Hi Pior,

> Regarding tweak mode : yeah, in pretty much every regular 3D program it is
> universally enabled by switching the reference system and/or the manipulator
> system to "screen"

re: "Regular" 3D programs having that - please keep in mind that really there are a vast array of 3D programs focused on engineering and mechanical design that completely do not work like that. It's very much the "animation and rendering" type 3D programs that operate like that, not CAD programs... And MoI is actually a CAD program - it is a kind of mutant CAD program that is trying to make the CAD toolset useful to a different set of people than just mechanical engineers, but it's still fundamentally a CAD program though.

Reading down a bit more it sounds like you're aware of that though! I guess you mean that CAD programs are not "regular" ? ;)


But MoI isn't really intended to be used for character design, it's much more focused on building man made type objects and not so much organic sculpted forms. So just the primary focus of the tool is not really very aligned with your particular work.


> BUT! I also understand that keeping a straight roadmap and vision for app development is
> crucial and screen-space manipulation might simply not fit in that scheme, which is totally
> fair and I fully understand that.

Well, I don't think it would really particularly hurt anything to have it, it's just that it's also not really of much benefit for the typical kind of workflow that MoI is focused on, (emphasis on 2D curves, "construction" oriented process rather than "tweaking and sculpting" orientation).

I can certainly add it as some kind of special mode that you engage when you set up a particular shortcut key script. That will end up being used by only a couple of people and maybe not even that because like I wrote previously it just does not best suit the NURBS construction workflow to try and build a full 3D empty wireframe with complex boundaries initially, the best workflow for NURBS modeling is one where many of the edges are not all directly drawn by hand but instead result from intersections and cutting.

So there's just a fundamental break between the kind of workflow that you're trying to do there and the kind of workflow that works well with NURBS... And MoI is focused on NURBS modeling so that means MoI is just not likely the right tool for your particular kind of a job...


> Also I notice that there is an improved object manipulation system in the app now (allowing
> to rotate objects intuitively thanks to nice on-screen manipulators, bypassing the need to
> place reference points and axises in "CAD-style" fashion) so I feel that there is somehow a
> push in the direction of free-form manipulation.

Yeah this is the edit frame that was added in v2, it helps to get a sort of Adobe Illustrator type 2D vector illustration feel in the 2D curve drawing area. It's a much nicer manipulator to use for 2D drawing than the poly modeling style one because it's so low profile, just going around the outside of your selection rather than taking up screen space right smack in the middle of everything. That means that you don't need to have special modes or keys to turn it on or off, it can just stay on all the time...

This 2D manipulator was a much higher priority than a 3D poly modeling type one because of the whole workflow focus on using 2D curves for driving most of the design.


> On a slightly off topic note (but still on the subject of rapid creation) : is there any plan
> for a greasepencil/sketch tool in MOI ? For instance, it would be great to be able to sketch
> a freehand product design straight within the MOI interface in the ortho views, and then work
> on top of such a ghosted sketch to draft the actual source curves for the clean NURBS model.

Well, there is a brush stroke type vector sketch tool under Draw curve > Freeform > Sketch - it's for drawing an actual curve though and not just doing raster markup.

I'd love to have a raster paint program embedded directly in MoI for doing concept sketching right in there but the amount of work involved in doing that is prohibitive.

There is a feature for placing in a background image for tracing over, that's available under View > Image, so the simple way to do that kind of a thing is to just do your quick concept painting in Photoshop, save it out as an image and then bring that image into MoI as a background image. There are different options for drawing the image underneath everything to or also to make it transparent and draw on top of everything giving that kind of ghosted sketch type thing that you are mentioning.

- Michael