Hi. first post - I have just downloaded the program and set up DirectX 9, but when I start the prog. I am faced with "Unable to create Direct3D9 device" message. Any clues?

Hi Boatbear - this is related to your system's video card.

MoI requires a video card that has 3D accelerated hardware capabilities. If your video card is too old it may not have the capabilities that MoI requires.

Can you tell me what video card you have? You can find out by going to Start / Control Panel / Display / Settings tab, it should be listed under the Display: label there.

Sometimes it is possible to get things working right by installing the latest video driver for your system as well...

- Michael

Thanks Michael
The card is a Radeon 7500. It is running on Microsoft generic software. I will update to latest driver and see if that makes a difference - if not I will save for a new card. I am looking forward to using MoI.

Hi Boatbear, the Radeon 7500 actually will run MoI, but it is pretty much on the bare minimum side, it's pretty ancient by graphics hardware standards.

You'll definitely be able to run a lot smoother if you upgrade to a newer card. You don't actually need to spend much money to get a decent card, even something in the $30 to $40 dollar range would be a major upgrade and would actually work fine. Let me know if you want some recommendations.

Anyway, it should be possible to get up and running on your current card - definitely update the driver and also go to Control Panel / Display / Settings, and make sure Color quality is set to Highest (32bit). If you're running your desktop in a lower color setting that may be the actual problem in this case.

- Michael

Actually, looking it up, the 7500 was actually at the high end of its time so you may actually have enough memory on it to run fairly well once things are going at 32-bit color depth. I was kind of thinking more of the 7000 which is more just really at the bare minimum end.

But still, the chip that drives it was part of the first generation of Radeon chips, which are now currently in the 6th generation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon). Something sort of more around the 3rd generation level is generally better to keep things moving smoothly when you start to have somewhat more complex stuff.

- Michael

Thanks again Michael
I updated the drivers and it works just fine. The program is wonderful. I have just spent a few minutes blundering around making wierd objects. It seems very easy and intuitive. I have been using Autocad for architectural drafting - 2D mostly - and Archicad for 3D modelling. Both are pretty clunky and limited, yet very expensive. I have just been learning to use Free!ship (an open source boat modelling program) with good success, but that has its limitations, too. Now I just need to be able to combine model parts from all these ... I am asking a lot, aren't I?
As an example, I have just modelled a boat hull in Free!ship and can export it as a DXF 3Dmesh for use in Autocad (2006). Now I want to model a trailer to carry the boat, and doing this in Free!ship is quite difficult and time consuming. It is not much fun in Autocad either, so I am looking for alternatives.
I will search your excellent forum to see what can be done here - thanks again for the great program, and your prompt and useful replies to my query.

Hi Boatbear - that's great that you are up and running now!

I am just now in the process of working on the actual product documentation, so that will be coming together in not too long. That should help out a lot when it is ready.

Currently there is quite a lot of information scattered around in the forum, but here are a few links that might be good to focus on for getting started:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=402.9
http://bitreality.blogspot.com/
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=510.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=510.4
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=324.6

If you're working on something and you get stuck, please post a message here about it. If you have some kind of partially completed model it also helps if you post the model file too, it's usually a lot easier to make recommendations about how to proceed when looking at the actual model instead of just a screenshot for example.

- Michael

Thanks again Michael; you must be a very energetic person. What's your secret? ;-)
I am well on the way now; I'll follow the tutorials, and might take you up on your kind offer if I have difficulties.
Regards,
cs

I have created my first model in MoI, saved as a 3ds, imported into Viz, saved as a DWG and rendered in Artlantis. It is a mast tabernacle for a sailing boat. I'm interested to find a good cheap renderer that will reduce the number of steps.
MoI is now my favourite computer game. I have just downloaded the new beta and seen the info on scripts for shortcut keys. I will try to set up MoI with the same hotkeys I use in Autocad and Archicad. Thanks for a great program and your extraordinary generosity and energy. I look forward to V1.
Oh, and a 'wishlist' item - I would really like a 'stretch' command, to be able to lengthen objects with a marquee.
Also, is there any way to group a selection of items?
Charlie

Hi Charlie, that turned out really well, looks great!

> I'm interested to find a good cheap renderer that will reduce the number of steps.

Here are a few ideas: http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=788.1

I would think you should be able to get something as a plug-in to Viz that would reduce some of your steps though, maybe something like VRay or Brazil?

I don't really know much about Artlantis, do you need to detour through Viz first to set up materials or something? Doesn't Artlantis support reading something like an .obj file directly itself?


> Oh, and a 'wishlist' item - I would really like a 'stretch' command, to be able
> to lengthen objects with a marquee.

I've got this on the wishlist. It's probably going to be a while though, the type of object structure that MoI uses just doesn't quite lend itself to manipulating objects by grabbing them by edges to move the edges.

One thing you can use in some situations is Transform / Scale / Scale1d - that will allow you to stretch things along one particular direction, you define the direction by drawing a line.

There is one other process that works more like your marquee stretch though, which is editing an object by control points. For a solid, you usually have to separate the solid into individual surfaces first before it will be possible to turn on their control points. You can then do a marquee select of say a top set of points and then drag those up, then re-join back to a solid. Solids don't let you turn on control points normally because it would be kind of easy to open up a gap between what is supposed to be a common shared edge... Each surface kind of has a separate sheet of control points, they aren't necessarily combined into a common set of points along their edge, that is what is a lot different than a polygon based structure.


> Also, is there any way to group a selection of items?

Nope, not yet - grouping and just object organization is one of the biggest underdeveloped areas in MoI right now. But this area will be a focus for version 2.0 .

- Michael

Hi all!

I'm very new here (actually this is my first post), but I was watching MoI growing and, reading most of the threads in the forum, it seems to me that the program has great potential and I could use it in my work too (I'm an architect, BTW...).

Now... speaking of cheap rendering apps, why don't you try Kerkythea?
Actually, it isn't a cheap program, it's a FREE one.
And it deserves a try.

Here's the link:
http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/index.php

Best regards,
Dan