Gentlemen, and ladies hopefully, with this being my introductory post, first I would like to greet you all, as well as offer my thanks to MoI project leader and developers for creating such a wonderful piece of software. I, a complete newbie when it comes to 3D art, have managed to make models with complete ease. The attachment is proof - the entire model which is a good approximation of a 1:35 tank road wheel, took me, well, maybe not just a few minutes, but neither an entire day spent slavishly in front of the computer. MoI devs, you've got yourselves a devoted fan. Not to mention the fact, that I can do something my wife, a 2D graphic artist (in training, although) wouldn't touch with a 3 meter pole.

Still, enough schadenfreude, frankly, I'd have two questions, one concerning the interface and one about general modelling techniques.

Interface: is an object inspector planned for MoI? I wouldn't mind having something, where I could check exact dimensions, as well as adjust them a bit.

Technique: first, in order to explain my problem, I need to write a bit more about what I need a 3D modelling tool for. Perhaps some of you have heard of Makoto Kobayashi or Yokoyama Kow, two Japanese SF modellers. Right now, I'm toying with an idea of recreating some of their designs in 1:35 scale, perhaps add some of my own as well. For real life modelling, I use various scale model parts, kitbashing as I go, but some things are impossible to get or just too hard to make. Now, I've found myself a company, offering cheap rapid prototyping services, what made creating 3D models of hard to make parts and printing them a possibility. Unfortunately, I need to keep all parts in the same scale. The question is: would it be more feasible to draw 1:1 models and then scale them down, or draw in 1:35 from grounds up? Second option seems easier to me, but I've noticed, distortions in scaled down dimensions. Advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Paul, welcome to the forum! I'm glad that you are enjoying using MoI.

> Interface: is an object inspector planned for MoI?

I do plan on doing something like this for version 2.0, but it will be a little while before that happens. The initial 1.0 version is nearly wrapped up now.

Some type of object management / object list, and object properties are pretty big priorities for the next version.

Version 1.0 is mostly focused on doing just the initial drawing and creating of shapes quickly and easily.


> The question is: would it be more feasible to draw 1:1 models and then scale
> them down, or draw in 1:35 from grounds up? Second option seems easier to
> me, but I've noticed, distortions in scaled down dimensions.

Hmmmm.... I guess it shouldn't matter too much either way, I guess whichever one seems easier or most convenient would be the way to go.

I'm not sure what kind of distortions you were seeing, do you have an example of that?

One guideline though, you generally need to create your models at a unit system and scale where you don't have either very large or very small numbers. Like for instance, you shouldn't draw objects with coordinates like 0.0001 or 1,000,000.0, try to keep things in a more simple and compact numeric range. You need to use coordinates more like 100.0 or 0.1, not too extreme.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to post them on the forum here!

- Michael

Glad to be here, indeed I am.

OK, so an inspector is in the works, future at least. Great! Although for now I'll need to use some crutches, like drawn rulers and guidelines, I think I'll manage. I do have access to Rhino, but frankly, I found its interface, in comparison to MoI, somewhat clunky and lacking when it comes to agility and speed - even though I could kill for Penguin renderer.

As for scale drawing, it is more of a quandary than one might think. While I'm not using any plans for my work, a few of my colleagues do, and that makes using the scale unavoidable. On the other hand, 1:1 allows to produce a model in any scale, and since I am unencumbered by the need to use "plans", I can use this method. Decisions, decisions... And yes, I can understand why too large objects are hard - instant death of memory and resources.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll be posting more of my stuff as soon as I make it.

Hi Paul, it will be cool to see what you build!

If you need to draw something of an exact size, it is easiest to draw it that size right from the beginning. You can usually enter specific values for things. Like for instance if you want to draw a rectangle of a certain width and height, enter that width and height in the command options area which appears in the upper-right corner of the screen.

You can also use "distance constraint" when you are drawing a line (or other things) - to do this, enter a number in the "d" box that shows the current distance from the previous point, it is on the bottom toolbar right below the current x,y,z coordinate display (which is also where you can enter a specific x,y,z coordinate for the point you are currently drawing).

There are some shortcuts for this also - most of the time if you just type a number it will start your typing in the first available numeric edit field.


One quick note about Rhino - you can actually copy and paste objects back and forth between MoI and Rhino, so it can work pretty easily to move something into Rhino for some particular operation that Rhino does, and then bring your model back into MoI again.

- Michael

Phew! Had a coniunction of family occassions this weekend, and thus failed to do much. Blast! Still, I've continued playing around and must say, that the program gets easier and easier by the minute. Applying any kind of transformations is trivial. Lately, I've tried some not-so-serious lofts, and within a few minutes of scanning, drawing and lofting, I had a very respectable aircraft fuselage. Of course, I've used a relatively easy design, namely that of a Messerschmitt Me 262, which is very fluid and lacks difficult areas (in comparison to, say, WW I aircraft), but the whole thing works like charm. Still, I wonder whether I could have done it faster with Network command, but I'll be finding out quite soon.

Also, I've taken your advice to heart, and started drawing my own designs in 1:1. The program works great, although does tend to slow down when the grid gets large. Usually, I set units to milimeters, grid and snap to 1, major lines at 10 and have enough grid sections to cover approx. 64 m3 of space (2000 grid sections), and I have no problems with slowing down whatsoever, but when using larger grids, say 5000 sections or even 10000 (hopefully I will not need that much, though still, you never know), I've noticed that response time gets a bit longer. Still, that is to be expected, especially since my OS needs an urgent reinstall and my whole rig is three years old (Athlon 64 3000+ and a GeForce 5700 with 512 megs of RAM). On the other hand, however, I don't have to draw entire skyscrapers, so I guess my "problem" is mainly an academic one.

One last thing, although I have expected it, I am greatly pleased by the fact that MoI output files are so compact. My previous project weights, as far as I remember, some 30 kilobytes, and while I do have disk space to fill, it still is quite nice. If only my wife's PSD's were this small...

< although does tend to slow down when the grid gets large
@Michael : so maybe the infinite grid in ortho views can be help :)

Perhaps my offerings today will be meager, but I had a very busy week. Still, I have to say one thing: Revolve and Array functions are God's gift to mankind! After learning, how actual tank wheels are made (usually by means of massive presses, bending sheet metal en masse or, failing that, huge casting machines and CNC mills), I've managed to make a good looking road wheel rim WITHOUT abusing the Extrude command. Files are attached. Pretty simple thing, but damn gratifying. Next stop, tires, axles and swing arms.

Damn, I'm having fun.

Looks good Paul, it seems like you're getting more comfortable with the tools!

- Michael