Hi. i find MoI is a nice Prog with alot potential.

its nice to use.
curently i use the 30day trail.
now i tried to bend a few things but i have some trouble.
is it only possible on Cylinders? i tried cube + cylinder=dont work.
2 circlecurves = dont work.
are iam to stupid?


another question...
is it possible tu edit lines(edges) on solid objects?
like polygon editing? If i realise that something dont looks good and i like to change something. like scaling one end of a cylinder or something?

sorry for my crappy english...

Till now You can't "bend" something in Moi with Polygon's function ;)

Hi BlackBird,

> now i tried to bend a few things but i have some trouble.

Well, MoI does not actually have a "Bend" function in it... Are you possibly accidentally reading the "Blend" command as "Bend" ?

In MoI instead of bending something in some other shape and then bending it, you need to sort of draw it in its already bent position.

If you want to make a kind of bent pipe like structure, you can use the Sweep command for that - it's covered in the video tutorials here:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/tutorials.htm

I would highly recommend watching those tutorials to learn the basics of how to make shapes in MoI.

So for your tube piece you would create 2 curves that look like this (one circular profile and then a path for it to follow):



Then select the circle, run the Construct > Sweep command, then pick the path, that will construct a tube like this:





> is it possible tu edit lines(edges) on solid objects?

No, generally it is not possible to do that - the way NURBS objects are structured the edges that you see may be what are called "trim curves", where they are forming the surface but instead marking which areas of the surface are holes.

You can edit control points of the underlying surfaces if you use Edit > Separate on the surfaces to break them apart to not have any joined edges first.

See this FAQ answer for some descriptions on this subject:
http://moi3d.com/faq#Q:_Why_does_show_points_work_for_some_objects_but_not_others.3F


> If i realise that something dont looks good and i like to
> change something. like scaling one end of a cylinder or
> something?

Just delete the part that you don't like and create some new curves that are scaled to the way you want, and construct a new surface in that place. Then you can join that new surface to the other ones to make your object a solid again.

Constructing surfaces happens quickly in a NURBS modeler - you can build a big surface with just a couple of profile curves so often times just deleting one surface and creating a new one is an easy thing to do.

- Michael

Hi BlackBird, and also if you maybe meant "Blend" and not "Bend" as you wrote in the title, check here for a description of the Blend command:

http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_command_reference7.htm#blend


The way the Blend command works is that it creates a new smooth piece in some empty area between the endpoints of already existing objects.

For curves it will create a blend between the endpoints of 2 existing open curves, like this:



You can't use it between 2 closed curves like 2 circles because those do not have any open endpoints to connect between.

You can use Blend between 2 circular surface edges like the ends of a cylinder though - if you want to do that you should delete the planar end cap faces on the cylinders so there is no confusion about which of those 2 surfaces (cylinder surface or planar end cap surface) should be used as the source of the blend. That looks like this:




But using blend is a somewhat more advanced modeling technique that you can use to make a smooth connection between 2 existing pieces. I would recommend not using it for your initial model construction - try to build some profile curves and use some more regular surface construction commands like extrude, sweep, or loft to build the different pieces of your models.

Build the pieces of your model so that different sections punch through each other and then boolean those together to combine them, and if you need to then apply fillets at the sharp edges. That's the basic modeling technique for NURBS modeling construction, it is covered in the tutorial videos here:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/tutorials.htm

- Michael

Hi BlackBird, also one technique that you want to use commonly in NURBS modeling is to build a larger more extended initial shape and then apply cuts to that shape to make some of the final edges in your model.

Many times people with a polygon modeling background have some difficulty in approaching a model in this way, often times people with a poly background try to build an initial curve structure that may include some irregular outlines in it and try to avoid using booleans.

But with NURBS modeling booleans and trimming should become more of the main strategy used for construction and not something to avoid as in a poly modeler.

It's easier to recognize that a inside hole should be a booleaned out piece, but also the same kind of technique applies to the outer boundary of a shape as well which is kind of harder for many poly modelers to recognize.

Here are some links to some discussions on this kind of fundamental NURBS technique of creating extended pieces and then cutting them to produce the final model, browsing these links may help:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3855.7
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3855.9

- Michael