Hello,

I am an artist, having worked almost exclusively in two-dimensional media over the years, but I have taken more and more of an interest in 3D lately. XenoDream has been the only 3D program I have used extensively since I got it in 2002, and even then, it has mostly been for 2D work - until now.

As I started exporting 3D objects from XenoDream and experimented with creating scenes in KeyShot, I thought I should supplement it with other 3D objects that would be faster and more space efficient to make in other 3D modelling programs as the XenoDream ones, by the very nature of how the program works, tend to be hundreds of thousands to millions of triangles - even for simple shapes. It makes for slight imperfections that create realism, but so do subtle bump maps.

I looked at Blender, but the user interface is confusing, and getting into doing what I wanted to do with it seemed complex and cumbersome, and all menus were with very small type on my 15 inch laptop screen. Also, objects exported from it don't always behave the way they're supposed to when imported into KeyShot, for some reason.

I have looked in on different 3D software, Rhino, AutoCAD, Sketchup, Autodesk 123D, Wings3D, Sculptris, and many, many others over the last two weeks, and I was about to give up on my quest to find something easy to use that didn't get in the way of my creativity - a quality I really like about KeyShot when it comes to material assignment, composing, lighting and rendering.

It was then, in some discussion forum, that I saw mentioned a 3D program I'd not heard referenced before, called Moment of Inspiration. I looked it up, and though the website wasn't the most impressive I have seen (which I often find a good sign as it tends to show someone is more interested in making a good product than dressing it up to make it seem better than it is) I found the immediate look of it promising, and downloaded the 30-day trial, and I must say I am thoroughly impressed:

The user interface is uncluttered, intuitive, and friendly to small laptop screens, the tools are easy to find, easy to use, and very, very flexible. When it comes to creating curve-based shapes quickly and easily, I have seen nothing else that comes, close. As I am a big fan of the vector graphic workflow as a frequent user of Adobe Illustrator, I enjoy having much of the same flexibility in a 3D program. And I do like the ease of importing vectors into MoI as well.

I will definitely buy it when my trial period is over (or put it on my Christmas gift list), and I hope MoI does well, getting the recognition and customer base it deserves. It has the makings of greatness, and it has made my life and my journey into the third dimension a lot easier and more fun.

Keep up the excellent work!

Hakon

Yes MoI is so great as a Mo'ai! It's a tool to model and design easily all what you want.
Welcome happy MoIer!

Good MoI

Welcome to the fold Hakon!




I too am a designer that was stuck in the 2D world - and for two decades.
SketchUp was the program that piqued my interest as it was really easy to use and intuitive, but it was a slow program when the poly count increased.
Plus polys were a pain to work with and I really desired curved surfaces - I spent years, like you, used to working with fluid Béziers.

Another personal problem of mine is that I don't take to complicated programs very easy... it's like glancing over a large menu in a strange foreign restaurant.
"Menu-itus" is what I call it.

You might have a small clue why we are such fans of Michael and his very careful work in the development of this NURBS-based application.
Can't wait to see your new 3D work. Plus, you may notice, that unlike large corporations, this software developer intently corresponds with his users continually.

Make sure you visit my tutorials, as there's always something new to learn in MoI.

Hi Hakon, welcome to the forum and to MoI, I'm glad that you MoI is feeling comfortable for you to use!

Thanks for the kind words,

- Michael

Welcome Hakon!
You've discovered the right software and the right place, feel free to ask the forum for help, no question is a stupid question we're all here to help and learn.

@ Mike, I didn't get one of those robes when I purchased MoI! where can I get one and do we wear it when working with MoI ;)

Cheers

" ... I don't take to complicated programs very easy... it's like glancing over a large menu in a strange foreign restaurant."

Come on Mike - don't let a few icons scare ya :)

Ed

Yes, fear first... then confusion... then denial... then anger. :-o

Thanks. I am sure I will enjoy MoI - and the forum.

