Hi jake, yeah that kind of rock structure is not a good fit with the NURBS modeling techniques that MoI is based on which are more about building surfaces from profile curves rather than making randomized rocky looking things.

You will probably want to look at displacement mapping in a rendering program or ZBrush like others mention above for making something really lumpy and bumpy all over like that.

That kind of project is just not a good fit with the modeling techniques that MoI uses. There are a variety of different 3D programs that use different methods for construction and something like that is a better fit for a different program.

If you had something that was a little more "stylized" in nature, there is a new tool in v3 called flow which is able to map a 2D object onto a 3D non-planar surface, see here for some more information on that:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4856.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5130.5
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5097.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3628.246

- Michael

Thanks for the tips, I agree that MOI wasnt really made for this (I dont have a background in organics either...) and will probably just do it my original way of using a spline and just cutting away the pattern. Using a rendering software isnt an option because I am actually buildng a small locket that i will CNC machine and cast - so I want to get a "real" texture.

Thanks anyways!

Jake

Hi Jake, a lot of rendering programs will have an option to "freeze" or capture the output from displacement mapping as polygon geometry which could then be exported to an STL file, so that's why using a rendering program could still be a possible technique. Not for generating a rendering actually but just for using their displacement and polygon manipulation tools.

You might want to check out Sculptris which is a particularly easy to use organic sculpting program which uses brush-based displacement modeling similar to ZBrush:
http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/emails/operating-system.php

- Michael

Oh I see, interesting. My version of Keyshot does not do that unfortunately. I might check out Sculptris though.

Thanks!

Hi jake, yeah sorry what I was called "Rendering programs" would be better phrased as more like "polygon modeling and rendering programs", which have a bunch of polygon modeling tools with them in addition to rendering stuff. Various programs like Modo, Cinema4D, Maya, etc... fit in this category. But yeah not Keyshot which is focused exclusively on rendering only which is one reason why it's particularly easy to use though.

- Michael

Hi jake & Michael,

Just wondering if ZSurf4 might work for this case?
It could at least create the basic "Surface Texture" for a wall of rocks, that can be used within MoI.

Here's a couple of links for more info about ZSurf4.
http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://bobr.biz/sovety/zsurf4-i-koltso-vsevlastiya-platinum-edition/&ei=olDwS8fEI9GLkAX8ltXWBg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDUQ7gEwBQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dzsurf4%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3Dckk%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official

http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=cs&u=http://www.rhino3d.cz/clanky/zasuvne-moduly/zsurf-tvorba-plastickych-reliefnich-ploch-z-obrazku.html&ei=GVzwS5uTMNGLkAXbltXWBg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ7gEwADgU&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dzsurf4%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official

Also do a search of this Forum for other posts about using MoI & ZSurf4 together.

HTH, Colin

Some links to previous ZSurf discussions on the forum here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3825.2

- Michael

If you want to do a really good job in NURBS, build the house, rock by rock.

I was thinking the same thing Burr! but I was thinking stone by stone ;)

-

""""""""but I was thinking stone by stone ;)"""""""""""

I'm more Neanderthal!

Ugg!

-

If you don't want to shell out big bucks for ZBrush, Blender has a couple of ways of doing it. You can use the sculpting tools, or you can use a displacement map. Both methods will require a fairly high polygon count.

Download Blender for free at...
http://www.blender.org/

Steve S