A new v2 beta (version Aug-8-2009) is now available for download here:
http://moi3d.com/beta.htm
You will need to enter your v1 license key to download the v2 beta.
The v2 beta installs into its own folder, it is not a problem to have v1 and any v2 beta installed on the same machine, in fact I recommend that so that you can fall back to v1 if you run into some temporary bad bug in v2.
The major news for this release is that styles are wrapped up - shaded surfaces will now display in their style colors. Also there is a new lighting engine for the display which gives various options for controlling the shaded appearance and helps to provide more illumination on objects, reducing dark areas.
Release notes:
Updated display so that faces are shown using style colors.
Implemented new lighting engine.
Here's an example of the new default lighting:
There is a lot more distribution of the illumination in this new system which helps to avoid overly dark areas.
Here's a comparison with the previous lighting system (which is still available with the Lighting style: Key light only option):
Also if you want to go brighter yet, try the Lighting style: Key + more fill option which looks like this:
You can control these options including setting custom levels for the key and fill lights using sliders, by the new settings under Options > View > Lighting options.
There's an example video here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2801.91
You can also enable some options such as specular highlights and a metallic style look.
Here's an example with specular highlights enabled:
And here are some variations with metallic and specular together:
Updated display of points to use style color.
Added an option to override surface or edge colors to use a specific fixed color instead of using the style color. These options are under Options > View > Surface color: and Edge color:
Added a button for editing the moi.ini file, under Options > General > Edit .ini file. When you pick this you will be prompted if you want to exit MoI and launch the moi.ini file in whatever program is set in Windows to edit files with the .ini file extension, which is Notepad by default. Also in the prompt dialog the path to moi.ini file that is currently being used is shown.
Added a "both sides" option for the Line command to make it a bit easier to draw a line starting from the midpoint.
Added a new Conic command under Draw curve > More > Conic , which allows for creating a conic section curve (either a parabola, hyperbola, or ellipse segment) from a 3 point frame plus a "through point" or rho value. For some examples see:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2746.4
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2746.12
Added a new ExplodeMove command which can be set up on a keyboard shortcut to move objects away from a common center point to move them apart from one another. Some examples:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2781.3
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2781.10
Added a new BoundingBox command which can be set up on a keyboard shortcut, which will create a bounding box (either a 3D solid box, or a 2D rectangle curve) framed around the current selection.
Added a new BoundingBoxCenter command which can be set up on a keyboard shortcut, which will create a point object to mark the center of the bounding box framed around the current selection.
Got a bug fix for writing surface colors to STEP files.
Updated IGES and STEP file handling to support reading and writing object names.
Updated SAT export - closed surfaces (for example a cylinder) are now split into 2 joined half pieces when exporting to SAT format to improve data transfer into Revit. This splitting can be disabled by a setting in moi.ini :
[SAT]
ExportSplitClosedSurfaces=n
Added an option to enable or disable combining meshes for objects of the same name, for OBJ and LWO export. This is under Options > Import/Export > Combine same named objects.
Updated LWO export with "LightWave style" vertex normals - reversed the normals for this case since that appears to be what LightWave expects in their most recent version.
Added an option for OBJ export to disable writing material assignments, which will create output the same as MoI v1. This is under Options > Import/Export > OBJ options > Write material assignments.
For OBJ export, replace spaces in object names with underscores, since spaces are often not supported by OBJ readers. Spaces can be enabled by a setting in moi.ini:
[OBJ Export]
AllowSpacesInObjectNames=y
Added some options in moi.ini for OBJ export, for using the relative style index method, and for adjusting the number of decimal places:
[OBJ Export]
UseRelativeIndexing=n
NumDecimalPlaces=8
Added an option in moi.ini for style handling to prevent sub-objects from keeping their own distinct styles during operations such as booleans.
[Styles]
DisableSubObjectStyles=n
When set to =y, operations such as booleans will have their result be all the same style rather than having the styles of each original face persist in the combined object.
Added a script method moi.ui.alert() so a script can more easily pop up a simple message box.
Added a "Points" entry to the scene browser type section to allow operations on point objects (this applies to individual point objects, not to edit points that are turned on by Edit/Show pts).
Updated mesher - enabled better uv quad alignment on circular joined parts at high densities.
Updated the Text command to be oriented better for reversed (Back/Left/Bottom) views.
Fixed a bug where setting the option for swapping pan/rotate mouse functions did not work correctly in parallel 3D views.
Reworked program cleanup if moi.exe is terminated abruptly using Windows Task Manager, now companion processes should also exit automatically in this situation.
Updated cplane triad picker so that the lines are displayed at the same size on the screen instead of being a fixed size in world units. This helps to prevent the orientation picker from getting small in size when zoomed out.
Fixed a crash bug that could happen in certain circumstances when using the edit frame to scale a base curve that triggered a history update.
Fixed a bug where name properties on standalone curves could get transmitted through to edges on solids in some operations like extrude.
Fixed a bug in setting cplanes where construction lines that were created during the cplane placement were not cleared out properly.
Added some settings in moi.ini for some additional ways to control keyboard behavior:
[UI]
CommandLineTypeTextEntry=n
TreatSpaceAsEnter=n
CommandLineTypeTextEntry set to =y will allow keystrokes to activate the
xyz control without needing to type Tab first.
TreatSpaceAsEnter set to =y will allow hitting the space bar to work the same as pushing Enter for committing typed in values in input fields, and also as an alias for pushing "Done" or for repeating the last command.
Various other minor bug fixes and tuneups.
Things are getting very close to being wrapped up for the MoI v2.0 final release, I think that there will be just one more remaining v2 beta release.
Please let me know if you have any problems!
- Michael
