Hi Chris, I happened to just post this mini tutorial that should show you the quick way to sweep your wires:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=817.8
The quick way is to just draw your circle flat on any plane, but make sure that it is positioned away from the rail curve, specifically place it outside of the bounding box that fits around the rail curve.
When MoI sees that your profile curve is outside of the bounding box of the rail, it will automatically move and rotate it into position perpendicular to the rail curve. If it sees that your profile is inside of that bounding box, it assumes that you have placed it in a particular arrangement along the rail and it will use it where it currently stands.
You can also use multiple profiles in the auto-place mode as well, just arrange them in a rough left to right order on the plane, making sure that they are all outside of the bounding box of the rail. MoI will space them evenly along the rail for you.
re: wireframe, there currently isn't really a proper wireframe mode in MoI, but it is possible to do a quick temporary one by setting up a shortcut key that hides all surfaces. See Petr's web page that has a collection of MoI scripts: http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/ , find the one for "Temporary WireFrame only display mode." .
Another thing you can do if things are bogging down is to go to Options / View, and loosen the Meshing parameters. Set Mesh angle to 20 or 30, and uncheck "Add detail to inflections". This will cause a much coarser and jaggedy looking display, but it will have far fewer polygons in the display so it will go faster. After you're done with your high detail thing you will want to head back here and restore it to the default of angle 10 and "add detail to inflections" on so that you get a nice smooth display for regular stuff.
- Michael |
