Howdy Howdy Howdy!

Hate to start a with a request, but can anyone here provide a quick intro into the CADCAM approach to 3D for those of us who are coming over from the Content Creation side of things (i.e. 3D animation)?

I've been trying to play with MoI on my TabletPC for about 3 days now - I love the idea, simplicity and overall feel of this app - it quite simply _rocks_. But, I'm having a devil of a time trying to make and manipulate objects in MoI. My gut tells me this is due to differences in the approach and the conventions being used between MoI and the apps I am familiar with (Lightwave 3D, Wings 3D, Sharpconstruct, ZBrush).

As well, I have limited background using NURBS-based apps (a little experience 5 years ago with Rhino) as I work in the SubDiv world.

Still, I've been jonesing for an intuitive, tablet-based modeler I can use to quickly "sketch" my ideas. Sketchup just didn't fly with me - too limited - and the experimental tools (i.e. Cornell 3D Journal, Gides++, SketchBoard) I tried were too clunky or buggy to be worth using more than once. I'm really hopeful that MoI will grow into the app I've been waiting for. So, Michael, if there's anything I can do to help that process along, let me know.

Thanks for listening and considering the request folks.

Yeah, it is a very different workflow from a subd modeler or zbrush.

You don't work so much by pushing and pulling a cage of an object, instead you draw curves and then form a solid "skin" from those curves using different tools (sweeping, lofting, extruding, etc).

It's also a lot more frequent to work on different pieces of the model and then boolean them together or trim parts with one another.

Sharp edges are then rounded by applying fillets to the edges.

How about this - can you think of an example type of model that you would like to create in MoI? Describe the type of model or type of shape and I'll try to give you a few pointers for how to make progress on it.

One tricky thing is that there are many kinds of models that are just more suited to being built in a subd modeler or ZBrush than in MoI (creatures, characters, faces, ... ). It's just not going to be very feasible to build those types of models inside of MoI. So that may be a problem for you, MoI isn't going to give you a tablet-enabled way to build really the same kinds of things that you are used to. If you're trying to do the same types of subd models but with a tablet, that's probably not going to fit right...

- Michael

Hey Mike,

thanks for the super-fast response. It's not so much what I'm trying to build - I'm a hard-surface modeler with a taste for the mechanical. It's what I'm trying to do. To me, rotating and scaling just seem counter-intuitive within MoI. I don't get the reference-point thing. And, I can't seem to transform individual elements (edges, faces, vertices) once they are part of a "solid". Guess its just the polygonist in me. So, that's what I mean by trying to grasp how MoI works. Are there features I'm trying to use that are not present yet? Or am I approaching it wrong?

Let me give you an example of the workflow I'm most used to (taken from wings3D). I start with a closed mesh - a cube lets say. I want to scale one side of it. I drop into face mode - select the face I want to scale, choose the axis for scaling (world coordinate or normal) and BAM, it scales. Now, in MoI, after extruding a solid from a base, closed curve, I fillet it. I want to scale the top and bottom "faces" of the solid, but leave the remaining geometry intact. How would I do that in MoI? Or, I want to move one curve segment along the top of the solid I've made. How would I do that? The rest seems learnable thriough use - though I get some interesting behavior with the booleans. But the element transforms and transforms using reference points seems unfathomable for me now.

Does what I'm saying even make sense? 'Cause I'm pretty much confusing myself at this point. MoI's still a great tool though - and worth the frustration I'm feeling.

Thanks again.

You have to not look at it like a polygonal model. You can select faces and edges but they are only kind of a visual representation of the boundaries of the surface.

Instead think of it as a solid block of metal or wood. If you had a cube and you wanted to taper it on one end you would either shave off some material or add some on the other end. Either way you are changing the volume of the material not pushing it around like clay to get your shape(polygonal).

> I don't get the reference-point thing.

Simplest explanation is that at times it's very helpful to scale an object in relation to another one. Let's say you have two cubes with coincident sides. You want to scale one of the cubes, but keep the side in contact with the other one. You can set the center of your scale to be on the edge where they meet so you don't have to translate the cube after scaling it. If you'd like I could put together a better explanation with pictures and stuff.

> I start with a closed mesh - a cube lets say. I want to scale one side of it. I drop into face mode - select the face I want to scale, choose the axis for scaling (world coordinate or normal) and BAM, it scales.Now, in MoI, after extruding a solid from a base, closed curve, I fillet it. I want to scale the top and bottom "faces" of the solid, but leave the remaining geometry intact. How would I do that in MoI?

Control points! The object you're usually looking at isn't a poly cage like you're used to seeing in a SubD modeler. It can be thought of as the actual subdivision surface. When you turn on the control points you're essentially turning on the control cage. Select an object and click "Show Pts" on the Edit tab. You should now have some points floating around the object (some objects can't have control points... although I'm not sure that's true in MoI). You can then move these points to alter the NURBS surface the way you would a SubD surface. Be advised that NURBS act differently than SubD's so you'll end up working with them differently.

> Or, I want to move one curve segment along the top of the solid I've made.

Do you mean like grab one of the edges and move it around? That can't be done. You have to turn on the points and edit the shape that way.

Let me know if you want more info on this.