Hi PaQ,

> So far it's simple, excepet that I'm not used so hide
> geometry throught the material editor ... So I don't
> completely get why separate this 2 things.

Well, basically the material is another kind of organizational method applied to objects, you would probably normally have some way to select all objects of a certain material... This provides for that and more by giving you the same tools to work on all the objects of a certain material by hiding/showing/locking/etc... same as you would for groups.

Basically "all objects that have this material" becomes another kind of group that you can work on if you want.

Maybe instead of it being its own top-level browser item I could put it as a special "Styles" sub-section underneath groups, that maybe would be clearer that you are treating "all objects of this style" as a kind of group operation... But I'm not really sure that would make much overall difference.

I do want to have some other special "built-in" groups like an "All objects" group that will let you apply the same kinds of operations (hide,select,etc...) to all objects using the same UI as for manipulating a group.


> - Is it possible to hide/unhide group ? Or do I have to assign a style ?

Yeah, the entries under Groups will have the same kind of controls as what I currently show there for Styles, with an eye icon, etc... So if you click on the eye icon for a group it will hide that group for instance.


> - As MoI slow down a little bit with the edges drawing, I was
> thinking that maybe we could create a 'no edges' style for
> exemple, but then, what is I want hide edges from a group ?

At least at first I don't think there will be a way to hide things by the visual properties that you set in a style, but that would probably be good to add in the future.

But a style is a property of an object, if you want to hide edges from a group, you would select all the objects of that group and then assign them the style you want, now all those objects have that style. (there may be a shortcut for this as well, maybe by clicking on a group swatch).

But a style does not belong to a group, it belongs to individual objects, basically the group UI (for hide/show and everything really) is a kind of helper to set different properties on a particular batch of objects.


> I do have to change the syle of the entire group and losing all
> the color assignation allready made ? Or is it possibel to assign
> a style to the container name, and keep the child style safe ?

Well for now at least you'll probably want to hide the edge sub-objects of all those items instead of using a style for hiding. That keeps the hidden and style stuff separate.

Also for the next v2 beta I've fixed up sub-objects so that hidden sub-objects stay hidden through editing operations.


> - Will the style be editable/showed in the group tree too ?

I'm not sure yet, but possibly - I'm thinking that a group tree item can have a swatch for the group and if all the objects in the group have the same style that style color will be shown there, and probably clicking on it could assign the style you pick to the objects inside of it.


> - Is it possible to assign a style to a surface that is joined ?
> (I mean coloring one face of a cube without having to split it)

Yes - you can apply different styles to sub-objects, like different ones to faces or edges.


> - Wil the colors (syles ?) be preserved and export as material in the .obj export ?

Yes, that's the idea, that styles will get exported as material definitions in .obj .


> - Can we ... group styles ? (I mean easily select every objects
> sharing the same style and group them) ... starting to be a little
> confused myself so I stop for now :o)

Sure, you can select all objects that belong to the same style (use some action in the scene browser in the Styles section to do this), then go to Groups and hit "New group" and that will make a new group with those selected objects in it.

But if you want to do operations on all objects of a certain style, that's what that Styles section is for, so you don't have to manually form groups for that, they are kind of like "built in" groups.


Hopefully that makes a bit more sense?


Basically the whole thing is just about shortcuts for applying properties to batches of objects at once.

The "batch" can be some set of objects that you have specified (a group), or other things like "all objects with Style:red" (a kind of built in batch you access under the Styles UI in the scene browser).


- Michael