Hi, there,

I'm new to 3d and own MOI as my only app (so far). Does anyone know of any sources that teach you how to model from photographs?

I think I've seen some here and there that use plans and arrange them along each axis, but I don't remember where. Plus, most of the stuff I am interested in doing doesn't have plan reference - not sure if this makes a difference.

More theoretical question, too - is the learning to model process extremly lengthy? I mean, once you learn to model "something" from a photo or plans, is it pretty much the same process? I can understand how your level of knowledge of the software program is going to make a huge difference, so assuming you've got a good grasp of the software.

Thanks, all, for any help, guidance, and direction,

- A

< More theoretical question, too - is the learning to model process extremly lengthy?
All that depend only of the ergonomic of the prog!
It's better to have one very easy User Interface and it's the case! So good choice :)

Hi angeliclight,

Well modeling from photos is a really hard exercice. I mean, it's easier, if you just starting, to model something you can have in hand, so you can easily analyse it.
Having photo's reference is good ... as reference, but often not enough. The more info's you have on the model you want to build, the more easy the task will be.

So until you're first familiar with the toolset, I suppose you should start with some simple stuffs you can find around you.

>> is the learning to model process extremly lengthy? I mean, once you learn to model "something" from a photo or plans, is it pretty much the same process?

Sometimes you can repeat what you've learn, sometimes not. If you only modeling cars, after 2 or 3 models, you'll have some automtate process. But everytime you're facing a new shape, well you have to find what's the most effective way to build it, and learning from you past mistakes.

Hi angeliclight,

> I think I've seen some here and there that use plans and
> arrange them along each axis, but I don't remember where.

There a few links for this style of using plan drawings here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1267.16
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=898.2

Those are pretty involved projects involving modeling cars though, that tends to be a fairly difficult area especially to start with, but it is one kind of modeling that commonly uses plan drawings for tracing aids.

To set up an image to use as a tracing aid in MoI, use the View / Image command from the side pane.


> Plus, most of the stuff I am interested in doing doesn't
> have plan reference - not sure if this makes a difference.

Yeah, that makes a very significant difference.

Basically if you have a plan drawing you can do things like using it to trace 2D curves.

But with just a general 3D photo reference you can't typically use that to directly trace off of.

There is a special kind of technique called "photogrammetry" (Wikipedia link) which involves specialized software that is oriented towards reconstructing objects from several angled general photos (rather than plan drawings).

That process is very different than how modeling in MoI works.

One software for doing that process that I've heard of before is PhotoModeler: http://www.photomodeler.com/index.htm .


Otherwise a general non-plan photo would not be something that you typically would use in MoI directly, but of course you could do things like look at it every once in a while to compare it to how your model currently looks like in the 3D view.

Mostly though MoI is focused on creating brand new objects from scratch rather than trying to exactly replicate something from other sources.


> More theoretical question, too - is the learning to model
> process extremly lengthy?

It is very hard to give an answer to this because it depends a lot on many of the specifics.

Do you require replicating an existing object to a very high tolerance, such as making a clone accurate to within 0.01 millimeters or something like that? If so then it will take a long time to get the skills necessary for that kind of a thing.

If you want to use a photo more as a source of inspiration to model simple objects that don't have to be exactly identical, then that is something that will be a whole lot easier.

So the time period to learn could be anything between 10 minutes to 10 years, depending on what you are specifically trying to do... Sorry to give you such a large range, but it just is not very feasible to narrow it down while talking in such general terms.

Different kinds of models and tasks just have much different levels of complexity.

- Michael

Hi angeliclight,

A tutorial in Rhino:

http://www.carbodydesign.com/tutorials/?id=1196

I have made a little tut in the past :)
http://www.divshare.com/i/286136-d3d
(just wait the loading begin)
Unzipp and play inside your favorite navigator :)

Thanks a lot, everyone.