Hi Andrei - MoI is just primarily focused on making it possible for people to do simple shapes quickly and easily. Lumpy bumpy organic forms are not simple shapes and require a lot more skill and just general 3D spatial awareness to model. Those types of shapes are a priority for sub-d modeling programs so they have all kinds of features aimed at them. Since they are not a priority for MoI and they are a priority for sub-d modeling programs, that's one reason why I often recommend using sub-d modeling for doing organic work.
> Revolve may be a bit faster, but it is very limited versus LOFT.
Your own video seems to prove that revolve is tremendously faster - after the profile curve is drawn doing a revolve takes like 2 seconds. I timed your loft method and you took 3 minutes and 20 seconds to do it, that's 100 times longer! I don't see how you would reasonably describe that as only a minor difference...
Also beyond the speed problem there is also an accuracy problem - your method does not produce an exact sphere shape in the top area, while revolve makes a 100% precise sphere there. Yours is just sort of eyeballed to some approximate shape of a sphere.
There are so many many more steps with the loft method versus revolve for that shape that it takes a substantially higher amount of general skill and familiarity with MoI in order to do your method - if that was the only method available for producing that shape it would mean a lot of people just simply could not create that shape at all, they would have to become an advanced user of MoI just to be able to do that simple shape! MoI is all about trying to make it easier for people to do shapes like that, not needing to be an expert in order to do simple shapes.
re: Extrude - there are all kinds of other situations in addition to interior cavities where extrude saves time, like when you want to extrude on both sides, you just check the option "Both sides" on extrude to do that. If you want to make a tapered extrusion with a 10 degree slant on the side walls, the "Tapered" option makes it easy to produce that. If you have multiple separate shapes that you want to extrude you can select them all and extrude them all in one operation... It's just better at building blocky extruded shapes than loft because it's specifically focused on doing that.
Your own revolve example really clearly shows why it's not possible to just get rid of Revolve. For a lot of construction uses, it's not really of importance to be able to squish the shape into some kind of formless blob after you have created it. I understand that's important to you in particular, and for your use then that's great that you have Loft available with this technique to use for making stuff like that. Someone who wants to make an accurately formed sphere shape would not benefit from your technique though, it would be worse for that kind of a user if they only had Loft available and not Revolve. By having both Loft and Revolve both available it helps both you and other kinds of users as well.
That's one thing to try and keep in mind - other people use MoI for much different purposes than what you are using it for, including doing physical construction of models that must be accurate. Part of the overall focus of MoI is on being able to do things accurately. Again sub-d modeling has a much different focus, more on organic squishability and not really any accuracy at all. That's why I keep on mentioning sub-d modeling to you, since you are putting a high value on making squishable organic shapes, that particular goal aligns very well with what sub-d modeling is pretty much entirely focused on. NURBS modeling is generally more focused on precision as a high priority instead.
- Michael
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