Thanks so much for creating V4! It works so much better than V3. I create LED displays with 1000s of LEDs, each represented by a tiny solid. I used to wait minutes for each save or open. Now it's so quick. Thanks again!

I have one super quick and presumably easy feature to request as you move from platform migration to new features: An option to have object selection and creation clear the previous selection.

I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally deleted valuable objects in processes like this:
• select some solid and do something with it
• pan the view somewhere else
• draw a circle
• extrude the circle to make a cylinder
• hit the delete key to delete the circle

Hey wait a minute! Where's my original object? It's gone because I didn't remember that it was selected when I drew the circle. (One could argue that allowing the extrude command to function at all when a solid was selected is a bug.)

I strongly feel that selecting an object without modifier keys, or creating an object should clear any previous selection. This is the way that (probably) every other object-drawing program works. Its the way all word processing and other types of GUI programs work too.

Since having selection and creation ADD to the current selection is the way that MOI has traditionally operated, I know you can't just change it, but PLEASE provide a setting in Options to have selection work the way a lot of people, including myself, expect it to.

In this optional mode, please make it so that holding the shift key while making a selection DOES add to the existing selection, both when selecting an object in the rendering and when selecting all objects of a given name/type/style. ie: Holding the shift key takes you back to MOI's traditional selection style.

Thanks again!

Hello,

Esc is your friend if that happens to be your workflow. From a UX perspective how MoI selects and modifies objects in space is, in my opinion, one of it's greatest strengths. Many other design packages are hamstrung by lack of usability improvement in that critical area or try half baked implementations that slow down this frequent process. Asking a user to remember a more complex operation leads to confusion and frustration with a product.

Hello Christopher.

I agree with you, it is always necessary to remember, and Yes, the Esc key to automatism.
I often find myself in this situation too.
This method in one case it helps, the other hinders.

Vladimir.

Thanks Christopher, I'm glad you are liking the improved file loading speed in v4!

re: Multiple select - I do have it on my todo list to put in an option for changing how multiple select works like you are describing. I haven't been too excited to do it kinda because the way it currently works was one of the very earliest design choices for MoI to enable working without needing to constantly use the keyboard. So turning it off is to me kind of a little like taking out a piece of MoI's soul... But only a little. ;) I think it will also be somewhat problematic when you're working with edge or face sub-objects where multiple selection is needed almost all the time. That's an area of MoI that does not really resemble a 2D drawing or word processing application very much unlike curve drawing.

- Michael

Hi Christopher, also re:

> (One could argue that allowing the extrude command to function at all when a solid was selected is a bug.)

At some point here hopefully not too far off having a solid selected at the same time as a curve when you are doing an extrude will mean project the curve onto the solid and extrude that piece of the solid in or out.

- Michael

Why not a Nurbs to SubD converter?

Yep, i'll use it all the time : )

Hi Robert,

> Why not a Nurbs to SubD converter?

I would like to have one, but it's a difficult problem and there will be a lot of work involved.

Check out this thread for what happens with the current state-of-the-art conversion mechanisms:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8817.23

- Michael

Hi Michael,

when I saved the file, Moi has crashed.
The "save to"-option works fine in this case.

I attach the moi-report here. Hope it's ok.

Best regards
Jörg

Hi Jörg, thanks for sending the crash report. Does the crash happen when you are trying to save a particular file that you have loaded?

If so is it possible for you to send me the file at moi@moi3d.com so I can try to reproduce the crash?

The crash report indicates the crash is happening in nvwgf2umx.dll which is part of the NVidia display driver, so it might be some problem with the video driver.

I might be able to figure out more though if I can repeat the crash over here.

Thanks,
- Michael

Hi Michael,

I have send the 3dm-file to you. Hope it helps.

Jörg

Hi Jörg, I do not seem to have received the file. If it is pretty large you may need to use something like Dropbox and send a link to it rather than as a direct e-mail file attachment.

Thanks, - Michael

OOps! The file has a size of 1mb :)
I send it as attachment directly here. It's not somethink special.

Best regards
Jörg

Hi Jörg, thanks for posting the file. I can't repeat the crash over here though, does it happen for you if you just open that file and then use Save?

Since your crash dump has the crash happening inside your video driver maybe there is a problem there. A few things you could try might be to update your video drive to the latest version and there are also a couple of moi.ini settings you could set that may help:

[View]
<...>
DisplayThreadLimit=1

That will disable the use of multiple cpu cores for the drawing engine, some video drivers may behave better with that.

And also:

[View]
StaticBufferMaxVRAMToUseMB=0

That will disable caching of display meshes on video card memory.

Does any of that make any improvement?

Thanks,
- Michael

Hi Michael,

another bug is, when I hide the points on a curve, the curve will deleted.
I bring back with Control+Z and hide again the points. The curve is remains in the scene.

Try with a new freeform-curve and activate the points and then hide the points.
In my case the curve will deleted.

Best regards
Jörg

Hi Jörg, there isn't currently any way set up in MoI to hide individual points. If you have the curve selected at the time you do the hide, the curve will be hidden though but not deleted. You should be able to use Hide again to make it visible.

Ctrl+Z undo also works to undo the last change in visibility or selection.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

thank you for this information. Is it a new feature? I never see this before.

Jörg

Not a big deal, but:
Unless I am mistaken? I've noticed this morning that the f.lux program, which warms up Windows programs screen colors, during darker parts of the day,
SEEMS to be causing the Area Zoom Pan Reset panel at the bottom center of the MoIBeta4 screen to remain lighter than the f.lux colored MoI screen,
whenever the mouse pointer is in the gridlines area of the screen. This is not happening in MoI3.
(Hovering over the panel, the colors seem to match.)

So it seems like, for that area, the shade used by MoI does not reflect the f.lux modification?

- Brian

Hi Jörg,

re:
> Is it a new feature? I never see this before.

No, that's the same as it has always been.

For the crash is that something you can repeat over there using that file you posted?

If it was just a one time random crash you might try updating your video driver since the crash report showed the crash was happening in video driver code.

- Michael