I agree with Michael on this. There is no benefit to combine 3 functions into 1, if it means the 1 will just become more complex. I think it makes sense to combine certain types of commands (such as extrusions, booleans, blending, etc) because your input objects can be used to determine which sub-command you intend to use. But for Network, Sweep, and Loft they are all using very similar combinations of curves and/or edges as input. So MoI can not sense your intent...

jonah

Hi Paolo,
first, my apologies, I have to learn that there are people on this forum that haven't experienced
3d modelling software before, it must be very confusing at first but keep using Moi you will get the
hang of it and will benefit in the long run.
Just to give you an uderstanding on where I'm coming from.
At work we use a 'high end' 3d modelling package and when I want to make a surface I must decide between,

Swoop
4 point surface
studio surface 1x1
studio surface 1x2
studio surface 2x0
studio surface 2x2
studio surface nxn
Ruled
Through Curve
Through Curve Mesh
Swept
Styled Sweep
n sided surface

when I started using MoI and seeing just those 3 surface commands and actually achieving the same
type of complex shapes as the 'high end' product I thought this is brilliant, and if I ever met Michael I
would give him a Hug............in a masculine way of course :)

Cheers
Danny

I understand that i am pretending to much for the moment.
Maybe over 5 years from now someone get's it done.

Bye Bye!

> Michael, if you could make single commands more powerfull,
> even artists who hate using commands would buy your
> product.

Hi Paolo, it is definitely a general goal to make each command more powerful when possible, instead of adding new ones.

Actually Sweep and Network already are combined to a certain extent - Sweep combines Rhino's Sweep1 and Sweep2 commands, and Network combines Rhino's NetworkSrf and EdgeSrf commands.

But even though these 3 are similar, there are enough differences that make combining them further kind of difficult.

For example even though Network and 2-rail Sweep are kind of similar, the calculations that they go through to construct a surface are different and have different options in them (for example "maintain height" option in 2 rail sweep). Even when you use the same curve setup between them.

Also another example is I want to make sweep more powerful in v2 so that if you select say 5 rail curves you will be able to do a one-rail sweep around each of those 5 curves to make a large number of pipes all at once. It would generally be more difficult to add this in if Sweep and Network were combined and instead having 5 rail curves triggered it to do the Network calculation instead of Sweep.


I'm just not very confident in this particular case that I can combine them without adding too much complexity inside of the combined command.

It is a big benefit to have a reduced number of individually more powerful commands, but at the same time there is also pressure to make each command not too complex and not too many steps or options in it.

- Michael