Greetings people!!!


Is there someone out there that can explain me basic modeling? Cus i'm used to sketchup, and MoI is totaly diffrent!!!!

Eventualy i would like to work whit 3dmax or cinema 4d, but since i do not no anything about Bolean, NERBS or MESH modeling i figured that MoI would be a good kickoff!!
If there's someone out there that can teach me how to model a simple house and a bottle by using the most common drawing styles i would be more that thankfull.

I only know how to use extrusion ans revolve (and litle of bolean). This cus i Work whit inventor 11 (wich is similar to solidworks).

After this i want to learn how to use blender 3d, so i can get the hang of rendering, lighting and animating. And eventualy make the big step to 3dmax or cinema 4d
And for some reason i can't figure out how to manipulate basic shapes. HELP!!!!

At work i use invetor 11 and Autocad 2005 so i do understand basic exprsions and handlings (offset, trims etc)



Greets Static!

Hi Static, welcome to the MoI forum!

Yes, MoI has a lot different approach than SketchUp, but this is good because different approaches work better for different kinds of model shapes.

Here are a couple of tutorials and links to get you started:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=402.9
http://bitreality.blogspot.com/
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=510.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=510.4
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=324.6


For a simple house, that's an area where SketchUp works really well. You can do it in MoI but I'd sort of recommend just doing it in SketchUp since it is really tuned up just for that type of thing. In MoI you will basically be doing 2d drawings and extrusions mainly.

What kind of bottle are you trying to make? I mean like a soda bottle, baby bottle, etc... - can you show a picture? That will most likely be based on revolving.

One of the tutorials linked to above shows steps on how to make a Japanese style bath tub by using Lofting, that might give you more of an idea on what you can do with some of the other construction tools than just extrude or revolve.


Once the software for V1 is complete (which is not much longer...) I will be switching gears to work only on documentation for a while, so there should be more documentation available after not too much longer.

- Michael

Thanks michael!!!


That speed tutorial is just what i needed. i haven't treid it yet but i'm sure that it wel help me to take that first big step.
Still i want to know if it's possible to manipulatie basic shapes (cilinder, box etc) after there made. By manipulating i mean enhancing the top square of a box or change length for example.

For now i'm gonna try to model something (a simple house perhaps) and send it to you.



Greets Static Isaac,

Yet 2 easy possibilities Scale and Extrude (One Transform, one construct)

Hi Isaac - the main way to change the length is by Scale1d like Pilou showed above. Let me know if you need more help on how to use it.

But for a box there is another way too - you can select it and use Edit/Show pts to turn on control points for the box, then you can select individual points (or set of them, like the 4 points for the top), and then move or scale just those points.

You can't normally turn on points for just any solid, it only works if every surface in the solid has shared points touching along each edge, which is the case for a box though. For other solids that you can't edit points on, you can use Edit/Separate to break the solid into different surfaces and then do point editing on the individual surfaces.


But in general MoI is set up with the idea that you will be constructing the shape that you're looking for more directly, rather than squishing something else. So for example if you want a box that has a smaller top, you would normally draw 2 rectangles, one for the base and one for the smaller top, and then use Construct / Loft to build the box from those rectangles. That generates the tapered type box more directly.


- Michael

Greets from young grasshopper!!


Once again I have a few questions sensé.


I drew this house and would like to know if it can be modeled in a more efficient way.
Door: I made a box and trimd it. But as you can see the ground surface stil has the form of that box wich i put in. What can i do to make that surface (the floor) complete whit the house again. (don't know how to make surface out of an closed shape)

Window: I made a box and used boolean (For boolean i would like to know if the box is stil there but invisible and still posible to edtit, or is it just gone as in deleted)

Columns: I extrudet a circle, put the first column in place copyd the second and moved it in place aswel. I couldn't find a way to draw the circle on the onder side of the roof face so i could extrude it down (is this possible??).

Is there a posibility of copying whit base point in MoI?
Is there any way to see models in solid view in MoI? Cus for some reason the models are always transparant unles i revolve something.

I know that sketchup is more made for this sort of thing. But my idea was to learn how to draw a house in MoI so i can learn how to work whit NERBS. Actualy I think it's a good idea to add a simple house (whit dormer perhaps) tutorial in your documentary, so that people can learn faster.


