how should I deal with this object? with a loft, a sweep or a network? by preference it should be a solid object, but if necessary or easier, then a single sheet of ribbon (without thickness) should be ok.

thanks
wim

The end resembles a tapered helix?

1. Draw curve
2. Place short line to the start point
3. Array -> Curve
4. Rotate lines to desired angle
5. Select all lines and use sweep

Your method works well.
What is the easiest way to rotate the line segments?
I used a new CPlane on each line segment, rotated the handle to place the red axis tangent to the curve, (= place an axis parallel to the line segment),
then did a rotate axis. This was lots of repetition.
Maybe a script to semi-automate ribbon twisting would be helpful?
Does swipe mean loft?

- Brian

You don't need any scripts, 5-7 segments should be enough. So rotate them manually.

>> Does swipe mean loft?
Sorry, typo.. I meant to say "sweep" :)

Hi Brian, just a quick note here:

> I used a new CPlane on each line segment, rotated the handle to place the red
> axis tangent to the curve, (= place an axis parallel to the line segment),
> then did a rotate axis. This was lots of repetition.

I haven't looked at the particular geometry here, but usually if you're going to use rotate axis you should not need to place the cplane at all beforehand. Rotate axis does not use any information about the current cplane to do the rotation, once you pick the 2 points for the rotation axis line that defines where it will rotate around.

That's basically why rotate axis exists, so that you can rotate something around some arbitrary line separately from needing to set the cplane to deal with it.

If you're picking rotation points with the mouse instead of typing in a value, you should see that your mouse automatically tracks on a plane normal to that rotation axis line, so there's sort of a temporary cplane used just within that command once the axis line is set.

- Michael

Thanks Michael.
I was doing it the hard way. Much easier to select a tangent line for the rotation axis.
- Brian

thanks everyone, good ideas, perfect, I will try and post the result.

cheers
wim

Max,

how do you get that gloss effect on the ribbon?

tnx
wim

>how do you get that gloss effect on the ribbon?

Options -> View -> Lighting options

Wim,

Please download Dino's Lighting Options dialog script here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5222.48

Place this file inside of MoI's "UI" folder and overwrite the original one.

See this link for the full discussion: http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5222.1

here is the final result, and the related image, both modeled with MoI, rendered with MaxwellRender

wkr
wim

Thanks for the link Mike, very useful!

wkr
wim

Very nice, wim!