[simmsimaging]

Hey all -
We use Max here for all our modeling (well, Zbrush too I guess, but you know what I mean) and we're looking into Rhino now too, largely based on what I see done on this forum

I cannot model even a good thoery for why I can't model in 3D, so my associate Jim builds everything here and I do the mats/lighting/rendering side (occasionally I do make a primitive or two). He's really struggling to get his head around the Rhino workflow (playing with the demo), but he's not sure if it's just him, or if it is a really tough one to learn/use.

Can anyone give us a sense of that? Is he missing something, or maybe there are some good vids that might help us get over the initial hump? Or should we just stick to Max

Thanks in advance for any help.
b

[Maximus3D]

I always thought you could model very well, didn't know about your friend there who builds stuff for you. Rhino with it's 75,000 tiny buttons and commands can be a pretty big bump in the road to try to get over when you're first starting with it, it's a bit different way you need to think when you model with it too, compared to polygonmodeling. A good idea might be to start with Moi3D instead of Rhino, and then once you figured out modeling in Moi then it should be easier to move to Rhino as they're both nurbsmodelers.

I'm not aware of any tutorials for Rhino, but like most other apps it should also have some free tutorials on the web.

3dsmax should you guys ditch right now, never use that piece o crap software for anything serious get yourself a proper subdiv modeler first, Modo. And then nurbsmodelers like Moi and Rhino. That's all you need for a successful toolbox.

What type of models do you guys build ? any examples you can show ?

/ Max

[JDHill]

If I was to take a guess, I'd say the difficulty is probably rooted in the fact that Rhino has such a free-form nature. Personally, I moved to Rhino from autocad because, while it seemed nearly impossible to model 3d in autocad, I was able to jump right into things in Rhino. It seems easy to understand the painless transition in hindsight, because it was very natural to start building 3d geometry based on my existing 2d workflow. So modeling in Rhino has always felt that way; start working from plans and elevations, extruding shapes, building curves in 3d to make transitions, and so on. It didn't hurt that Rhino had a very autocad-like setup; it's very command-based, so at any given moment, one of two things is true: either (a) you're just zooming/panning to move around the model, or (b) you're inside of a command and the command-prompt is asking you to perform some action.

So I see it very much as drafting in 3d, and it's always felt natural. Later on, I try to jump into poly modelers like Silo, or I try to work with very constrained, structured systems like Cinema, and I have the equal but opposite problem there that I'm guessing your colleague is having moving to Rhino. As of yet, I couldn't model anything in these apps to save my life, mostly because they have almost no idea about 2d, and they are forcing me to treat an object as a thing, rather than a bunch of individual surfaces. It's also unsettling that they're so unconcerned about absolute size and precision, but I think that is showing again the very different (more artistic, less technical) place that these apps are coming from.

Part of the problem then, I'd guess, is that he's probably got it so baked into his thinking that objects have some inherent structure to them, that you can select them and rotate them around their own centers, that they even have centers, and so on...but there is almost no such context in Rhino; objects really have no history and bear no relation to one another; you just start building wires, extruding surfaces, joining them into polysurfaces, subtracting volumes out of one another, etc.; it's just a totally different environment.

There are a bunch of tutorial models installed with the app, and you can find them quickly using Help > Learn Rhino > Open Tutorial Models. I never used those, and I'm guessing they might not be too valuable if you've only downloaded the demo and don't have the printed manual. There is another command in that menu though, Tutorials on the Web, and that may prove more useful; it sends you here: http://www.rhino3d.com/tutorials.htm

So anyway, I guess I'm not so much explaining what you need to know to move to Rhino from another environment, but more why it's been difficult for me to move in the opposite direction, and I hope that somehow that's useful.

[jespi]

Hello,

If you are trying to learn Rhino, i would take a look at the next sites (both free)

First one is www.Paramod.net , take a look at the Label Cloud and choose Rhino. There are 5 in depth video tutorials, starting from zero. They are oriented to architecture, but are nice to learn how to think as "Rhino".

Second one are in vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/rhino/videos/sort:date
These are mini tutorials explaining how to learn little things.

I don´t know what is the kind of modeling you want to make, but if it is hard modeling (i've seen that you have a few cars in your web) i think that NURBS modeling is the way to go.

To me the big issue with Rhino is its very bad exporter for meshes. I mean, if you make the complete work within rhino and render using Maxwell, perfect. But if you want more complex mapping tools, unwraping, you will need to export your model to another 3d app. Here is the big problem , the rhino exporter will "destroy", i mean, it will triangulate all the meshes and will make very hard the mapping process.
The solution to this problem is to use Moi3D to export the rhino file to a useful mesh file. I hope this problem will be solved with the rhino v5 release.

[Calico Jack]

Hi, check this link: http://www.rhino3d.com/tutorials.htm

[simmsimaging]

Thanks all for the links and advice!

Maximus: Thanks Magnus. I thought I'd always been pretty clear that I don't model, but so many people here do it all it's easy to overlook those of us with deficits The stuff on my site provides a good example of the range, but we do lots of little bits and pieces that never really make the portfolio. It's mostly hard objects, not much organic. I am pretty sure Jim had a look at Moi3D last year, maybe it's time to dust it off again.

