Also if your previous experience is mostly around poly modeling, the NURBS modeling approach that MoI uses is quite different than that, so that can take some ramp up time to get used to as well.

Check out here for some links to discussions and general tips for people who are coming from a sub-d / poly modeling background:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4865.2

One big difference is that booleans and cutting operations are a primary way of doing things with NURBS modeling, and you want to work more with 2D curves to generate a lot of things rather than squishing things around with 3D point cages like you would with poly modeling.

NURBS modeling tends to be really good at doing blocky mechanical shapes very quickly. Poly modeling is good for characters and faces and organic shapes like that, which respond well to a sculpting and 3D cage type workflow.

Often times vehicles are in a kind of gray zone not really all the way on one side or the other of those categories though.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the advice on this. I was thinking of combining Blender with MoI, e.g. build a car body using polygons (or NURBS!) and do all of the mechanically bits using NURBS, i.e. wheels, suspension etc etc. I think that would be a good combination, because I don't want to simply abandon Blender after using it for 3 years. As you say though I'll have to practice, practice, practice in MoI before making anything significant!

Hi Mike,

I cracked the wallet open last night and bought myself a licence to the program. :) I've not had much of a chance to experiment with different shapes, but I was wondering if it's possible to create a zebra pattern for analysing continunity between surfaces?

Hi GrandeP, thanks very much for your order!

> but I was wondering if it's possible to create a zebra pattern for
> analysing continunity between surfaces?

MoI does not currently have a zebra pattern function, but you can get much of the same effect by turning on reflective style lighting. To do that set the check box for "Metallic lighting" which you can find under Options > View > Lighting options.

- Michael

Thanks Michael, that metallic lighting looks very handy. I watched a tutorial on how to make a wheel, that was in Rhino however, and now I have absolutely no idea what to make first... *this always happens* :(

Hi GrandeP,

> I watched a tutorial on how to make a wheel, that was in Rhino however, and
> now I have absolutely no idea what to make first...

Do you have a link to the tutorial?

The first step would likely be drawing a profile curve and then using Revolve to create the starting base shape.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

The wheel modeling tutorial can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bezdc2XjEV4

There's also this but it's in Alias http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Dm4Jv3Nx0

Hi GrandeP,

> The wheel modeling tutorial can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bezdc2XjEV4

I took a quick look at the start, and the first operation in the tutorial looks like a revolve of some curves that he has drawn previously.

So your beginning step to follow along would be to draw in curves similar to what he shows there, then do a revolve on them.

To do that, switch to one of the 2D views, like the Top view, and in MoI launch the curve drawing tool under Draw curve > Freeform, and draw 2 curves something like this:



Select those curves, and then run Construct > Revolve - when you run a command it's a good idea to look in the upper-right corner of the window where it has the prompt that tells you what MoI is expecting for you to do next. In this case you'll be picking the revolve axis, pick the 2 points for the revolve axis on the left side of the curves like this:



That will then generate the disc type shape like this:




That looks like how you'd get started in MoI following along that particular tutorial...

That particular tutorial says in the start that it skips some steps about constructing the curves, so you need to know how to draw curves first before you'd be able to do that one. I'd recommend first going over these introductory tutorials here instead:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/tutorials.htm

Those ones go over things in much more detail and don't skip any steps, they should give you a better introduction on the general process of how to construct things.

- Michael