That's it for so far.

For know i don't have my own PC so if my explinations aren't that understandable it's cus i'm in a Cyber cafe.


Greets Static!

Seems that for your all questions answer is yes :)
(for the solid view you can select the constructions' lines and press Hide)
You can see some tutorials at this address http://www.formz.com/support/tutorials.html (not moi but Nurbs modeler too)
or here http://www.rhino3d.com/index.htm

Hi Static! Pilou's suggestion to look at other NURBS tutorials is also a good idea. Although some specific things will be different, the general approach will be the same. It can help get you more used the whole NURBS thing.

But it looks like you are starting to get the idea, drawing and trimming things!

I will try to answer your questions here:


> What can i do to make that surface (the floor) complete whit the house again.
> (don't know how to make surface out of an closed shape)

If I understand you correctly, you want to remove the notch that was taken out of the floor and have it all in one single simple piece again? Probably the quickest way to do this is to first delete the current floor. Do this by doing 2 clicks on it - the first click will select the whole house box, and then if you do a second click it will "drill in" to the box to switch to selecting an edge or a face. In this case do the second click on the bottom face (you may want to angle your view so you are looking up from underneath at the floor). Then use delete to get rid of it. Now there is a big empty space for your floor. Run the Draw solid / Plane / Corner. This will allow you to draw a new plane by specifying the corner points. Snap one corner on to one bottom corner of your house box (you should see it say "end" when it snaps), and one to the opposite corner to draw your new plane. Then you can optionally select the new plane and the rest of the house and use Edit/Join to glue them together into one new piece.

When you originally trimmed the front door, you might have wanted to have used Edit/Separate on your box to break it into 6 different pieces, then hidden everything except the front face, then work just on trimming that front surface by itself and later on restored the other parts and joined them back together again. That would have avoided trimming other parts like the floor which you wanted to leave alone.

Then the other tip is instead of drawing boxes as cutting objects, I'd recommend just drawing rectangle curves as cutting objects. It's just a little easier to stick with working with 2D curves as much as possible.


> Window: I made a box and used boolean (For boolean i would like to know
> if the box is stil there but invisible and still posible to edtit, or is it just gone
> as in deleted)

No, in this case the cutting box is gone. I want to extend the history mechanism in future versions to be able to do what you are asking about here, but it does not remember this level of relationships for the current version.


> I couldn't find a way to draw the circle on the onder side of the roof face so
> i could extrude it down (is this possible??).

It's theoretically possible, but it would take some fancy manipulation with construction lines (these are the snapping guidelines that you can create by doing a click+drag inside of a draw command instead of the regular click+release).

In MoI you can't generally just draw directly in the middle of any surface like you can in SketchUp. This is another thing that I would like to add at some point in the future as well, but it will be quite a bit of work especially because MoI has a much wider variety of drawing tools than SketchUp does.

So the way to do it is as you have done - draw it on the bottom and then extrude it upwards. During the extrude you should be able to snap the height so that it matches right up to that top surface.


> Is there a posibility of copying whit base point in MoI?

This is available with the Transform / Copy command, which is a separate way to do a copy rather than Edit/Copy and Edit/Paste. Transform/Copy lets you pick a base point which can be snapped on to a specific part of the object, then lets you pick one or more target points to place the copies. I think it is the type of thing that you're talking about here.


> Is there any way to see models in solid view in MoI? Cus for some reason the models
> are always transparant unles i revolve something.

I'm not quite clear what you mean by this one. If you draw a curve, that will look transparent because a curve does not have any type of "skin" on it yet, you need to create a surface from that curve (by exturde, revolve, loft, etc.. ) before it will produce anything shaded. If that's not what you are seeing, you may need to explain this question a little bit more.


Hope this helps some!

- Michael

Thanks guys I think i'm getting the hang of it now.

Pilou gave me a good idea of how to create a solid view bye hiding all construction lines. If it's posible it would be great to add a solid view option to MoI in the future tough.

