I've dabbled in 3d modeling for ... Oh, about 20 years now. I just got a Makerbot Replicator 2 last week, so now I have a legitimate use for it and I'm really excited to start designing things and making them real. I'm sure I'll do some amount of work in a subdivision modeler, but there's a certain amount of industrial design type work that I'll want a more CAD-like program for. I've been sampling the options this week and 123D has a pretty good workflow, but is a little too simple. I haven't managed to wrap my head around Cubify Invent or Design (Used to be Alibre). I can see how they're good if you have exact specs to build from, but if you want to do a little experimentation and more artistic workflow, they seem ... Stifling.

So I googled once more for 3d cad programs and discovered a list that included MOI. And I've only played with it for a few minutes tonight but I have very high hopes. It seems to have the combination of precision that I'll want when I'm doing things like designing a pop-up shade for my camera's LCD, but also lets me do things like move objects around freely when I want to design some interesting shapes and experiment a bit. I've only watched 2 tutorial videos so far, but I'm loving what I'm seeing. I'm also happy to see that a version 3 is coming along so the product hasn't been abandoned.

I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions but for right now things are making sense and I'm excited to spend some more time with it. If it's everything I hope it is, I'm going to have a big THANK YOU for making it because there doesn't seem to be anything like it out there, at least not in its price range.

Also, when I registered for the forum it took me to a 404 page after I completed the registration. (for example, http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&final_uri=post.php%253Fwebtag%253DMOI&continue=Continue)

Hi Supagoat, welcome to the forum and to MoI, I hope that MoI will be a good fit for what you want to do, it kind of sounds like it could be!


> Also, when I registered for the forum it took me to a 404 page after I completed the registration.

Thanks for reporting this - this was a bug in registration page of the forum, where it mangled the address for the final destination page. I've got it fixed up now.

- Michael

Hi. Welcome to the path of no return :)

Welcome to the club of people excited to have discovered MoI.

I just discovered it myself a few days ago, after a few weeks of a frustrating look at a whole array of 3D programs that all left me feeling either confused or as if any creative joy had been squeezed entirely out of the process of trying to make something intuitively when inspiration strikes. I had even begun to lose hope there was such a thing, thinking I might have to resort to Google Sketchup or spend the weeks and months needed to get into some needlessly complex 3D program.

In the end, it was the mention in a forum of a 3D program I hadn't heard of before, and that therefore can't have featured very high on any of my initial Google searches, that changed everything.

Unlike you, I have not dabbled much with 3D, or at least not except for 2D art purposes when I've been using XenoDream over the last 11 years, and that is also where I got into 3D when I decided finally to make use of the object export function in XenoDream to make more photorealistic renders of my fractal-based still life pictures, XenoDream always having me left wanting when it comes to realistic materials and lighting.

As I am rather new to any kind of 3D modelling, that could be an advantage too, though, as I don't have any preconceived notions or working habits when it comes to 3D programs.

If I get into it properly, a 3D printer is definitely on the horizon too some day. For now, I am happy just creating things and doing renders, and - as is one of my preferred methods of self-teaching - setting myself creative challenges to learn MoI: Yesterday, I did an icosahedron, a dodecahedron, and yesterday evening I started on making a faceted gem exactly in accordance with its cutting chart. I finished the crown before bed and I am doing the Pavilion - which will be much easier as I spent rather a lot of time figuring out a useful method of doing it.

And it all gives me plenty of exercise in many of MoI's powerful tools: construction lines, restricting angles, coordinates or distances, the move command, the rotate command, boolean operators, and also helps me a lot working on getting my head around the third dimension, which - after so many years of flat artwork - isn't necessarily an instant thing.

Of course, if I really get into using cut gems in my pictures, I'll be saving a lot of work getting GemCad, but for now, I don't mind spending the extra time doing it the MoI way as I am learning so much from it.

There must be something magical about MoI who makes people like you and me wish to express the joy of our discovery right away when we find it, which is also what I did, signing up to the forum within 24 hours of downloading the 30-day trial.

So, welcome again. I think you just have discovered one of the hidden gems of 3D software. Perhaps the only one that makes creating things seem like fun rather than work.