Hi,

I know that the subject line is more of a teaser...BUT...

Being a newbie not just to MOI but 3D graphics software in general, it floors me what some of the "my first attempt at MOI" posts have accomplished - nothing less than stunning!! It would be wonderful if either Michael or someone else would do a MOI tutorial showing how to actually create some of those wonderful architectural pieces.

MOI is wonderfully easy to "pick up" but for someone completely new to 3D graphics, it's hard to wrap my head around DOING an actual project of even moderate complexity. I know if some kind of "real world" tutorial were included I'd be a candidate for purchasing it the first day of release. It's hard to purchase anything, though, without knowing that I'd be able to at least be productive from the get-go.

Maybe I am erring on the side of complexity and assuming that there won't be more complete documentation than what's on the web site currently, which makes it even more frustrating, since a lot of people posting here seem to grasp the program easily due to experiences with other 3D programs.

I am wondering, though, if someone could suggest a sort-of "introductory curriculum" to work with for myself and others who are coming to MOI with no other 3D modeling experience at all.

Thank you very much, and I hope that at least some of this made sense!

- A

I agree, as an old Rhino user from back in the day, I enjoy MOI way more (not to mention the mesher is way better in MOI!) but I find sometimes trying to create certain forms just don't come out the way I would expect.

I was going to post a quick video later of something I was working on to get some suggestions as to what I was doing wrong.

Some tutorials on modeling with MOI would be helpfully!

-Will

You can use the search engine of the forum with the word "tutorials" :)
And you can use any tut of Rhino, FormZ, Solidworks ...for have an idea of the Nurbs working :)

Hi Angeliclight

There are some older scripting tutorials for Rhino that have the commands to model some architectural forms.
-a circular temple and a Pompeian courtyard.

http://3drender.com/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html/rhino/index.html
http://3drender.com/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html/rhino/scripting/chapter3/chp3.html

Although the commands vary from MoI's toolset, the screen shot images might give you some insight into how the models are
constructed.
There' are also a few other complete modeling tutorials with example 3dm files on the site.

This site has free video Rhino tutorials going back to 2003
http://www.rhino3d.tv/

Jesse

> It would be wonderful if either Michael or someone else would do a MOI tutorial
> showing how to actually create some of those wonderful architectural pieces.

Check out some of these links for some tutorials - I think one of Steph's involves doing a church building:

http://bitreality.blogspot.com/
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=510.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=510.4


> Maybe I am erring on the side of complexity and assuming that there won
> t be more complete documentation than what's on the web site currently,

There will definitely be more documentation than what is currently available - I've just prioritized working on the software first.

Once the software for 1.0 is complete (which isn't very far away), then I'll be switching gears and spending about a month or so working on documentation.

So it won't be too long before I'll be able to work on some tutorials and better documentation.

- Michael

Hi Will,

> I was going to post a quick video later of something I was working on to get
> some suggestions as to what I was doing wrong.

That would be great, it helps me a lot to see what problems people are running into also.

A video would be great, but if you want you can just post a model file that shows your problem.

- Michael

I hope we can all work together to bring to light MoI's potential for modeling architectural pieces. I plan to explore this further as I build a Greek temple, however, the video tut I plan to release this weekend is actually a folding knife, not an architectural element. After that I will be demonstrating a technique I used to create an Ionic column capital, so more architectural stuff will be coming soon.

Thank you to those that have contributed to this thread so far...

However, architecture was just chosen as a tutorial's subject matter more because of the "wow" factor and the potential for learning something moderately complex. ANYthing would be a welcome addition.

I am currently examining Modo as an application, too, and from a "newbie to 3D" point of view they seem to do a wonderful job at addressing for a beginner how to get from "Point A" to "Point Wow-look-what-I-can-do" in a step-wise fashion. This has an extremely positive effect upon building program-loyalty just due to the fact that the developers take a personal interest at making sure their users are "up to speed" from WHATEVER level they start with as quickly as possible.

By the way, I certainly didn't mean to imply that the release version's documentation would certainly be lacking, and obviously those already familiar with 3D programs got bit by the MOI bug instantly. And even though I have not used any other 3D programs, I already notice how smooth the workflow and easy MOI is to "pick up". I guess my only point would be more on the "application of the application" rather than specifically how to use it.