Now for my next set of questions:
Why can't I make a hole in a surface just bye drawing an encloses shape (a new surface in the midle of the already existing surface), selecting that face of the closed shape and just delete it?
Are there any shortcut keys in MoI?
Is it posible to ad textures and materials like Glas and wood. Or wil MoI strickly be a Modeling tool?
Are there any free easy to use render software that can be used for Moi or sketchup (this for future plans, first i'l stick to modeling wich i like most)


Here is sometging else i made, a Cup!
I want to Fillet the handel on the surface of the cup so it looks smoother. I know that I first have to manage to get both ends of the handle glued to the surface for that. but i just can't do it!
Since this PC on wich i'm working on is so slow i don't have the paciance to keep trying figuruing this out. Heeeelp!


I also have a Nice tip for PIlou. (btw thanks for them new set of Tut's)
There is this web page caled www.stage6.com. It's like youtube but it uses DivX!! so the video quality is superm.
Posting a Tut video like that column on this site would be awesome!! (do u have anymore Online tut videos??)


If been reading some forums about your future plans for MoI Michael.
I want to know that if the first complete version comes out, wil there still be a beta version whit out exiration date that's available?


As soon as I get my hands on a faster PC I'l try to model something fancy. Cus I acualy designed a Car whit unseen chasis features yet realistic wich i would like ti digitalize in 3D. And now that i'm working my way up whit Inventor11 at work, who knows....meybe i'l be selling that concept to Ferrari (Yeah Right!!)


Crazy in love whit NERBS man!!!



Greets Static Grasshopper!!

Hi Static,


> If it's posible it would be great to add a solid view option to MoI in the future tough.

Check out under Options / View, there are settings for "Display hidden-line curves" and "Display hidden-line edges". Sounds like you might want to turn those off.


> Why can't I make a hole in a surface just bye drawing an encloses shape
> (a new surface in the midle of the already existing surface), selecting that
> face of the closed shape and just delete it?

Well, the literal reason why is that it will take a bunch of work to make that happen, and there just isn't time to make version 1.0 do everything. When you draw new shapes in MoI, they are not attached to other existing surfaces, they are completely independent objects. In Sketchup this is different - Sketchup recognizes that you are drawing on top of an existing object and merges the new drawing into the existing surface. That's why you can do what you describe in Sketchup but not in MoI. In MoI you currently need to use a tool to cut the surface with the new curve, either Trim or a boolean would do it.


> Are there any shortcut keys in MoI?

Yup! There is a default set for common stuff like ctrl+s for save, ctrl+c / ctrl+v for copy/paste, etc.. You can edit them or create your own if you want, make sure you're running the latest beta and go to Options / Shortcut keys. See here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=35.1 or here: http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/ for more information and other useful scripts that you can put on a shortcut key.


> Is it posible to ad textures and materials like Glas and wood. Or wil MoI strickly be a Modeling tool?

For version 1.0 MoI is strictly a modeling tool.


> Are there any free easy to use render software that can be used for Moi or
> sketchup (this for future plans, first i'l stick to modeling wich i like most)

Try one of these:
Kerkythea: http://www.kerkythea.net
Truespace 3.2: http://www.caligari.com/products/truespace/ts3/default.asp
Bryce 5.5: http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?tg=dl-20&qt=bryce%205.5


> I know that I first have to manage to get both ends of the handle glued to the
> surface for that. but i just can't do it!

The first step is it looks like your shape was kind of slanted in position to the path, so you've got kind of a sharp end. Let's chop off the sharp end so that it will meet up with the body of the cup better. To do this, switch to the front view and draw 2 lines, then select the handle, run Boolean / Difference, and select the 2 lines as cutting objects, then delete the small pieces:



Then I scaled that handle down slightly because it was currently running right into the joint between the center part of your cup body and the base part - that's going to make a difficult fillet there so it is best to make the handle only touch the body. Also, again from the front view move the handle so that it is intersecting the body. Then select the main body and the handle and use Boolean Union, this will combine the 2 pieces together:




Then select the 2 edges for where the handle meets the cup body, and then run Fillet. Here I used a radius of 1.0:





> I want to know that if the first complete version comes out, wil there
> still be a beta version whit out exiration date that's available?

