their points) and the
> atoms in the lattice, would that make life easier for MoI?

Probably not from a display speed standpoint. Probably it would make things a bit more complex since when you do a boolean more edges are created and the geometry is somewhat more complex with more edges.


> Can I do anything to speed things up?

A couple of things - first you can adjust the display mesh density to be coarser. By default MoI creates a rather dense display mesh which looks nice but which generates a lot of polygons.

To reduce the display mesh density, go to Options > View > Meshing parameters, and set "Mesh angle" to a coarser angle like 20 degrees, and uncheck "Add detail to inflections". That will make for a somewhat rougher display on the screen but also reduce polygon count and speed things up.

Also drawing edges can tend to be more time consuming than surfaces, so you may want to hide all edges to get a display speed boost. In v2 you can do that quickly by going to the "Types" section in the Scene Browser, which lets you access all objects of a certain type in the model, like all solids, all curves, etc... - there is also an "Edges" entry there and if you click the little eye icon next to Edges it will hide all edges.

Also turn off the hidden-line display, that's available in v2 in the View palette - checkbox labeled "Display hidden lines".


If you do want to take a MoI screenshot as your render, it is possible to generate a higher resolution image to the clipboard. If you then shrink that down in an image editor it will tend to look nicer - check out this previous post for the higher res screenshot script:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1049.5

- Michael

Michael, thanks for the tip for the screenshots, that works really well and the images are great.
I have experimented with the various display options and things are snappier now.

The model is looking good. For things like true transparency (i.e. not hiding faces) I will have to look at rendering but no worries.

Dan

Hi Dan,
In MoI V2 under the options view dialogue there is a lighting options button. The "Metalic lighting" changes things a bit. I think that is what you are seeing as the difference between mine and yours.

Looks good brother!

Another quick note on copy+draging things in MoI...If you hold down the Ctrl key and click and drag an object, it will drag out a copy from that. One step.

Many things you will find in MoI have been designed for 2-3 clicks = done!

Hi, Dan
I'm entering a late entry for your rendering question. Apparently Bryce 5.5 free is still available. You download it from here: http://download.cnet.com/Bryce/3000-6677_4-10974201.html?tag=mncol and then you will have to register with Daz 3d for a serial. It's an old program, and it renders very slowly, but for your purposes it might be ideal. You would only need to learn how to move models, cameras and lights and apply materials since you will be modelling in MOI. Just another option.

Hi Dan,

I also include a lot of 3d stuff in my illustrations.
In many circumstances I don't have to use another renderer to do the job for simple projects.
With the new lightning options in V2, just a screenshot does the job.

Even for 2d drawings, Moi3d have superior snapping and great functions.
Tools like Booleans and Blend works in 2d.

Marc

Yes, if you already have a license to v1, definitely start using the v2 beta - you're missing out on so many wonderful new features if you're not!


Also don't forget to use the array tools - it might be easier to select a single sphere and then using the array tools, specify how many copies you want and then set your direction.

I've never used it but I believe there's a grid array function also?


Enjoy!

-Will

Thanks once again to all those who responded with advice and pointers - much appreciated and very heartening.
2.0 beta is indeed very nice.

Dan

Hi Dan, just a quick note - there is a collection of all the v2 beta release notes available here:
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/doc/V2releasenotes.html

That contains all the notes on what is new in v2.

- Michael

>>>>>Hi, Dan
I'm entering a late entry for your rendering question. Apparently Bryce 5.5 free is still available. >>>>>>>.

I actually like Bryce also for certain materials. very mechanical/hard surface things can be done very well with Bryce.

And a cheapy!

http://www.i386group.com/moi/lattice/lattice_app.html

Cool !
Now with a DNA ;)

BurrMan, what was that animation rendered with?

BurrMan, what did you use to render that animation with? Also, my replying seems to be really messed up. I have to reply twice to get one that shows up ... weird.

Er, wow. How did you do that?!

I have just been playing with Keyshot, which is the only piece of software that has done what I wanted, namely load a model and immediately present me with a semi-rendered model with default lighting that looks OK and with dialogs that make sense to the man-in-the street as opposed to rendering experts. The issues I have so far are that the rendering is not as good as what I have managed to grudgingly dig out of Kerkythea and for $1,000 I need to be sure before I make a decision. On the other hand, I can't even work out how to move the ground plane in Kerkythea and my model is sitting stubbornly half-above, half-below the ground plane. Kerkythea is no Panacea.

