Hi PaQ,

> I was wondering if it make sence to also having a separate
> object with a grooved above zero ?

Is there something in particular that would help with?

One thing I was figuring was that with grooved above zero you've got all the pieces created so you can select them and use Edit > Separate to break the inset part out as a separate object if you want.

I kind of try to avoid having too many bazillion options on things when possible, that's why I was trying to have Groove width = 0 do some double duty as the "keep the plug separate" option.

But if it is something that would be used often enough, then I could see putting in an additional option for it.

- Michael

Great feature!
I did not thought I'd see this in V2...

Thanks!

Marc

Hi Michael,

Well it was just to create some SF panels here and there on the space ship.
I do like the one click solution from the groove 0 option, but I also prefer to have a little ofset of the panel to have better details in the shadows/gi.
Wihtout saying it much more easy to manage surfaces on separated object (solids).

> One thing I was figuring was that with grooved above zero you've got all the pieces created so you can select them and use Edit > Separate to break the inset part out as a separate object if you want.

I'll try to figure out that, but I'm not sure if it's so easy, especially when the inset is done on curved surfaces, as you have to rebuild the missing surface under the pieces. (I prefer to keep everyting 'solids' to avoid double faces surfaces at render time)

Hi PaQ, re: option to keep plug separate with groove greater than 0 - I should be able to add that in for v3.

Right now I've told some people that I will not modify the v2 UI any more before the full release so that they know they can translate the current beta without anything shifting on them.

Since that option will require a new control for it, that would also require a UI change so it will have to wait until v3.

I kind of figured that some work on Inset would probably span across into v3, since it was introduced in the very last v2 beta.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

this last beta is not only fast and stable here, but the inset command is big fun to create detail - Superb!

One question: I model a lot in polymodelers and there if I would do a similar action to an inset on - for instance - three connected sides of a cube, the resulting inner polygons would stay selected, so I could repeat the action very fast and easily.
In MoI at this moment, if I want to repeat the inset 5 times for repetitive structures, I have to reselect the "polys"/patches each time which means first selecting the object again, then hit one face (and not an edge accidentally) to get to face mode and then select the other faces. So even in "repeat" mode, this is pretty slow to do what otherwise would be hitting "done" 5 times in a row.

Am I missing something here and it's already doable or would it be possible to have a "keep resulting faces selected" option?

Thank you very much for all your fantastic work!

Thomas Helzle

Interesting thing is how you come up with ideas that are not found elsewhere, at least I have not seen exactly this before.

-FF

Hi Thomas,

> Am I missing something here and it's already doable or would it
> be possible to have a "keep resulting faces selected" option?

Nope, you're not missing anything - currently to apply another inset on the same area again, you will need to make a new selection. If edges are getting in your way frequently when you're trying to do face selections, try to zoom in a bit and also turning off the hidden line display can help a lot for that, there is a checkbox for that in the View palette on the side pane.

re: "keep resulting faces selected" option - well I kind of hate to add in too many options to things, it tends to lead to a clogged up type feeling in the UI and makes it harder to browse through the main stuff.

I don't think there are any other commands that select sub-objects in their generated result, so it may be a bit tricky to add that in. If it were to do it by default, it could possibly cause some unwanted side effects, like possibly the workflow for this example here would become kind of different with deselections needed first:




So I'm not sure, I'd need to think about that for a bit.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Sure, let's finalise V2 first :) so you can start to work on V3 asap :)

Hi Michael,
yes, I fully understand.
Actually, this is the first modeling tool in MoI that made me go to repeat immediately over and over again :-)
So for the first time I really noticed this difference to poly modeling and thought I bring it up in case there would be a good solution.
But no worries, I'm happy with whatever you come up with :-)

Cheers,

Thomas

Hi Thomas, I tried a couple of ideas for keeping the face selection but since it is not similar to how other things work it does not look easy to do right now.

One idea I had was to maybe keep the face selection if you had turned repeat mode on by checking that "Repeat" button... That would avoid needing to add in any additional UI for this.

But that would mean having a command alter its behavior depending on what the repeat mode is and the current infrastructure is not set up for that.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

very great tool.. could be possible to have newly created faces with the same style of the mother.. or with the current active style

thanks and bye

Hi taleequale,

> could be possible to have newly created faces with the
> same style of the mother..

Actually the way it currently works is that it inherits the styles from the original faces.

But the inset piece will be made up of a combination of pieces that come from the inset face as well as the side surrounding faces.

The various pieces of the inset will inherit the style of the original face that was used to produce the offset surface.

So for instance here is a box with a red top and blue side wall pieces:



When doing an inset of this, the inset will be composed of a red piece that was derived from the original top, and also blue pieces for the side walls, since those side walls of the inset are derived from the side walls of the original box:




Do you mean that you wish that the side walls were actually not inherited from their original source surfaces and instead made the same as the face being inset?

I'm not really sure if that would be possible for all cases, here is an example where there are multiple faces with different styles on them being inset, what would you want the side walls to come out as:





So note there that there is not necessarily a separate "side wall" surface for every separate face being inset, there are areas where there can be one side wall shared between multiple faces.

But the current method that makes the styles directly inherited from their originating surface makes this all work in a more predictable way...

- Michael

This should make the panel line issues I was dealing with a while back much easier. I've found ways to get good panel lines, but I'll have to try this new version and see if I can get quicker results with the inset commands.

Thanks Michael!