Hello,

The vector output on MoI is excellent in my opinion and can be used along with drawing applications to produce full vector drawings including backgrounds. Here is a raster grab of a few of the full vector images.

Hi guyver (DAVGIAN)

re: Toolbag2 looks great, it would be great to have a MOI AppLink or something else.

Marmoset Toolbag2 makes excellent renders, it's fast (like instantaneous, though I've not tried it on large models), relatively cheap, and easy to use. You can render out in lots of different sizes. The turntable animation display feature is great, with object, sky and camera automated rotation at different speeds, plus it can generate a series of captures, so you can create a video. There are 25 materials included and you can make your own using Photoshop, Substance Painter, etc.

It's really easy to move a model from Moi to Toolbag2, just same your model once as a regular Moi file, save out as an OBJ file, and import the mesh into Toolbag2. You can then make changes in Moi, delete the item in the Toolbag2 scene tree and re-import the mesh. To make this process faster I save the OBJ file from Moi in a single keystroke with no dialog box, see below. Also when importing a mesh, if you keep the import mesh dialog box sorted by date, your Moi model will always be the first item in the file list. It takes like 3-5 seconds to do.

A couple of downsides to Marmoset. It does not support a 3D mouse. On large monitors the UI is tiny.

Note that if you want different materials on separate parts of your model don't union/join them together in Moi, and give them a different name in the Object list, or don't name them at all. Applying a material to a model is just drag and drop.

====================

Michael put together a keyboard shortcut script to save out an OBJ file in a single key stroke with no user dialog (make sure to save your model once because it needs a current file name to work):

script: /* SaveAs OBJ no dialog */ var name = moi.geometryDatabase.currentFileName; if ( name != '' ) { moi.geometryDatabase.saveAs( name.substr(0, name.length-3) + 'obj', 'NoUI=true' ); }

Look at this discussion for setting the various SaveAs parameters: "File Scripts" 7119.1

I've used the following settings with great results and assign it to a function key:

function DoSaveAsObj() {
var name = moi.geometryDatabase.currentFileName;
if ( name != '' ) {
moi.geometryDatabase.saveAs( name.substr(0, name.length-3) + 'obj',
'NoUI=true;Output=quads;Display=shadedwithedges;Weld=false;Angle=3;MaxLength=3;MaxLengthApplyTo=curved' );
}
}
DoSaveAsObj();


Here is that function as a single line script:

script: /* SaveAsObj no dialog */ var name = moi.geometryDatabase.currentFileName; if ( name != '' ) { moi.geometryDatabase.saveAs( name.substr(0, name.length-3) + 'obj', 'NoUI=true;Output=quads;Display=shadedwithedges;Weld=false;Angle=3;MaxLength=3;MaxLengthApplyTo=curved' ); }


HTH

Thank you Pascal & Stefan
Happy New Year

Just got an email from Marmoset:

Now through New Year's Day all Marmoset software is 30% OFF

native modo, vray for modo, or octane for modo.

each has their own strengths. For quick and dirty renders, I use octane. For anything with more complicated materials, I use vray or modo

Just emailed Marmoset asking if they still had a sale going on (doesn't hurt to ask right?). It's 10:15 California time and they answered right away! Now that's great service. I missed the sale but will give the try-out a go for sure!

-Alan

Robert: I'm trying the demo of Toolbag2. How you handle not having a UV map from Moi? I'm finding that you need a UV map in order to apply textures.

THanks,
Alan

Maxwellrender

@ OSTexo: how / with what did you generate these raster shadings?

tnx
wim

Hello,

AI CS6, along Astute Graphics plugins Phantasm and Widthscribe2. I really prefer CorelDraw but they just don't have the plugin support of Adobe products, if they did I'd spend all of my time there. By the way those are actually full vector images including the background.

Hi Alan (Dooki),

One of the things I liked about Moi was it always generated good meshes that Toolbag2 took advantage of while texturing. Other apps I have used that are strictly modelers, like Moi, would only allow Marmoset to apply "smooth" textures like metals, whereas Moi allowed materials like Quixel Brick which has a lot of bumpy texture. Forgive me if I am stating the obvious here, but in Toolbag2 you can use some of the included shaders by using the little menu besides the "Duplicate" button in the upper right hand panel and selecting one (like Quixel Brick), then dragging it on to your model. For different textures in different parts of your model you need to have separate objects to apply the drag and drop shader to.

