I'm trying to model something like this wooden toy (see picture), but I'm having trouble deciding on the right approach. I've tried a few variations, but none of them are satisfying. Although I've been playing around with MoI for quite a while, I often have trouble knowing the best way to start on a new model. Here's what I've tried with this one:

1) I created a box, then use booleans to cut away the gaps in the spiral on top of its head. I used more booleans to cut from the side to make the spiral thinner than the body. This basically works, but the corners are sharp, so I tried to end with fillets to round off all the corners. But with all the boolean cutting I seemed to end up with fillets that couldn't be successfully computed. Edges too close together and that kind of thing.

2) I tried creating a series of rounded-corner rectangles going from the base, up through the body, and then spiraling around to create the spiral on top of the head. Used loft to connect the rectangles. This also kind of works, but it's hard to predict what the final shape will be as you set up the rectangles. I think I'm creating either too few or too many cross-section rectangles, and I don't really feel like I have good control over the final result.

3) I tried sweep. Again, a couple rounded rectangles for the profiles, and the rail goes up through the body and around the spiral. Again, I kind of got the general shape, but again the final result was hard to predict.

4) Modeled the body and the top spiral separately, then tried to use blend to join them in a smooth way. Didn't work out at all - got terrible gaps in the join region.

5) Didn't try this one yet, but was thinking about sweep with a scaling rail to have more control over the result. But that seems like a lot of work to set up, not knowing if it'll work. So I decided to ask for advice...

Can anyone suggest a better approach? #1 was the best as far as having control over the basic shape I wanted, but I couldn't get the edges satisfactorily rounded.

Hi LM,

I'm newb, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I think a really cool option would be to import the image in moi and trace the front view with curves (control points or through points, or even sketch if you have a tablet and have drawing skills). Then, extrude to it's width and then boolean subtract and fillet accordingly.

Another option would be to draw multiple curves at different heights of the object (like a heightmap) and then loft them all to get the basic shapes. This is a nice approach if you have several photos from the basic directions so you can tweak the curves accordingly. Samardac does it here to get the basic shape of a helicopter's body: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XMI6mJ2iV0&t=2262s

That's what I came up with, I am sure others with more experience will have more to say. Good luck!

Hi LM, it will probably be difficult to get a hand carved look like that when using a CAD program like MoI. It's going to look more machined.

It would probably be better to model in a Sub-D modeling program rather than in a CAD program.

But can you please post some of the model files that you talk about so I can see some of the problem areas?

- Michael

Hi,
you could try Max's subD within Moi.
Barry

Perfect! Cuty! Bravo!

Some tricks for SubD modeling with Max Smirnov plugins ;)
(if you don't want export as obj and reload by the new SUBD function of the new Beta V4)

SSplit for trim a volume (left volume can't be subdivided so...)


Copy / Move faces for Bridge them (one by one)

These subdivision tips are super helpful - thanks!

Michael, I thought about using a subd modeler, but the picture I attached is just part of what I want to do. There are other tools that MoI is particularly good at that I want to use as well. These sub tools might be the perfect combination.

And sorry, I don't have the models to attach because as they didn't work out I just didn't save them...