No, sorry, there won't be a beta version without expiration date. If there was, there wouldn't be much reason to buy the final version!

There will be some kind of demo version, but it will be limited in some way like only being able to save a certain number of times or something like that.

- Michael

Thanks michael!!

Now can startmaking more intresing models.

I would like to know what exactly de diverence is between NURBS an Mesh. I'v been looking up some information about meshes wich now I understand. But what are NURBS? I only know that there's high and low polygons.

Forgot to ask how i can insert blueprints in form of a box (like in car modeling)

Greets Isaac,

Hi Isaac, for blueprint images you can use the View / Image command to insert a bitmap image (like a .png or .jpg file) as an image plane.

See here for more information on the different image options: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=325.1

- Michael

> I would like to know what exactly de diverence is between NURBS an Mesh.

Hi Isaac, there are a lot of details but I will try to sum it up.

A polygon mesh is made up of a bunch of points and then there are flat polygon facets that connect between the points to form a skin. The skin is what you see in a rendering, there are some shading tricks that are done to make it appear visually that the skin is smooth even though it is made up of little flat pieces.

A NURBS surface is also made up of points, but instead of connecting the points with flat pieces, mathematical formulas are used to blend the points together to make a smooth curve, called a "spline curve".

The nice thing about NURBS is that since it is a true curve it can more accurately represent a smooth surface than a bunch of flat little pieces can.


Now, there is a variant of polygons called "subdivision surfaces" which are actually related to NURBS but also have some differences.

If you want some more details on NURBS, you can look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NURBS
http://www.rhino3d.com/nurbs.htm

- Michael

Hey michael.

Thanks for the nurbs details.

Unfortunantly i haven't had much time to mes around met MoI lateley. But i'm still going to do my best in modeling soething fancy in the nearby future!
Talking about future. When is Moi going "1"? And are there going to be anymore Betas befora that?

Wil there be a posabilaty to use a 3d mouse (space navigator etc.) in Moi?


Thanks for all the atention u have been giving me!!!!!!!


Till my next question,



Greets the static modeler!

Hi Isaac,

> When is Moi going "1"?

Not too much longer, the biggest thing left to do is to work on documentation. Soon I will be switching gears to focus on that and once that is done then version 1.0 will be ready.


> And are there going to be anymore Betas befora that?

Yup, at least one more. The next one will probably be the last one, although it is possible that there might be more to test any major bug fixes.


> Wil there be a posabilaty to use a 3d mouse (space navigator etc.) in Moi?

Yes! In fact I just finished the work on this yesterday. This and .AI file export are the major new things for the next beta. I'm just working on fixing up a variety of other smaller details and bugs before wrapping it up.

- Michael

Can I ask, being a newbie and certainly not any kind of malicious spirit advocate, what .AI export is used for? I am assuming this is for Adobe Illustrator...in my thoughts, though, things from MOI seem to be targeted torward a renderer, not a 2D vector program.

But hey, if I'm wrong, I just learned how to do something cool with these two programs!

Since it's a 2D program, would the export be from the view you're currently looking at?

Thank you,

- A

Hi Angeliclight - yes it's for Adobe Illustrator or also other 2D vector illustration programs.

It's true that a lot of stuff in MoI has been positioned towards 3D renderers so far, but I do expect to be adding more stuff for 2D type illustration in the future as well.

The ultimate goal for MoI is not really so much just 3D or 2D, more just on generally drawing and creating designs.

Sometimes you may want to use 2D output of a design and sometimes you may want to use 3D output...

Some people will probably prefer to do some kinds of 2D drawing within MoI and then export it to Illustrator.


> Since it's a 2D program, would the export be from the view you're currently looking at?

When you save to an AI file, a dialog will pop up that lets you pick the projection view to use:



- Michael

Hi Michael
When you say "projection"
Is it just the "window view" top, back etc
or it's also a real "projection" to a plan of curves who can be inclined in the 3D space?
So "deformated" as projected in result on the plan

Hi Pilou - one of the choices is to use the 3D view, which will do a projection to the 3D viewport's view plane which can be inclined in different directions.

With this option, the resulting 2D curves in the AI file will have the same appearance as what you see in the 3D view.

Is that what you mean?

- Michael