I have printed out the manual and yesterday, I started working my way through all the different functions to get a feel for how they are to work with in practice. I think I'm roughly halfway through by now, and I keep getting more and more impressed (rather than more confused as one might do with certain other programs). I think I already have some ideas for future version improvements too, though, so I'll get back to that when I know all the current ones well enough.

By the way, I've already found your tutorials on YouTube. I've been through two of them so far. I think they are very good.

I am still working my way through the manual, but I do find MoI very easy to use, and while I was trying out the blending function, I just suddenly and accidentally had something that looked like in-ear headphones, so I just added a tiny speaker and a silicon earbud. I am fascinated by how easy this was to make, practically making itself.

I've not laid them out properly or done anything beyond default lighting, but I thought I'd share a small rendering anyway.

I also included a vase I revolved from a curve yesterday.

By the way, I was trying to fillet the join at the base of the headphones where it goes from an oval shape to a round shape (which I made with a blend), but I didn't seem able to do that. Not sure what I am doing wrong there, so any tips on how to make it work are appreciated.

"""""""By the way, I was trying to fillet the join at the base of the headphones where it goes from an oval shape to a round shape (which I made with a blend), but I didn't seem able to do that. Not sure what I am doing wrong there, so any tips on how to make it work are appreciated.""""""

a "Blend" would not have any joins that would be/need a fillet. The connections would be tangent. That looks like it was made with a "loft" which just made a straight shot from the oval to the circle, but leaves a hard edge at the oval connection. The fillet there will be tricky and probably have one side look creased, but the other side be more tangent (no fillet).

So you CAN run blend there, to get a smooth transition. First, capture the ending circle by doing a drill down selection (click the object, then do a second click on edge (circle) and copy and paste it. Then do a drill down selection on the surface that goes from the oval to the circle and delete it (You now have an open edge on the oval side) Do and extrude of the circle with no caps. Now you can blend the edge of the oval and the edge of the circle. Delete the extruded circle surface and cap the end of the blend and join the surfaces.

It helps with stuff like this if you provide a 3dm file of the model to look at exactly whats going on....

Ah. I probably used loft. I'll try your suggestion, BurrMan. Thanks.

That worked a charm. Thanks a lot.

Today's exercise I set for myself: to construct a regular icosahedron. With MoI's ease of use, this didn't take very long. Time from starting to look at the Wikipedia entry for Isocahedron to get some construction ideas until posting it here: 30 minutes.

Cuty!

Hi Hakon, you may also be interested in some of these previous discussions on polyhedra construction:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2140.46
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2153.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3798.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2275.1

There's also a collection of various models in 3DM format here:
http://www.rhino3d.nl/pythposter/pyth3dm-eng.html

- Michael

Thanks, Michael,

I did a dodecahedron after the icosahedron, so I figured that one out on my own after a quick Wikipedia lookup. It took a little bit longer, though.

I'm not really interested in just the finished shapes as from your last link, at least not right now when I am trying to learn how to use MoI, working with construction lines, setting coordinate, distance or angle constraints, and trying to think more in 3D. It might be useful knowing where to find them some day, though, so thanks for the link.

I have moved on from regular polyhedra to figuring out how to construct gems from cutting charts. That is a bit more difficult, but I think I am on the right track. First time I've done anything very trigonometrical since school, but MoI's construction lines are extremely helpful and powerful. So is rail revolve for quickly constructing cutting facets.

Seems I might get MoI for Christmas from my wife, so I can just keep going once my 30-day trial is over.

Yesterday evening's exercise is completed, with a brilliant cut diamond exactly to the specifications in the cutting chart. It took a few hours, but I now I could do a new one a lot quicker, having a bit of a routine for it.

I think I'll probably do one more just to see how my routine works on another chart before moving on to something else.

Do you have a link to the gem charts?
(I did an asschur cut a while back.)
- Brian

Hello, Brian,

I found it on http://www.facetdiagrams.org/

Here is the specific one I used: http://www.facetdiagrams.org/database/files/pc01006.html