Hi JP, thanks, I'm really glad that you like MoI!
It was one of my big goals for MoI to try and make it more approachable for people without a lot of previous experience in 3D or CAD.
re: Tutorials - there is a collection of some links to various additional tutorials here:
http://moi3d.com/resources
and I just added a link to some nice new videos that Nigel made recently, where he covers view manipulation and construction lines, those are here:
http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/index.php?/files/category/44-moi-tutorials/
At some point I want to make some more tutorials myself as well, it's just hard to find time to do it.
re: ArtCAM - ArtCAM works in a pretty different way than MoI since it is focused just on that kind of 2.5 D type relief work. In some kinds of cases like if you're trying to do a kind of raised bubble type of shapes those can be easier with ArtCAM's method, but then other kinds of structured shapes can be easier with MoI's geometry construction tools, it kind of depends on the particular style that you're doing. But also like you mention ZBrush is also good at handling that kind of sculpted relief shapes too, so yeah if you can stick with it to get over the initial learning curve that could cover similar types of stuff as ArtCAM.
It is also possible to use MoI to create some of the base shapes, then export that to ZBrush for applying finer sculpted details. When you do that, you'll want to adjust some of the mesh settings, use "Divide larger than" to divide up the mesh into small evenly sized bits and if you're using OBJ format switch the Output: option to "Output: Quads & Triangles", for some examples see here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=804.26
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2833.5
There is also a free program called ZSurf which can generate that kind of bubbled surface as a CAD surface which can then be loaded into MoI, sometimes that can be useful, see here for some info:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=602.7
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2799.8
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2640.1
- Michael |
