> (And it's important to very much slow down the workings of the tool movement
> speeds or one can go "around the bend" mentally in seconds!)

One thing that can work well for this kind of close zooming is the "Area" tool (in the bottom of the viewport)- snap the center of the area rectangle to the end, and then if you drag a small window it will be focused right on that spot.

Sometimes I use a combination of the area zoom to center the view on one spot, then use the zoom button at the bottom of the viewport to zoom in slowly by moving the mouse only a small distance up.


> Little red dots show up when ends are close but not joined?

Nope, nothing is displayed right now for close but not joined. It would probably be nice to show something, but the tricky thing is to decide what distance should trigger a display like that. If the distance is too loose, then it will look like there are errors on things that are actually fine.

There is a red square outline that is displayed if you have control points turned on and there is more than one point stacked up on the same location, which tends to cause problems.

- Michael

As always Michael, thanks.
Yes I must use that area selection more. Good point.
I can undersatand the "limits" that my red dots idea would produce but, maybe better than nothing?
The red square. Does this show up (have never seen) when ends are only alligned in one direction? ( In any case,is that any different from the red dots principle?)

> maybe better than nothing?

It's hard to say - if it gave a "false positive", like a warning where there was no actual problem, then it could be confusing.

I would definitely like to look into it in the future - but it's one of those things that will need some time and experimentation.

Too many of these things and you can get an information overload without it being obvious what the warning is really trying to convey.


> The red square. Does this show up (have never seen) when ends are only
> alligned in one direction?

Nope, it shows up when you have control points stacked up in the exact same location.

So for example if I start with this curve, with this reference point above it:



If I drag 3 of the curve's control points over to that same location so they are all stacked up on top of each other, you will see the red square show up:



It's good that you don't see it often, because curves that are structured like this with several points stacked up right on top of one another will cause many problems later on.


> ( In any case,is that any different from the red dots principle?)

The big difference is that it is triggered by a more precise condition of points being stacked right on top of each other.

A "show something if they are close together" type method is much less precisely specified, making it more likely to be triggered as a false positive.

- Michael

What a joy to have you, and Andrew of 3D Brush!

If the fixes for Carrara 6 come through what else would I ever need?
(Well, other than P/Shop naturally!)

"unfortunately, i don't have the patience or skill to plan my modelling in its entirety, so for me full editing tools are a must."


I come from Cinema, too. I use to draw my concepts by building up a 3-dimensional spline model and then go on
experimenting with the shapes and proportions of the solid model until achieving the final form.

I am actually trying out if I can do this with MoI. I thing the best (only ?) way to keep the object easily editable is when
working with curves and networks so that you can use the points of the curves to edit the object. So I am experimenting
if I can design my objects mainly with the use of curves + networks as I found out that I loose flexibilty when I apply
boole operations or others.