Strange, though, because now that I look at it, I don't think a developer even IS obligated to do more than just show "how it works." For those of us, though, that do plan to incorportate a program into our daily work flow, be it business or creative, I am totally appreciative of ANY extra efforts that help to make its use more fluent.

I could relate it to knowing how to play a musical instrument, but not knowing any songs. Being a guitar player myself, and a former teacher, I know when my students learned songs and not just more technique (even though I know they'd progress faster), they tended to come back and want to do more.

And as much as it is an embarassment to admit, I could actually see myself as an expert user of this software...without being able to "create anything cool" with it! The tutorials that you all have provided so far have done much to smash that idea to bits, of which I am extremely grateful.

So please know that all of you who either have made or are making tutorials - they are coming to very good use and I am sorry that you can't be rewarded with much more than a "thank you".

THANK YOU!

- A

I find that when the opportunity is available, it's better to learn a software package >when it's being developed.<

For example, coming from Rhino v2, I'm familiar with drawing curves and lofting, sweeping etc., but I've never moved to that "advanced level" of using construction planes, construction curves, and other advanced methods of constructing models (with Rhino and now MOI)

For example here, just reading the thread where Michael worked out adding the scaling to the sweep tool was helpful to me creating better sweeps (and finally understanding what that scaling option was about...)

Seeing how the curves were placed beforehand was helpful in understanding what the program is looking for as input.

So it's learning the "next level" of using these NURBS modelers that I need some reading up on.

Video tutorials are very helpful because you get to see and hear what the trainer is doing (Digital Tutors have some of the greatest tutorials for XSI and other packages and training like that can't but help teach you how to successfully use an application...)

It would be great to see tutorials similar to those for these packages as well.

At this point in time, I was interested in upgrading my Rhino v2 to v4 to take advantage of the upgrade pricing but I STILL find problems getting decent meshes out of Rhino, MOI on the other hand, seems to be better (I guess Michael has spent some time tweaking the mesher to make the output more "Poly app friendly"!)

So even though MOI has less features than Rhino at the moment, I'm leaning more towards MOI because the meshes I can get out are more friendly with my Lightwave and XSI apps that I'd like to use for rendering.

I really prefer to get NURBS out of MOI into XSI and the few simple Iges exports I've tried so far were pretty decent (BRAVO, Michael) - with Rhino, Iges exports wouldn't work at all...

So for me I find it is great when you can start at the ground level of an app's development because you can grow with the tool as its features are slowly added in.

Of course, you should be able to use an app from day one of it's official release which mean there should be decent documentation and training materials - hopefully what Michael comes up with, will be able to take a MOI user to a very comfortable level of modeling when using the package...

-Will

It's true, MoI has some great export features and that is a major factor for deciding to use it if you use other apps like Maya, XSI, Lightwave, or Modo.

Modo has some great documentation. I tried out its demo and was very impressed. Just about every tool has a short video clip demonstrating its usage and it has helped with building a strong following behind that app. However, I do not use it is because it is overpriced, crashed a lot on one of my laptops with an NVIDIA Quadro fx, has no NURBS support and no brush sculpting tools. I would rather use Blender, Silo, or Hexagon, which are much cheaper solutions for modeling and they include sculpting tools. Right now I am switching to Blender for SubD modeling because it works on Linux, but am keeping my fingers crossed that Silo will be ported eventually.

I hope Moi3D.com will eventually be expanded in a way that will support interaction between the user community. I also sent an email to Michael volunteering to help create short feature demonstration videos for the documentation if he needs the help.

> I hope Moi3D.com will eventually be expanded in a way that
> will support interaction between the user community.

I definitely want to spend some time improving the web site and forum after 1.0 is all ready.

Probably this forum will remain the central interaction spot.

Is there something else that you were thinking of for interaction beyond the forum?


> I also sent an email to Michael volunteering to help create short feature
> demonstration videos for the documentation if he needs the help.

Sorry I haven't gotten back to you on that yet - it would definitely be a big help! I just haven't turned the focus on to the docs quite yet.

- Michael