Hi jtucker - re: Bezier handles - Beziers are the equivalent of having a bunch of separate 4 point curves in MoI - with a NURBS curve the first inside points control the end tangent of the curve, so for example with a 4-point curve in MoI where you see this type of control points:



That is actually already exactly the same thing as having the Bezier handles that you are talking about, the "handles" would be like this:




The thing that's good about NURBS curves instead of Beziers is that a NURBS curve is actually able to have more than 4 points in it though - the style of Bezier curve editing that you show above actually works by having a bunch of separate little 4-point Bezier curves like this chained together, that's what makes for there to be that sort of big set of "on curve flyout" handles on it. The problem with that type of mechanism is that the pieces only join together with tangent continuity and not any higher degree of smoothness (except when you have the "symmetrical" handle style).

NURBS curves were actually invented largely to solve that exact problem, so that you could have a curve with a longer set of control points in it that had a higher degree of smoothness throughout the curve instead of having a certain kind of break of smoothness in between all those little curve pieces.

So making that exact same kind of system with a whole bunch of "flyout control arms" at different locations along the curve is not technically good since there is a degradation of the actual smoothness quality of the curve that comes along with that.

But the way NURBS curves work you do have the equivalent of those arms at the start and end of the curves with the first and second points and the last 2 points forming the equivalent of one of those arms like I show above. It's basically a desirable feature though that you are able to not have those kinds of arms in interior smooth areas though since that allows for a higher degree of smoothness of the interior parts of the curve.

So it's sort of a "feature" to actually not have those kinds of handles inside of smooth areas - each one of those kinds of handles that you show there unless at symmetrical style are actually a break in curvature continuity of the curve there, there's basically a lack of higher order smoothness at those juncture points and that kind of curvature break is much more noticeable on 3D surfaces that are generated from such curves than ones used for 2D only... So that's sort of why that sort of older style Bezier handle mechanism is not a great fit for 3D type work.

So anyway, that's why it's not too likely that MoI would get that exact style of editing, it actually has technical quality problems associated with it. After you use the NURBS method for a while you will probably get more used to it and see quite a lot of benefits though - you'll start to notice the curve quality is greater and start to be able to notice a sort of lumpy-ness to the Bezier style curves that happens right at each handle location (due to lack of curvature continuity). Also the way NURBS curves behave tends to be more natural when placing control points because each point that you place tends to more naturally shape curve instead of the sort of "yank out a tangent that bulges out previous sections of the curve" style behavior of the older-style Bezier drawing tools.

- Michael