Hi Stever & Rich_Art - that's a pretty common thing to have some difficulty thinking differently than a polygon modeling strategy. I mean it's really to be expected if you've spent a long time thinking about modeling things in that particular way.

For NURBS modeling the basic idea is to think more about cutting parts with booleans as a primary way of making the shape.

It can be easier to recognize to use a boolean when you are cutting a hole out of the interior of an object, that just kind of registers in the mind more easily as a "cut".

The part that seems to be harder for polygon modelers (and just maybe in general too) to often see is applying booleans that cut some of the outside part of the object away instead of only cutting away interior holes.

Anyway, that seems to come up fairly often so that general idea of building some extended shape and then cutting off some pieces of it is just something to try and keep in mind when you're deciding how to approach a particular shape. If it looks like there is some kind of underlying broad shape that then comes to some sudden end or has some kind of irregularity in its borders, you'll usually want to model that big underlying shape first and then apply cuts to that.


Once you get the knack of this method though it becomes very quick to construct mechanical shapes which often fit in really well with that technique.

- Michael

Thanks Michael. I just need to use Moi3D more for modeling and when I do this, modeling with Moi3D will become a 2nd nature like C4D polygon modeling is for me now.

Peace,
Rich_Art. ;-)

Cheers

For me learning poly modelling in going to be a very long process (learning curve) for me. I'm competent in C4D and at simple poly models but get frustrated when wanting do something more complex.

But I tend to want to model mechanical hard surface objects anyway, so Moi seems to be more logical way of modelling now and faster.

I have to be honest for me I enjoy modelling more with my trial version of MoI than I do modelling in C4D, but yes I know each has their own purpose.

I just wondering if its poly modelling in general I don't get on with or if its C4D. Wonder if the poly modelling experience in Modo is different?

Steve

Hi Steve,

> I just wondering if its poly modelling in general I
> don't get on with or if its C4D. Wonder if the poly
> modelling experience in Modo is different?

It's hard to say for sure but I wouldn't be too surprised if it's poly modeling in general that you don't like - just in general polygon modeling tends to be not well suited for mechanical type shape modeling. Poly modeling is much more about manipulating a cage of points, basically working in 3D all the time and not really focused on using 2D profile curves.

The poly modeling toolset is really effective for doing sculpted organic shapes, characters, faces, animals, stuff like that. But it's also kind of a generally higher learning curve, it needs more experience and sort of needs developing higher level of 3d spatial awareness. It can take quite a bit of time to develop the skills it requires.


Modo though is a lot more primarily focused on modeling than C4D, and it's not unusual for people using C4D to also use Modo as a modeling tool, so if you do want to do polygon modeling it can be worth checking out. Also if you want to pursue poly modeling there is a streamlined modeler called Silo that is also worth looking into: http://www.nevercenter.com/silo/


For mechanical shapes though you'll usually find those are really well suited for MoI's NURBS toolset.


- Michael