Maxwell Render and Octane look impressive but are way too complex for somebody like me. If I can't mouse around and work out how something operates in a few minutes then for a casual user it's not worth it. The process for inserting models in Octane was so well-hidden I had to watch a video to find out how to do it. One for the enthusiasts I think, though I will keep an eye on it.

I was going to end on a huffy note and bitch and moan about the lack of decent rendering software for amateurs, but on reflection (cough) it is perhaps not surprising. For example, the only inexpensive and quick modeller I have yet found is MoI. Why? Perhaps there is no market because normal users vaguely understand that 3D is "hard" and expensive. Thus MoI is basically forging a new market for itself and that's probably a lonely and worrying place to be for a developer at times, though rewarding as well. In the same fashion, there are many free or cheap renderers but none seem to be simple to use for people like myself who, in essence, simply want a studio or softbox environment as a background to a central prop rather than photo-realism. Those renderers that do have this functionality seem to be fairly expensive and thus need a certain level of commitment, so the market for them doesn't expand.

I would say there's a niche in the market here for cheap, straightforward rendering. If we could clone Michael then we could put Michael2 to work on a rendering equivalent to MoI. After all, that's probably the way forward isn't it? 3D representations of the world are surely going to be a bigger part of our lives in 10 years and past experience with word processors, spreadsheets and databases suggests that graceful and useful dumbing down is a necessity for a larger market.

In the meantime, I continue my search...

Dan

PS the attached is not a rendered Keyshot image but is from the preview window. However, renders also display these slightly angular spheres, which suggests to me that I have one of the settings wrong... In Kerkythea I get nice round spheres, but embedded in the ground :-)

Hi Dan

>I can't even work out how to move the ground plane in Kerkythea
>and my model is sitting stubbornly half-above, half-below the ground plane.

Simply use the 'put on ground' button: select object and you see it at right
in your case you maybe need to group all spheres before

Hi Omac,
I used Carrara. The little MoI was post Carrara. Thats actually a conversion of the original, which "looks" a bit better, though the animation itself is a little goofy as the beta version of Carrara 8 kept trashing my settings and forcing me to start over. I actually started it with the beta of Bryce to show, since it was mentioned here. The render was looking nice, but the same with the trashing of my scene, so I gave up and did a quick one with Carrara version 7.

If I had a bit more time, I wanted to put the MoI man jumping around from molecule to molecule! The DNA was a nice suggestion.

Hi omac12,

> Also, my replying seems to be really messed up. I have to
> reply twice to get one that shows up ... weird.

You could try using this link which may clear out some cached forum info which somehow has gone wrong:

http://moi3d.com/forum/logon.php?webtag=MOI&deletecookie=yes

- Michael

">Simply use the 'put on ground' button: select object and you see it at right"

ycarry, thank you for the tip-off, it was indeed simple. I spent quite some time poring over the interface to find something like that (TurboCAD has the equivalent so I thought Kerkythea should) but I never noticed the ground, stack and center buttons floating there at the right.

However, my argument - which I don't want to develop here, because this is a forum for MoI - is that it needs to be even easier. My argument is not that these packages are incapable of stunning images in experienced and diligent hands: the galleries show that is possible. My argument is that only one of the half-dozen renderers I have tried is intuitive for a beginner to use, a problem that restricts demand to those who have the time to dedicate to mastering a renderer. Keyshot picked up my model, retained the materials, put the objects on the ground plane, lit them with sensible default options and put the whole thing right in front of me looking impressive. Nothing else did that. Why not? I'm staggered! When I was a student I was money-poor and time-rich and I thought nothing of spending weeks learning a new piece of software. Twenty years later I'm money-rich and time-poor. I literally cannot afford the time to spend weeks battling with software that doesn't want to help me. So at this point it's looking like Keyshot: Luxion wins the competition for my $995 and everybody else loses.

Returning to MoI, I handed over my $195 to Michael Gibson and will be paying more for the upgrade to v2.0 the instant it is released because I was making useful images with it 10 minutes after I started using it. Visio engendered the same "Aha!" moment in me when I tried v4 in 1995 or 1996 and that's why I labelled the thread "the Visio of 3D". Like Visio, MoI has a lot of depth but the UI focuses on reducing the time investment required to do something useful with the software. For $295 it seems like a bargain.

Regards
Dan