<< distribute objects equally around a given distance
Assuming you have touching objects
Select them
Press Tab and write ExplodeMove

Go with your instincts on the Kernel Michael, as my observation of your development of Moi says you have repeatedly made the right decisions and I have faith that your choice has been well thought out.

Good Luck with your long nights coding on V4 !.

Exactly! I have same feeling from Michael's decisions. MoI is excellent software in all respects based on sophisticated features which perfectly corresponds to needs of target users.

Many thanks for this software!

Mik

Hi Michael,

How are you ? I hope fine.

Just one question regarding the "Export to obj format, Meshing Options".

Would it be possible to have the opportunity to get an "Only Quads" output ?

In general for organic and "relaxed" objects, I think it would be better if we could have a pure quad mesh.

For the moment, i'm often forced to use some other 3D utilities or packages, like MeshLab or Instant Meshes or also 3D-Coat, to perform the retopo,
only to transform a "Quads & Triangles" mesh in a pure Quad mesh.

Thanks for all and have a nice day.

- Marco (mkdm).

Hi Marco, re:

> Would it be possible to have the opportunity to get an "Only Quads" output ?

Unfortunately no, it's not possible just by any small change in the existing mesher - doing a "Only Quads" type output would require a completely new meshing algorithm. It' something that I'd like to explore in the future but it will involve a large amount of work and so I'm not sure when it could happen.

Also for just rendering purposes, there isn't really any benefit to having all quads, it would only be helpful if you were trying to apply sub-d smoothing to the object.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your quick reply.

>Unfortunately no, it's not possible just by any small change in the existing mesher...

What a pity!...I'll keep using external tools for that.

> Also for just rendering purposes, there isn't really any benefit to having all quads, it would only be helpful if you were trying to apply sub-d smoothing to the object.

In fact, some times i apply a final sub-d step to my exported objects.
But i must also say that i noticed that also rendering benefits from quads topology, specially on organic models.

Ciao!

- Marco (mkdm).

Hi Marco,

> In fact, some times i apply a final sub-d step to my exported objects.

That's sort of unusual for CAD models - usually CAD models are created with smoothing already set up by fillets, and by applying sub-d smoothing it will mutate the shape and things like exact spheres, cylinders, and fillets will not be exact anymore.


> But i must also say that i noticed that also rendering benefits from quads
> topology, specially on organic models.

That shouldn't usually be the case unless you are also discarding the vertex normals in the non-all-quads one.

If you have an example model where it renders better with all quads that you can post with the different versions of it, I might be able to give some more details about what is happening in that particular case.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

> If you have an example model where it renders better with all quads that you can post with the different versions of it, I might be able to give some more details about what is happening in that particular case.

Thank you very much for your help!
As soon as possible i'will post some .3dm, obj and renderings to show you those particular cases.

But actually my problem is that it seems that i'running out of space with my forum account,
so i can post only very little things.

It could be possible to get some others MB of space ?

> "In fact, some times i apply a final sub-d step to my exported objects."
> That's sort of unusual for CAD models - usually CAD models are created with smoothing already set up by fillets, and by applying sub-d smoothing it will mutate the shape and things like exact spheres, cylinders, and fillets will not be exact anymore.

I know that it sounds like a strange workflow, but in my experiments i often create some Hard Surface things, export them in OBJ,
and finally play with them inside a SUBD software in order to transform some particular areas to get more organic shapes,
made by Hard Surface and Organic mixed together.
The very final step of these experiments is often importing all the stuff in 3D-Coat and made some final sculpt,
then Uving-Painting-Rendering, or Retopo-Uving-Painting-Rendering.

And i never send back these models to Moi anymore.

I hope I was clear... :)


Thanks!

- Marco (mkdm).

Hi Marco,

re:
> It could be possible to get some others MB of space ?

I'm sorry, but there isn't any way set up in the forum software for me to increase the attachment space for just one user, and increasing it for everybody isn't feasible for me either because it could easily fill up my entire web server and I'd have to dedicate more resources to maintaining the web server which leaves less time for working on MoI!

There are several services out there that are specialized in this area of managing large uploads, like Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive, and others - if you need more space to upload files please use one of those services and then just share the link here.


> I hope I was clear... :)

Yes, I understand! MoI is not really specifically focused on that kind of workflow though, but I'm glad if it works for you anyway.


Thanks, - Michael

Ok Michael,

I will use a Microsoft OneDrive account or DropBox.

Thanks.

- Marco (mkdm).

FWIW,
If you setup a Dropbox public folder (or any fileserver which can map an image to a URL) you can then reference an image by including in your message:

<img src=[URL of image goes here]>

It's how I post all my images.

Hi chipp,

Thank you very much for your suggestion!

P.S. Just out of curiosity...are you playing with 3D-Coat in order to test a possible optimized workflow made by :
- Modelling in Moi
- Exporting to Obj
- Importing in 3D-Coat for : 1 - Retopo, 2 - Uving, 3 - Painting with Smart Materials, 4 - Texture Exporting, 5 - Final render in Thea Render or others ?

Have a nice day.

- Marco (mkdm)

Hi Marco,

I haven't tried the full pipeline you propose yet. I don't think I would use topology tools as I don't want to subD the final model. I know 3DCoat has automated topology tools, but I believe they're better for soft models than hard models as I have played with them in the past.

i have an older license of 3DCoat and probably should have taken advantage of their update offer a couple months ago if I'm going to try and incorporate it's PBR surfacing into my workflow. I'm curious if it can also export maps that KeyShot can use?

Hi chippwalters,

I wrote you in the thread "Rendering software" at http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8034.52,

because i think that i'm "Off topic" if i continue to use the thread "Project moi3d v4" for this particular argument (Moi-3DCoat-External Renderer workflow).

Ciao!

- Marco (mkdm)

Hi Michael,

How are you ? I hope fine.

Just out of curiosity...

Have you finally chosen the core modeling kernel for the next v4 of Moi ?

Is it the promising KCM you told us about, not so long ago ?

Nice day !

- Marco (mkdm)

Hi adamio,

I'm confident that KCM is OK.

In http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=7954.33
Michael said "...KCM is under very active development...."

Nice day!

- Marco (mkdm)

Hi Marco, things are fine over here. I haven't gotten to the stage yet for evaluating how KCM will fit in with MoI, that will probably be the very last stage that I'll work on before the first v4 beta will be released. I still have to do the display engine first before I get to there.

A complete switchover will probably be too much work for one release cycle but I want to investigate the feasibility of doing it in pieces like with using KCM for a few particular areas like filleting and shelling which are some of the weaker areas of MoI currently. But just as a note of caution I have done this type of investigation before with another kernel and it was not workable because that kernel was very picky about what type of imported geometry it would work with. I have some good hope that KCM will not be like that though.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

and thanks a lot for your detailed reply.

> I still have to do the display engine first before I get to there.

Well... then the bulk of the work is done, i guess :)

> I have some good hope that KCM will not be like that though.

I bet KCM will be a perfect companion for all the future versions of Moi.

All good wishes for your work!

- Marco (mkdm)

Hi everyone,

Those are just a few infos regarding the KCM kernel :

http://www.cimdata.com/en/resources/complimentary-reports-research/commentaries/item/6140-kubotek-s-new-kcm-geometry-kernel-commentary

http://gfxspeak.com/2016/04/07/kubotek-readies-kcm-geometry-kernel/

Ciao!

- Marco (mkdm)