Hi Group. I am considering purchasing Moi3D after hearing so many great things about it's ability to export clean meshes to OBJ. I have been a FormZ user for many years, but I render with Vray for C4D.

How would someone using your software go about modeling the attached? I looked through the manual this morning and did not see an option to loft using multiple paths - maybe I overlooked it? I can certainly model this in FormZ, but I was hoping to take advantage of Moi3D's excellent export capabilities. Thanks, Kevin

Hi kmccall,

Try sweep instead of loft. Pick your profiles, then your rails. See the attach (my poor example) zipped AVI file. No audio.

Michael T.

Hi kmccall, yes like Michael T says above the Sweep command can be used to create a surface that follows either one or two path curves.

Some more information on it here:
http://moi3d.com/3.0/docs/moi_command_reference7.htm#sweep

There's also the Network command which builds a surface out of a crossing grid of curves:
http://moi3d.com/3.0/docs/moi_command_reference7.htm#network

But looking at your example you would probably want to use sweep 4 times, one sweep for each line.

Then for the indentation in the front that looks like using Edit > Trim to cut a hole in the front part, then build a planar elliptical surface and then use Construct > Blend to make a smooth blend surface between them:
http://moi3d.com/3.0/docs/moi_command_reference7.htm#blend


A good way to get started is to read the introductory page of the help file here:
http://moi3d.com/3.0/docs/moi_introduction.htm

And there are some video tutorials here:
http://moi3d.com/3.0/docs/tutorials.htm

-Michael

Thank you both for the suggestions. Wish I had seen this post earlier - I'm not getting email notifications for some reason. I will install the trial version tomorrow and see what I can do over the next few days. Quick question - is there any limitation to the number of paths or sources I can use with the sweep? I am looking forward to diving into Moi3D. Thanks again! Kevin

Hi kmccall, the e-mail part of this forum is a little flaky, you might not always receive e-mail notifications from it.

> Quick question - is there any limitation to the number of paths or
> sources I can use with the sweep?

Sweep can use any number of cross-section profile curves, and either one or two rail curves as paths. You can also select more path curves than that, but when you do that it's used as a batch mode for doing a one-rail sweep along each of those separately like making a bunch of tubes in one pass.

But the sweep mechanism works by either one or two path curves for shaping the surface. If you want to use more curves than that in the path direction, then there is a different surface construction tool called Network which works somewhat differently from Sweep and Network can take any number of curves in each direction.

- Michael

Michael, thanks again! It looks like it won't be until the weekend that I can dive in. Kevin