Andrei Samardac
You have to read once more what I wrote.

Mauro, I also use this workflow. But Concept can be detailed fully in Sub-D. But as you I also use MoI for this kind of work.

Yes Andrei,no doubts about rims:they are Solid stuff and do them in MOI is a real pleasure!

Hello,

Yes, the PDF is the tutorial I was referring to, did you also happen to see the model file you could download that went along with the PDF?

If it is your intent to eventually have your models produced there is an advantage in putting your time and effort into NURBS than polys. I've found that staying in NURBS can act as a check on your design to keep it in the realm of manufacturing. Your clients may also be able to appreciate this as well, since you aren't giving them something that is nearly impossible to prototype and/or manufacture. Having a good understanding of continuity as it relates to automotive design is probably worth your time to learn about. The AD Shape Modeling plugin (originally VSR) was written by some guys that worked on ICEM Surf. The plugin allows you to accomplish more advanced surfacing (e.g. see the models created by Rauol), while being confident that your designs can be prototyped without so much rework.

Hi Nick,

I agree with Andrei for the most part. If you're into character modeling, then a Sub-D modeler is a good start-- or use a voxel or topology modeler like 3D Coat or ZBrush.

One of the best things about Sub-D is that you can continually 'tweak' the shape of the form, which as you know is all important in concept modeling. If you're planning on building something using NURBs in MoI (or Rhino or Alias like Simon), then you better be correct on the first try, or else you'll need to construct it over from scratch.

That is why you'll see a lot of NURBs models created from real life blueprints and not as much from the imagination, like Vitaly does.

Still, for me, the key is to be as facile as possible in whatever tool you use when creating concept models. If you look closely at Bulgarov, you will see he has created a 'form language' for his models, and he uses it to allow him to 'get it right' on the first (or sometimes second) try. This is really important, and something not easily accomplished-- especially in a 3D modeler. He actually 'sketches' in SoftImage-- I'd assume faster than he can sketch in real life. I also would believe he 'sketches' in MoI as well. I'd bet most of the following were created FIRST in MoI, then imported in SI for final assembly:



He told me the following were done in MoI (and that's the primary reason I jumped into this program to learn).


and I assume:


In fact, I really tried to recreate some of his forms in Lightwave Modeler, as it's very very close to SI in functionality and how it works. See #2 below:


Lightwave:



It was quite a challenge. They were NOT Sub-D but JUST poly only. I still don't know if he used MoI or not for that part of his rail gun. I can certainly see how easy it would be to create in MoI.

I think the point I'm trying to make, is that IF one can actually 'sketch' in their mind, and the application *together*, and 'get it right' the first or second time, then MoI can certainly be great for concept design, just as SI, SketchUp, Lightwave, Nvil, ZBrush and others. For the most part I've been doing a lot of that in MoI on other ID projects (I can't show here). I've found it not that limiting, but then I have had to use SubD for other types of modeling as well. (for instance these are all Sub-D: http://www.argodesign.com/wearables.html )

Yes Sketchup in expert hands can makes miracles!
See this guy! http://600v.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=48
32 pages of Sketchup design crazzy things!
Modeling Sketchup _ rendering Vrayfor Sketchup
By ixlrlxi

Pilou,
Passion can make great stuff!! There is no doubt! But how long Passion can compensate this Polygonal Hardcore?
I'm sure if this man want to evolve he will come to Sub-D.

I am sure he has tried another softs (he has even tried Moi3d, Lumion etc... ;)
but as it's a designer and it's seems he loves SKetchup from a long time so...

Pilou, I also used MoI for a long time to made those MoI LOFT Hardcore. I also tried a lot of other Apps but everytime I back to MoI, thinking that MoI is the best for me, but there was limit of my passion and LOFT Hardcore stopped to work for me. So I become more experienced and found strength to change my workflow to more efficient without loosing Inspiration.
But it is just my experience...

Hi blindfoldjump,

With what you want to accomplish I would take a serious look at formZ. It has great NURBS tools along with new Sub-Division tools and the ability to change a Sub-Division object to a NURBS object in a single click.