JDHill: Thanks very much, I think you have hit it on the head actually. Jim does not have a background in drafting and I think that is precisely where he's running into trouble. He's been saying for days that he's an "approximate modeler" - now I understand better what he means


Jespi and Calico Jack: Thanks!

b

[jespi]

Now that we are in topic, I would like to know what are the advantages of using Moi instead of Rhino in the next fields:

1. Is Moi good enough to draw in 2D, i mean, how good are its snap tools?
2. Rhino fails a lot using booleans operations, how good is Moi in that field?

Thanks in advance,

José

[polynurb]

Hi Brett,

most has been said already, i just want to give my little advice on working in rhino, which i do for 8 years now:

do not use toolbars... they will drive you nuts!

if you unfold all the toolbars, it's like you have to learn chinese... no joke - so many buttons.. remebering all these icons will fill your brain.
i started making my own toolbars , but very soon went to pure keyboard /command alias.
Rhino has an autocomplete in the commandline now, so even without defining your own aliases you get the command faster than with a toolbar..much less searching around

concerning the mesher: is not the best, but it gets the job done, imo.
And it actually is possible to get quads from it, just edges/trims/seams will be always triangulated.

just my 2cent on this.!

btw. check the labs page for add ons, in v5 there will be transform gizmos, and there also is a plugin for rotating N-amount of objects around their boundingbox.. (box edit)

http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/ ... eLabs.html

and you should check grasshopper:

http://grasshopper.rhino3d.com/

cheers,

p

[simmsimaging]

Thank you - I will share those links with Jim, much appreciated!
b

[jvanmetre]

The road I travelled to get to Rhino was from cadkey to Autocad to Rhino...an important distinction for me in transitioning from Autocad (in 2001) to Rhino was letting go of thinking that things needed to be built as solid extruded objects (autocad) as opposed to Rhino which allows creation of surfaces and meshes.

It's been a while since I used Autocad -- does it allow for creating meshes and surfaces?

I've found Rhino's new 2d tools perfectly fine for technical work -- not as advanced as Autocad, but intuitive and easy to work with. I used to work with Autocad exclusively for 2d work but since Rhino's 2d capability improved I don't use Autocad at all.

jvm

[Sheik]

I am having sort of the same problem. I switched Max for SketchUp as I realized I could model all the stuff I needed in SU with only 1% of the time and energy I wasted on Max (as I do 97% architecture). Now I want something more sophisticated, and tried both Rhino and Modo, but both seem too complex after the ease of SU. I guess they both offer more than I actually want. I want less buttons & commands and more intuitive tools! I am not sure on which app I should invest my time in learning, or should I wait to see if Bonzai3D will become a usable product in its first version? MoI is great, but still way too limited to be the only/main 3D application to use.

Simmsimaging, if you want to just model the simple stuff, and leave the complex objects to your friend, I recommend you play with SketchUp (if you already haven’t).

[dd_]

since i have bought moi i am in love with it and as a bonus it exports spot on to c4d without any issues at all. best money ive spent in a looooooooooong time

[simmsimaging]

Thanks Sheik - I may have a look. Right now I'm pretty heavily occupied with rendering (and particles and fluids - which are also in my camp) but I may get around to it one of these years

I'll ask Jim to check out SU though - even if it covers a good range of stuff it might help.

Thanks again
b

[simmsimaging]

Thanks Dave - we'll definitely be looking into it again.

b

[Micha]

To me the big issue with Rhino is its very bad exporter for meshes. I mean, if you make the complete work within rhino and render using Maxwell, perfect. But if you want more complex mapping tools, unwraping, you will need to export your model to another 3d app. Here is the big problem , the rhino exporter will "destroy", i mean, it will triangulate all the meshes and will make very hard the mapping process.
The solution to this problem is to use Moi3D to export the rhino file to a useful mesh file. I hope this problem will be solved with the rhino v5 release.

Since my experience is the same and I'm very curious for a better mesher I post a quote of this here:

http://news2.mcneel.com/scripts/dnewswe ... iew+thread

I bought MoI for meshing some weeks befor - incredible fast (multicore support) and nice clean meshes.

The good news for Rhino2MoI connection is, that following workflow will be possible:

* select NURBS at Rhino
* press a Rhino button
* NURBS geometry will be exported to MoI and the meshing UI is shown
* after meshing at MoI is done the mesh can be imported to Rhino per second button (script)

Also it's possible that the meshing is full automatic done without the MoI interface popup. That is possible per current MoI v2 beta, also the meshing UI popup function. The next beta will allow to see a meshing preview.

Some additional functions could be added like:
* automatic import of the mesh after the meshing is done
* automatic move of the original NURBS geometry to a special layer

Nice would be if the layer structure of the original NURBS could be keeped, but my Rhino scripting knowledge isn't good enough to code it.

If somebody with some good scripting knowledge could jump in, that would be great.