Hey all,

Great app! I like playing with various apps and I like to see how easy an app is by using it without having to dig in to the manual. MOI is pretty darn easy. BRAVO!!! This is a model is nothing pretty but it was enough for me to get a feel for things. Like many others have said, like the clean simple GUI. MOI works great with my wacom tablet.

Things I couldn't figure out:
- how to adjust the influence on a blend? There is another app that use that will allow you to adjust the influence on the fly by dragging your mouse.
- can the planar tool work like a gordon surfacing tool? You know, select 4 curves and create a surface?

Would like to see:
- manifold tool?
- Againg, love the edit profile option when you revolve something, but it would be great to have on the fly edit for blends.
- custom plane orientation.
- microscribe plugin? ( just a thought).



Michael, GREAT JOB on this app. Looking forward to seeing more, and curious on pricing too!


Cheers,
Dooki

> - how to adjust the influence on a blend?

There is no way to do it currently. Blending is a particularly weak area of the beta currently. I think this area will get an overhaul before V1 is released, but it might be a couple of months down the road.


> You know, select 4 curves and create a surface?

Yeah, I've been thinking of changing the name from "Planar" to just "Fill", and having it support doing 4 curves in addition to planar curves like you describe. I should be able to do this pretty soon.


> - manifold tool?

You mean the type of thing that trims off all the outside portions and leaves you with the inside set of a bunch of intersecting surfaces?


> - custom plane orientation.

I expect to have this eventually but I don't think that it's going to happen for the V1 release.


> - microscribe plugin? ( just a thought).

I'm not really expecting to go into this area with MoI...


> curious on pricing too!

Pricing isn't finished yet, but it's going to be quite affordable compared to other CAD programs.


MoI V1 is just not going to be very focused on doing the more advanced types of surface modeling, it's more about making the simple things easy and quick. Some of the fancier things will probably be added fairly slowly. I want to try not to kill the current clean and simple GUI with just too much stuff, it's kind of a delicate balance.

Thanks for your comments and feedback!

- Michael

Hey Michael,
-Manifold tool= yup, that's the one I was thinking of. Once again, it's a joy to work with MOI.

OK, I've read the thread by Hyltom. To add to his comments about something new. As a designer, it would be great to be able to sketch out and idea and then block out a quick model. The same idea as with alias sketch of course. I assume there will be option to import background reference images, but what about the option to "sketch" within MOI? Also, is there a way to create/edit geometry the way Sketch up does? Create a housing, draw a profile of a button on directly on the housing and extrude it. I know rhino had an edit curve on surface, but what MOI let you use the freeform pen directly on the geomtry for secondary actions? Maybe I'm thinking of a cross between alias sketch/smooth teddy/cosmic blobs/Zbrush/rhino/ with the ease of MOI.


I know nothing about what it takes to create an application so forgive me if I'm saying things are way complicated. I've read your interview and your right. There are a lot of deisgners and artist that use a pen more than a mouse. I use photoshop, illustrator, Zbrush, and part of HEX2 with a pen. It would be great to have conceptual CAD tool using a pen and MOI is on the right track for sure!


-Dooki

> Manifold tool= yup, that's the one I was thinking of.

It might be a little while... You can accomplish the same thing by using Trim and then Join right now. Before adding a new tool, I would prefer to wait for a while and think about ways that it could be incorporated into an existing tool.


> I assume there will be option to import background reference images

Yes, this should be coming pretty soon.


> but what about the option to "sketch" within MOI?

Do you mean as in a paint program with airbrush paint styles, etc? Or do you mean freeform curve sketching?

The first (bitmap style painting) will be quite difficult, it is a very large area of work that is very different than the current CAD / Vector graphics style stuff that MoI currently uses. So not anytime soon for that.

For sketching curves as if by brush strokes, that is available now, go to Draw curve / Freeform / Sketch. You may find the "Repeat" checkbox to be useful to do many strokes.


> Also, is there a way to create/edit geometry the way Sketch up does?

Currently no, there isn't any way to directly draw on objects. I have some ideas for exploring this in the future, but it will be a while before there is any work done on it. I would kind of like to avoid having a special tool to just draw only freeform curves on surfaces, it would be better if there was a way to tag a surface and then have all the drawing tools work on it. But of course having all the tools work on it will be a lot harder to accomplish.

But in many instances instead of rushing a half-way solution out, I would kind of rather be without it entirely for a while until the whole solution can be brought in properly all at once. This approach does mean that I will be missing big chunks of stuff for a while. Some stuff that is pretty weird to be missing too, like changing object properties or having layers...


> I know nothing about what it takes to create an application so
> forgive me if I'm saying things are way complicated.

No problem, it never hurts to ask! :) Some of the stuff you're asking for is indeed rather complex, such as blending features for 5 different apps together! :)

It's great to get feedback on these ideas and about the type of flavor of tools that would be useful. I've had ideas on future work along the same lines as stuff that you are requesting. But some of these will take quite a while before they can come to fruition, though. In the closer future it will only be feasible to make much smaller steps.

There's also another problem, in that it may not be a possible task to jam too much stuff into one single tool and maintain the same clarity and ease of use, those goals are unfortunately fairly fundamentally at odds with one another.

- Michael