Website:
http://www.formz.com/


Here are some videos for creating complex forms (using NURBS) in a previous version of formZ (before Sub-Division) and all the Sub-Division tools. Note some of the videos are for bonzai3d, which is an older subset of formZ, now called formZ jr.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LTD-k2VB-E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvnaKvoEPek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOHP6VMMfDE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NzhMzZg00w


This video shows how to create Sub-Division objects and then convert them to NURBS for additional development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGNucQ83__w


Here are the Sub-Division Tools, starts at the 8:30 time point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbbLNUyUEeA


Create 2D documents from your 3D models:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rfZQOxquM

I love MOI, it is a great modeler, but formZ is really cool, very easy to learn and extremely deep and powerful. It will even do animations of your models. There is a 30 day free trial of the Pro version, so you can check it out yourself.

RobertH,
Nurbs to Poly has big disadvantage you can not modify converted objects. If it is not critical when you just Model something but it is critical when you make Concept.
Practically all stuff that you can make after converting Poly to Nurbs you can make in Poly. So my experience show me that it is better to not convert poly to Nurbs. If yo make some parts in Nurbs you can merge them with .obj.
In Internet there are a lot of video showing how converting Poly to Nurbs is great but on practice I find it useful not so often.

It's hard to imagine something new :)

Hi Andrei,

In formZ you can subdivide objects and have a bunch of Sub-Division tools to manipulate these objects, grow faces or edges, stretch, bridge, squeeze, divide, etc. In addition you can also use the regular editing tools like move, scale, copy, etc on these sub divided objects. When you're finished with this object, you can leave it as is. Or convert it to NURBS or quad-mesh objects. You can of course also make a copy of the sub divided object and hide it, or stick it on another layer and hide that layer, if you want to edit it later.

If converted to NURBS, you can boolean it with other objects (Union, Difference, etc.). You can extract or remove faces and then attach, merge, blend, extend, etc. with other NURBS surface objects.

So in a sense you're right in that you will not be able to edit the object like you could when it was a sub divided object. But in another very important sense it opens up, within a single program, many more options for creating very complex objects and surfaces. You can also make components of these converted objects to be reused in other projects. And it's all very fast and flexible.

So within formZ you can work with regular object (made from extracting lines, surfaces and primitives, etc.), Sub-Division surface objects and tools that work on a per-object bases and NURBS objects and tools like MOI but extended. And they can all be combined.

The NURBS tools in formZ are very powerful and can do a lot of things. Check out the first four videos in my post above.

Of course it's not cheap, costing 3X the price of MOI, but a lot more reasonable than many other apps.

RobertH,
I think formZ have no all necessary tools for real polygonal modelling. For example it has circularize tool, that will create circle from polygons to make holls?

Mixing Sub-D and Nurbs is probably the way to go, I can't wait Max Smirnov work to see how it turns on real projects.

I do not care about the lack of editing, in practice, editing a sub-d cage model from an advanced model like a car body is a nightmare too.

Andrei,

Sure, with a circle tool (three types: one point radius from center, two points diameter, three points: 1 center 2 on edge) set tool option to 3D extrude (six types: 2D surface, 2D wall, 3D extrude, 3D converge, 3D wall, insert opening) and create a cylinder. Move cylinder through object (if you didn't create it in the right place to begin with) and boolean difference, pick object first then cylinder. This works for all objects regardless of surface type.

With planer surfaces (flat) just set one of the circle tools to the insert opening tool option (2 settings: through solid mass, through entire object).

Besides circles there are squares, rectangles, ellipses, and polygons with 3 to however many sides you want (can be changed dynamically) and drawn free form shapes.

RobertH,
I meant this:

Here's a link to Rhino training for making a model of a BMW 5-series:
http://www.mpavlos.biz/index.php?ab=5

He also sells models on his site. Here's a link to his car models to give you an idea:
http://www.mpavlos.biz/index.php?am=3&pr=2

Andrei,

I'm not sure what you mean here ...

I though the advantage of T-Splines and PowerSurfacing (PowerNurbs) is that you had a nurbs model that could be edited easily using the polys.

I used PowerSurfacing plugin in SolidWorks. If I wanted to change the shape of the nurbs model that is generated, I just edited the polys as I would in most poly modelers. At least that's how it functions in SolidWorks.