I've not made a model complex enough thus far to require this, but can I group a bunch of objects to form a sub-assembly?

The parts have various styles assigned and I want to move this sub-assembly around as a group without worry that I'll break it apart.

I see the "Lock" feature, but that locks the assembly from moving.

Ed

Hi Ed, the closest thing you can do to that right now is to assign all those objects a name - to do that select them all and then go the properties panel and click on the line that shows the object name and then a dialog will pop up that will let you enter in a new name.

Once you have done that, an entry for that name will appear in the "Objects" section of the scene browser. To move the objects together right-click on the selection dot for that object name so that those objects are the only things selected, and then you can transform them all at once.

I am planning on adding a "Group" mechanism which would help make this particular kind of thing easier - I'm thinking that a group will also appear in the "objects" section but some differences are that it will be able to have child groups to form a hierarchy and also I'd like to make an option for a group to do "Atomic selection" or "Select as one", to help make the whole thing select as one unit when you click on it to make it easier to do the kind of thing you're talking about.

A couple of issues that I have not quite sorted out yet is whether Groups should have a different section in the scene browser all their own, or whether it would be good to combine both groups and named objects inside the "Objects" section of the scene browser, and also if it's really necessary to have both "Object names" and "Groups" as kind of different things or whether they can be merged into one single thing a bit more.


> I see the "Lock" feature, but that locks the assembly from moving.

Lock prevents things from being selected. It's used to keep things on the screen for visual reference but out of the running with regard to selecting and modification.


- Michael

Thanks Michael. Giving the group of parts a name does help in the selection of the sub-assembly.

I'm designing a precision engraving machine and the spindle + pulleys + brackets + collet + 6 other parts form a sub-assembly. This is actually a purchased item and so I don't need to modify this part of the model.

But in the true spirit of MoI, I'm playing around with the position and size of the other machine components to insure it will all come together without interference. Being able make adjustments and see this in 3D is a big improvement over using 2D drawings.

Yeah - I was looking for the Corel Draw equivalent of "Group" / "Ungroup" which I use all the time. In moving the other machine components, it's very easy to select & move a piece of the spindle assembly by accident.

Anyway, I'm glad you'll be addressing this in the future.

Ed

Good timing Ed,

Michael, I was building a model tonight that actually has a lot of little parts that form some kind of a wheel.
I had to do a lot of intricate selecting so that I could do a rotate by axis to move parts of the cluster in place.
I was able to use the naming ability to help organize the large number of objects, but in the bargain, I lost naming on smaller objects I did not want to loose right yet.

Groups with sub-group ability would be very nice.

My suggestion for the list organization would be to allow for both 'selection by object name', 'by material' and 'by group'

The groups and sub-objects or groups would be shown as distributed by hierarchy.
Maybe an A-B toggle switch could alternate the list from 'groups as arranged' to 'all objects as named'

Selecting objects under the named expansion would select all same named objects regardless of group affiliation.
Selecting objects while in 'group list' mode would only allow for selection of same named objects within that group.

You'll know better though, I'm sure there is an easy and logical method.


One big problem I had tonight is of interest here: There is a file that is now so large, I'll have to bring it to work because it makes my home PC go into eternal crunch death, and I had to reboot to bring it the sweet mercy of death is was so entitled.

- When I went to Mirror/copy a large group of objects, the files size grew accordingly and it became too much.

Would it be possible to consider some group copies to be 'instances' or 'clones'. It would not save the video card processor, but it would keep the size down, and on-screen video render polys could be reproduced instantly to cut down on processor time. Ungrouping a clone group would of course make it a set of individual objects as it is now.

Just some thoughts.

Hi Mike, yeah I want the grouping mechanism to enable a hierarchical structure so you could have parent and child groups.

I think that an instance mechanism will be another separate mechanism yet from groups, since it needs a fair amount of specific tools for it such as having a way to swap out the base definition and have all the instances update. Also an instancing mechanism is maybe more related to a type of library or catalog of stuff in some ways, while a "group" will probably be more of an structural organization tool... That's at least some of my current thinking anyway.

It would be nice though if object names, groups, and instances could maybe be more parts of one single system instead of 3 different types of things, but I'm not entirely sure yet if trying to combine them too much might make things more complex instead of better.

- Michael

<<Michael:
I want the grouping mechanism to enable a hierarchical structure so you could have parent and child groups.>>

This will help Moi to be more quick and easy to use...i mean:on a hand we got the best UI,quick and powerful tools;on the other we have a basic grouping mechanism that often deboost workflow.
(you see,Michael, users that post models more complicated are growing,lot of sub-objects,details etc...)

Hi Mauro, yup I definitely want to boost the organization capabilities.

But also I want to do it carefully too, once systems like that are put in place it's very difficult to go back and change them so I've wanted to be pretty sure about the path to take before jumping in.

I've seen many organization systems that can end up being quite inflexible and can cause a lot of problems with side effects from how they work, so that has made me be fairly cautious about the whole general area.

So far the initial steps of being able to have 3 different methods of organization (by object name, by types, and by styles) has turned out well as a starting point I think, especially since they are able to interact with one another instead of only one system taking total precedence. So at least so far it's nice and flexible and I want to try and preserve that going forward too.

One of the main things missing currently is hierarchy though, and I definitely want to incorporate something for that.

- Michael

A little big headache :)

<<Michael:
But also I want to do it carefully too, once systems like that are put in place it's very difficult to go back and change them so I've wanted to be pretty sure about the path to take before jumping in.>>


I think all we know your approach and "philosophy" about Moi's programming,take time you need..we'll be here to support your work !