HI MIchael,
"Organic models tend to work better with sub-d modeling, where things work kind of more like sculpting where you're working on manipulating a cage of points in 3D space."
Just want to add some words.
Here we say that there is Nurbs for hard surface and SubD for Organic. I think it is right only in context of MoI. Because there is Surface Modeling and it is also Nurbs and allow to create very complex organic shapes. But MoI have no Tangent option in tools like Loft, sweep, network, also it lucks some tools. You can get out from some situations using Blend but you can not go far away only with this tool.

I just want to clarify for some new users, that for creating Organic shapes there are 2 ways:
SubD and Surface Modeling.
With Surface modeling you have deal with Surfaces not Solids. MoI now is greate for Solid Modeling but Surface Modeling in MoI is not so good.

For SubD you can use Polygonal Modeler (Quality of surface is not very good) or any SubD module that now has a lot of CAD software(it has much better quality than polys).
It is very fast and simple method. But it is so hard to control precision, fillets and other...

Or you can use Surface Modeling, quality of surface is superb, and you can control everything with precision. (SolidWorks, Rhino, Alias, Fusion 360, SolidWorks)
For some people SubD is more simple for another Surface Modelling is more intuitive.

Hi Andrei,

> Because there is Surface Modeling and it is also Nurbs and allow to create
> very complex organic shapes.

Although this is sort of technically true, in actual practical use trying to do organic shapes with NURBS surfacing is a very advanced and finicky type of workflow. In the far past NURBS used to be used for organic characters too in things like Alias PowerAnimator, before sub-d modeling became generally available. But during the past 10-15 years or so sub-d modeling has really totally replaced this type of NURBS use (for organic characters), because the way sub-d modeling works is just inherently easier for organic shapes.

Continuity tools do not just automatically make complex organic NURBS surfacing very easy - even in the most full featured and super expensive NURBS tools like Alias it is still a very finicky process, it gets particularly difficult to deal with surfacing irregular boundaries and when there is pressure being put on a patch trying to make it smooth from multiple sides.

Over the many years I have been involved with NURBS modeling I have seen many many many people try to do patch-by-patch organic skins with them and only the very most experienced users tend to have much luck with it.


> Here we say that there is Nurbs for hard surface and SubD for Organic. I think
> it is right only in context of MoI

No, not at all - it's a very difficult and advanced style of modeling for NURBS, in any NURBS based program. It may be especially difficult in MoI because I have not really focused much effort on trying to support that workflow because I know through experience that it is a difficult and finicky type of workflow and so I don't really want to waste my limited development type working on something that is not a good fit for the technology. Instead MoI is focused on the areas where NURBS modeling is a natural and easy fit which is for mechanical models formed mostly through use of 2D curves. That's the area where NURBS modeling provides the most natural fit and shows its most power and modeling speed.

Different toolsets tend to be better at certain kinds of modeling - NURBS toolsets tend to handle mechanical shapes very well, while the sub-d modeling approach becomes extremely unwieldy and difficult when you want to cut a hole in something. For many organic shapes the reverse is true - NURBS modeling (in any package including the most expensive and fancy ones) struggles with organic shaping while sub-d modeling handles it very well since you can connect polygons in any kind of topology you want and have them automatically smoothed down. This is just the nature of the 2 toolsets, they have different approaches and you will have greater success and less frustration if you use these toolsets on cases where they are strong in. You will run into frustration if you try to use a toolset in an area where it is weaker. This is important advice for someone just learning these toolsets to understand so that they can use the right tool for the particular job at hand.

At some point in the future I would like to add in poly modeling tools in MoI too so that people can also do organic shapes better with MoI. But the initial (and still current) main focus of MoI is trying to make the best parts of NURBS modeling (mechanical shapes from 2D profile curves) available to people other than just mechanical engineers, because for the right type of model you can gain a huge amount of speed using NURBS and it is also a lot more accurate for making things like precise circles and stuff like that.

Back a while ago many people in the entertainment industry were saying "NURBS are dead", because they were awkward to use in 3D animation programs like Maya and Max and users struggled trying to use them for organic character shapes but were much more successful using sub-d modeling. But these tools did not focus very much on the particular areas where NURBS is actually very strong in, so many of these people just didn't know that they were not really using the right tool for the job. MoI was created in order to show how NURBS modeling can be useful and quick for many types of models, other than organic shapes.

