After playing around with another software - I was wondering if this would actually work
in MOI. See screenshots ...

This is just a very simple example

1st screen - cylinder primitive (Nurbs Model)
2nd screen - top edge selected
3rd screen - top edge moved down a little (adds editable cross section)
4th screen - top edge moved towards the center of the top face (just another possibility)
5th screen - vertices on added edge modified, which affects the original shape

I can probably achieve similiar results in MOI if I use a Loft with a Rail Curve, by adding
points to the rail - to be honest I haven't tried it. But this would only allow me to reshape
my model in one direction.

Well in any case, I was just wondering if you can do this in MOI, I haven't found anything,
or how difficult would it be to implement this ??

Merry Christmas

.

This was following your ideas then taking the three lines and doing a loft
Brian

Hi Armin,
Moi's loft works a bit different. Sounds like you may have been refering to "revolve", with a spline with a number of points to pull around.

With Moi's "loft" tool, there is a history enabled that will allow you to adjust the input curves "after the loft" has happend to further define the shape.

So here is a picture of a loft with 4 shapes.



I can move or rotate any of theose shapes and the loft will update to reflect the new shape. I can also turn on control points for the curves and further adjust with point pulling if I want.





Basically can adjust this shape in any manner/direction i feel I need to.

Hi Armin, you can get some similar things as that in MoI but the surface point editing toolset in MoI is not complete yet, there are things missing like being able to add in rows of points to a surface after it has already been created.

You can turn on surface points though, but if you object is made up of several trimmed surfaces joined together, you may need to use Edit/Separate first to break it into individual surfaces before their points will be enabled. See this FAQ for some details on that:
http://moi3d.com/wiki/FAQ#Q:_Why_does_show_points_work_for_some_objects_but_not_others.3F

The reason why that area is not fully refined yet in MoI is that for the most part I assume that if you are interested in modeling by manipulating surface points that you will likely be doing that already in a sub-d modeling system instead of in MoI, since those systems are very much focused on that kind of workflow. Instead of focusing on the same kinds of things initially in MoI, I wanted to actually focus on other kinds of things like booleans, 2D plan oriented stuff, things like that, so that MoI could work more as a complement to those kinds of tools and help out in different areas rather than trying to do the same stuff that was already available.

So to add in enough points to squish around you have to put in enough points in the surface when it is initially constructed. That means using several sections when doing a Loft, or also a good way to make a surface with a lot of interior control points in it is to set up 2 curves with plenty of points in them and use Extrude with the Set Path option, which makes a surface that inherits the structure of both curves directly. Rail revolve is also similar in this regard.
See here for an example:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1313.2

- Michael

Thanks for all your help, looks like I have to plan ahead and create enough curves upfront,
that's the tricky part :), just kidding.

Btw Brian, your suggestion looks interesting. Seems like you just added that extra curve,
and did a loft between the existing end curves of the cylinder. Though, doesn't that create
a second body? I have to try that.

Armin
I just copy/pasted the top curve and moved it down.
Added the points to it and fiddled.
Then lofted the three.
And, there is a new solid which is not a problem--easy to hide/delete the original.
(I showed it all to one side in the post image for better illustration)
Brian