I haven't been using Moi that long but it has always worked in generating UV's. In my post #27 above, I use the following settings for creating an OBJ file:

Output=quads;
Display=shadedwithedges;
Weld=false;
Angle=3;
MaxLength=3;
MaxLengthApplyTo=curved;

Maybe other settings, (or other file types for that matter) for generating (.OBJ) Object files in Moi do not create the proper UV's. Michael would know about that.

HTH or maybe I am missing your problem, sorry.

Hi OSTexo,

Yes, its nice to be able to get a rendering converted to a vector graphic for a few reasons. I've seen images converted through Phantasm but have not actually tried it myself.

I'm curious now about using SVG with some images as an alternative to PNG for web use.

tnx @ OSTexo!

Thanks for the export as 3DS trick!

Are ther all explained renderengines are also good wit n-gons and tris? It's a lot of timeconsuming to made a retopology e.g. in 3DCOAT, but some renders are making fine renders also with tris/n-gons?

Only quad-polygons would be better, yes, but I think its only a must in organic models :) or? whats your opinion?!

Hi Lordfox,

> Only quad-polygons would be better, yes, but I think its only a must in organic models
> :) or? whats your opinion?!

As far as I know if you are only going to be rendering the model there is not any inherent advantage to having all quads. When you hear about needing to model with all quads it's because those quads are going to be used as a control cage for sub-d smoothing - that's when you do want to have all quads. When you're just going to be rendering a model directly and the model is not going to have sub-d smoothing applied to it and is not going to be animated in some bendy way there isn't any really any particular reason why all quads is better than any other kind of polygon structure...

Often times people have heard the "must have all quads" advice a lot because they are in a discussion forum where sub-d modeling is the primary thing that is happening to the polygons. When that's not happening (when it's just direct frozen non-sub-d smoothed polygons being rendered) the "all quads" advice basically becomes out of context.

> but some renders are making fine renders also with tris/n-gons?

All renderers that I am aware of with the exception of Blender can make 100% fine renders with just triangles. Blender is somewhat finicky since without some tweaks it does not support reading in the vertex normals smoothing information from OBJ files which is very important for making good quality renders from CAD data. N-gons are a little trickier, many programs have difficulty dealing with complex n-gons but Modo and Cinema4D have good support for them. If you are not using Modo or Cinema4D you may need to switch from "Output: N-gons" to "Output: Quads & Triangles" when saving out from MoI in order to avoid n-gon triangulation problems in your receiving rendering application.

If you are looking to have a nice render there is not any reason why you should need to do retopology, you would be doing retopology if you have some particular special needs separate from rendering like trying to hand optimize polygon count, trying to prepare a mesh for sub-d smoothing, or trying to prepare a mesh for bendy animation. Those are all special circumstances separate from just doing a render of your model.

- Michael

Just an update. About a year ago now, I forked out for KeyShot Pro. I actually bought Alibre Pro that came with the CAD version of KeyShot, but I soon tired of having to bring all models over to Alibre to get them into KeyShot. Hence going to the Pro version so I can bring in other file formats. Most of my work is from TurboCAD but I have a couple MoI models / KS renders, a couple SolidWorks model / KS renders and a few Alibre models / KS renders . If you are interested in seeing my KeyShot gallery have a look here: http://www.textualcreations.ca/Flash_Gallery_KeyShot/KeyShot_Gallery.html

The attached mouse was modeled in Moi and rendered in KeyShot. I used a top view to mimic a model and render I had seen by someone else that I really liked.

P.S. Although really costly, I can recommend KeyShot Pro as a possible render engine if you are looking for someway to render your MoI models.

Numerous models indeed and cornucopia site!

PS You can add to your list the fabulous TwinMotion 2019 &/ or 2020 as renderer and of course many other things! ;)
And piece of cake : that is free for personnal use is you have download it when Epic Games bought the original ! ;)
For commercial use it's (498$ / 2 ) till december 2021 ! ;)

Don -

+1 for Keyshot Pro (Although definitely not in the low cost category as some other programs mentioned in this thread.)

My workflow is MoI > Keyshot > Affinity Photo. I export EXR from Keyshot and Tone Map / Post Edit as 32 bit in Affinity.

Ed Ferguson