Taking a moment to say hello. I'm a geezerly type that was in on the birth of the CAD industry more than 30 years ago - digital mapping (records conversion at that point), tool & machine design, etc.

I've drifted off into other areas in the last decade but have missed drawing, so here I am & I'll attempt an attachment of my first MoI project.

It's the face plate for the OEM stereo from my e30 BMW. I have a new JVC in the dash & like the features, but it looks absolutely wrong in a 23 year old panel. This is the first step toward correcting the appearence of the new stereo.

I'm also interested in drawing up a boat that will ultimately replace all that I own & haul me off into retirement - in other words, I need to develop skills. I do understand that MoI isn't engineering software, but I am having fun playing with 3D modeling & will appreciate suggestions & constructive criticism.

Thanks Guys

Hi Jed - welcome to the forum and to MoI!

Your faceplate looks great, it looks like you are off to a great start with MoI!

- Michael

"""""""" I do understand that MoI isn't engineering software, but I am having fun playing with 3D modeling & will appreciate suggestions & constructive criticism."""""""""

Hi Jed,
Just to be clear, MoI "IS" a CAD program... It's still in early stages of development, and doesnt have a plethora of advanced toolsets. I wasnt sure if you knew this, or if that is what you were refering to.

Anyway, see you around :)

uhmmm - why is this happening?

hmmm

More info is needed... Looks like a "network" with incorrectly defined curves, or a loft that needs some attention in how it is setup... But it's hard to tell from a screengrab... Can you post the curves and list the command you are attempting to run?

I'm using Loft, & no - I have no idea what I'm doing.

Try selecting the blue and running network from this file. You can also do it with loft. The curves would have to be selected properly.

Here are a couple links to past ship hull threads.. Something to pay attention to, is, like in this file, if you refer to the bow after doing network on the blue curves, you will see it is not a very quality surface. In the threads linked to here, Michael discusses building the initial surfaces "Larger and going past those boundries", then trimming them back to the dimensions... This makes for a more well defined surface...

The links talk about some of the pitfalls that others have faced, and provide some solutions...

http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3002.1

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3052.1

My little video can also gives some ideas and process
(in French but very visual ;)
Script is given on the page : moveslicetopoint
http://moiscript.weebly.com/deacuteplacer-des-objets.html

Yeah, I saw those threads but there's some assumed knowledge there that I don't have - I needed to start drawing lines & see what happened. Like this one - http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3814.1 - I saw that thread & ended up doing a reasonably respectible P51-D canopy.

Do we have any MoI Basics for Idiots tutes that I've missed? Something that works through basic element commands & how they work w/ pick sequences, etc?

Thanks Guys

The help file tutes are suprisingly good at doing that... Under the help button, leads to these:

http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/tutorials.htm

I would use "network":

then "mirror":

I found 'em - thanks

I could've paid more attention to high school French, but that's a slick process for building up a hull. In my case I have no rib or bulkhead sections - just making that part up - & I can see from jtucker's surfaced examples that they need to be tweaked into a more-smoother hull form.

Fun Stuff!

Thanks Guys.

Hi Jed, so actually ship hulls are actually a pretty advanced and difficult shape to tackle, to get a good one is something that will take some time while you experiment with the freeform surface creation toolset - just in general things that are all swoopy and don't have a lot of 2D nature to them tend to require fiddling with a much more advanced area of modeling.

So it's a pretty huge jump in difficulty level from the face plate that you posted at the start here.

- Michael

That's true, but I'm not completely without experience. It's just a new program that handles differently. Most of the modeling I've done in the past has been wireframe stuff, not for appearances’ sake but for establishing cut paths & the like … & that was awhile ago.

This is pretty impressive software - it’ll dent my Guinness budget but I am planning to buy it.

Thanks again guys, cool forum too.

Hi Jed, that is a nice looking hull that you were able to cook up there, so that's cool!

- Michael

looks nice indeed. :-)

Just a tip, try to grab your screen with ALT + PRINT SCREEN. :-)
It will only grab the active window and not your whole screen. You can keep things hidden like your taskmanager and current running applications.

Or use this cool script,
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/#CaptureScreenToFile




Peace,
Rich_Art. ;-)

Windows 7 has a built-in capture utility. "Snipping Tool"

Just clcik the start button and type Snipping Tool.

Indeed but as far as I can see he uses WinXP. :-)

Peace,
Rich_Art. ;-)