- Michael

Michael,
Now I'm working on product design we creates design prototypes for real pistols.
The forms are very organic especially on plastic parts of guns on handles, I use SubD for this and some times have problems where for example I can not set precise fillet or create precise Picatinny Rail that is organically inbuilt in organic body. It is real problems. My colleague use Alias and prepare my models for production adding precision etc. And I must say hi works super fast may be a bit slower than I. Even though Alias is not so good in parametric and he works like in MoI where he collapse all history to avoid breaking up model. So I just want to say that if you understood how Surface modeling works it is not so hard to use it. Basically for me was very hard to dig into SubD I spend about 1 year till I totally dig into it. But Surface modeling is more natural and close for me, because I started from MoI and spend a lot of times doing organic stuff with MoI exaggerating Loft. And still some times SuD looks for me a bit foreign even though I use them more than Nurbs.
I think if you add some tangentcy to tools it will be big step forward.

Hi All,

I think that this Mike's post http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5470.1 is a very nice example of endless possibilities of fantastic MoI :-)

For organic surface modelling in MoI it could be useful some script like "Select points under (freeform) curve" or polygon selector which allow select non-rectangle group of control points.

Mik

Hi,

thanks all for comment and good discusion.

First of all, I'm very glas you like it. I have to say speed is where MoI rocks. I'm long time maya user, but this will take me a lot longer, when I have to do it in subd I mean the hard body of the gun.

I also agree that organic shapes are better un subd workflow, or sculpting.
What I meant was the grip - it's organic, but also technical/ design prop - not anything alive, so it can be handle in MoI too.
I think next time I will be capable of doing it fully in MoI.

In this case - when I export hipoly obj, it's prepared for zbrush pass or normal map baking for game lowpoly model.

I worked with nurbs in maya years ago, and sometimes I'm using them today too - for parts of vehicles or models, where I need precise flow, and them convert them to poly and continue

Thanks for feedback, will post here final model when it will be done.

Vojtěch

Hi Andrei,

re:
> Basically for me was very hard to dig into SubD I spend about 1 year till I totally dig into it.

I certainly have never said that SubD modeling is "easy" - it can definitely have a substantial learning curve, and certainly a longer one than the one for NURBS modeling where you're working with mechanical shapes.

This lower learning curve is a big thing that makes MoI a useful companion tool that you can use alongside other software. But this learning curve advantage will be lost if you stubbornly try to use MoI for projects where it is not the right kind of tool.

There are also different kinds of "organic" models, it's true that in certain kinds of cases it's more feasible. But if you try to use NURBS for modeling a human face or something like a hand with branching structures, it's particularly not a good fit.

Your particular case of gun handles most likely do not have the kinds of things like sudden changes in detail like around the corners of eyes or mouths or branching structures like limbs and fingers which become extremely difficult to do well with NURBS surfacing. Sub-d modeling allows you to connect up faces in a more arbitrary manner and provide very localized detail, when you try to do that with Loft it's difficult to avoid the rectangular nature of the loft and often times having tangency applied to your loft just over constrains it more, it doesn't provide the arbitrary topology and ability to refine a specific spot of the model with more points like you can do in sub-d modeling.

To a lot of people the word "organic" will mean things like faces and monster bodies and things like that, not necessarily "industrial design" type forms.

So a lot of people reading your advice of something like "oh yeah you can do organic modeling using NURBS" might try to use it to do an organic character model and then get frustrated that it does not work well for that.

Of course I would like to add in more functions for surface continuity for MoI in the future, it would help for certain kinds of things. But it will not suddenly turn the NURBS toolset into a total "organic" toolset able to do any kind of organic shape that sub-d modeling can do. Try to make a face or a hand in Alias and you will see that in action. You will have a lot of difficulty finding tutorials that show how to do it - you could find them 15 years ago when sub-d modeling was not available (that's when character modeling was also done in NURBS), but not anymore since sub-d is just inherently better at doing those kinds of shapes.

A lot of times if you're worried about making a patchwork of NURBS surfaces with continuity, it's really a sign that your project would have been better suited for sub-d modeling. That's why it has not been a focus for MoI as of yet, it just makes more sense for MoI to be focused on getting the "most bang for the buck" and trying to make a lot of the model happen through 2D curve drawing and booleans. For mechanical models this approach is very fruitful. Trying to focus early on, on the most difficult and finicky type of NURBS modeling (patch-by-patch surfacing) just did not make as much sense since it would not benefit as many people as something that could handle mechanical models without needing to be a mechanical engineer.

