I don't know Michael, I've never felt limited by LW's grid system??


In fact, I liked it enough to the point of requesting similar in MoI if it wasn't too out of the way to do...


I've never had to specifically set my grid to an absolute value to get my work done?

Perhaps it is my limited experience/use of 3D packages due to developing mostly for games and video / multimedia?

My works are mostly artistic, I'm not doing any absolute hard CAD here - I thought that was also what you touted MoI to be - an artistic tool? I know you need to cover your bases in the future ala Rhino but that's also why I asked for an INI switch...


In LW if I need to create an object that matches a blueprint and is sized accurately, that's very much possible with LW - you can absolutely position points, edges, surfaces same as with any other package. With LWCAD, it becomes even easier with all of its real-time measurement features. (Which would be nice to see in MoI as well. :-P )


I didn't wish to belabor the point since this thread was actually about something else and you already expressed that you felt that it was a weird setup and wasn't worth having in MoI but Paq answered your last question.

For me, LW's grid is a reference to size (or space) you can set your snap as Paq has shown to be a division of that grid value - I'm not even sure if I've ever used a grid where I required the increments to be an absolute value?


That's why in MoI I've been running with No Units all this time; I see the grid as a place to start an object - I see the snap value as a way to divide that grid to give me "resolution" to place additional points (2-snaps, 4-snaps, 5-snaps per grid etc.)

Just the other day I was looking at some SciFi meshes and the ships were hundreds of meters across.

Usually for my models I create them without consideration to actual size (not like they really exist anyway) and then size them up later. (Which is where I have probs when I drop in a Poser reference figure; I have to scale stuff like crazy to get the ship to match what I feel its size should be...)

It was after seeing those models and also knowing that Wing Commander games always had spec'd sizes for there ships that got me to thinking perhaps I should try for the first time doing the same.


For a change, I figured I would to create an "average man" (similar to SketchUp's stand-in) object as a reference for scale and then zoom out and create the model to match and when I zoomed out in MoI that's when I noticed the probs with the grid I mentioned above.


Of course I can use LW for this, and I do - thanks to the work you had did previously that helped both Paq and I out, I create starter meshes in MoI and take them to LW and add the detailing there.

Obviously since MoI is (for a lot of us here) our modeler of choice, I'd prefer to do as much as I can in MoI before I have to drop down to the polygon level.

I'll look at the scripts you provided - they may very well be enough for what I need.


-Will

PS - Looking at my original post, I used the word Guessimate - from that alone you can see I wasn't looking for absolute CAD related stuff here...