- Michael

Yes, you are right I must say that under word organic I mean only things that are made by people not by nature. I just never created characters so I use this meaning by default.
Sure creating things like characters with Nurbs is not good way to go. Now people for high poly characters and other nature objects use sculpting software most of all.

Very interessting discussion! May I ask a question? What kind of ("state-of-the-art") workflow is the best for this kind of object:



Thanks!

I assume that it was made with Z-Brush. If you satisfied with quality of this model use ZBrush.

Z-Brush? I thought this is a "sculpting" software for organic objects and not for hard surface creation? Now that I have watched some videos: It`s like working with "digital" clay...

Since I have no talent for this kind of artistic sculpting:

Are there "CAD"-workflows for creating models like this?

There are a lot of panels, panellines, holes and other hard-surface type features that should be easy to create with CAD software. And isn`t the whole model a typical "hard-surface" model?

Yes, this is zbrush. Zbrush powers are not just in sculpting, but also in cutting geo etc.

For zbrush hardsurface I highly recomment this truck tutorial series from Kirill - it's worth the money

https://gumroad.com/kirillchepizhko


Vojtěch

The only problem why you can not make it with MoI is that it has some organic transitions in base shape, that will be very hard to reproduce with MoI. All other stuff in general can be made with MoI without any problems. If you want to use cad software for this, you can use that, that supports SubD or Surface modeling like SolidWorks, Rhino, Inventor, Alias, SolidThinking, Fusion 360, Simens NX, Creo Parametric... As you can see there are lot of them so check what is for you.

Thanks for the link. But what about using CAD-Software like Moi? ZBrush is (how should I put it) too "artsy" for me; I am more of a CAD and tech guy...

Or is ZBrush really better for complex hard surface models? I thought the contrary: CAD-like software for hard surface models and ZBrush or 3dCoat for organic things like humans, creatures etc. (And I am only interested in building hard surface type models).

Thanks, Andrei! Your post didn`t show up when I was writing the previous reply...

Gill,
ZBrush is for organic stuff first of all, but it has tools that allows you to create hard surfaces too. But result is far away from ideal. Quality of organic surfaces are even worse then from polygons.
It is good for games because in games you will see only low poly, so no need for superb quality, or it is good for intermediate quality render of hard surfaces.
If for example you create some close render of this model you will see how imperfect are surfaces, I can see all that artifacts even from this render.
So if you want superb result use Cad.
If MoI had continuity(tangent) options in tools you could made this model without problems in MoI.

Thanks Andrei,

thats very helpfull! Anyway, I will buy MOI. I used the demo for a month now, made some not to complex hard surface models and it was great to use. The snapping for example is extremely well-thought-out and easy to use!

The only problem is that I have no idea how to make more complex models like the pictured "spaceship".

I guess I will also have to try, learn (and buy) some other CAD programs...

Gill, you can simplify base shapes of this spaceship and you will be able to replicate it in MoI, just use Loft for that base shapes, check here I made a lot of tutorials about that forms: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6058.1

All other stuff of this spaceship is not a problem for MoI.

If you are going to try other software, you can start from SolidWorks.

Gill, I just remember I made about year ago tutorial about space ship, it will be usefull for you beacuse I show there how to make that base shapes.

ZBrush has now a cool "Zmodeler" ;) + some tools ArrayMesh, NanoMesh, QMesh : you can make some things ;)

Every complex model is made from a lot od smaller parts.

Zbrush is superb for quick sketch what you have in head, like taking a simple pen and drawing a concept. Then it depends what you need. If game model or clean model for render, you need to retopo it.

If it is just for static render or design, you can go with decimated geo from Zbrush and polypaint it or use some box uv mapping and then paint it in some other program.

Zb is little bit hard to get at the beginning, MoI is super fast to learn, have very simple ui and powerfull tools.

Similar to Zbrush is Mudbox or 3dcoat - they have more 3d program UI, but ZB have a lot more abilities and most designers use Zb. In big productions Zb is standard.

So, complex models are realy not software dependent - it's about deconstruction what you model, think about separation to smaller and smaller parts and then detailing them.
Start from big shapes and going to smallest one.

I saw people are doing product designs in both - zbrush, nurbs modelers and even polymodelers. Software is secondary, idea is most important :)


Vojtěch