Are layers going to be implemented in v2? I really hope so... reeeaaaaly hope so. I'm so tired of hiding the same things over and over and over again. I'm using Rhino as a layer manager for MoI right now, lol. :-)

-Nick

Hi Nick, yup object organization type tools similar to layers are going to be a big focus for v2.

- Michael

Hi Micheal,

I know this subject has come up before.

It will be interesting to see what you implement.
From my perspective, from the work_flow side of modeling, some way to (possibly) name, group, then add shortcut keys to hide/show groups would work well with some of the models I have been building.

But of course, any sort of object management will be very welcomed.


Regards,

- Steve

Hi Steve, I definitely want to make the things you list there possible with this new system.

I haven't got it all quite worked out yet, but I think it will be kind of a combination of layers and groups together. I think you'll be able to create a "tag" and assign a name to it, and you can assign objects to belong to the tag. It would then be possible to mark the tag as "select as one", which would then make it function like a group where it selects as one unit.

My current ideas are along those lines but not fully fleshed out yet.

- Michael

I would love to see a merge function for all the objects
in one group or on one layer when you export the model (optional)!
Peter

Hi Peter, what if there was material support, and you could assign a single material to all those objects and have that persist through export?

Then would you still need to have those things all merged into a single object still? Or would having them all set up with a single shared material do the job that you want here?

- Michael

Would be cool if we had a merge on top of that !
Simply because we somtimes come with dozens of small pieces
and merge would take care of them if you import into another program.....(some parts not even touching each other...)
Its just not viable sometimes to have a list of 70 parts on import !
I just made a tube amplifier not long ago with dozens of wires
and glass parts etc.
Sometimes its good to group materialwise ... sometimes unit -wise...
Those groupings should be pretty flexible !
while you want one grouping for all the wires and one for the glass.... you would like to group per tube for placing and scaling...(example)
Peter

Hi,

I really like the idea of grouping objects and it's flexibility, but I also like the "current layer" way of of working.
Like when you select a current layer, all new entities are created in this slot.

Always having to sort and group your objects after you have created the can become uneasy and cumbersome.

I don't know if this behavior could be applied in a grouping function?

Also maybe some kind of list of groups in which selection could be dragged in in a "live" way could be great.


Regards,

Marc

Hi Marc - re: current layer.

I haven't really focused on that too much, but I think that it should be possible to do that with a tag/group type system in a similar way.

But it will probably be kind of de-emphasized, like it probably won't be required for there to always be a current layer set at all times.

- Michael

The word layer simply points to AutoCAd..... Please, don't go this way, named objects, groups, selection sets etc are much more interesting. Layers can help because we don't have standard categories.... For example we don't have walls, doors, windows so we can choose to hide doors for example.... But, using just layers is not the right way to do this.
I was working with AutoCAD for years, thinking that there is no other way... Now I use Revit and I can see that everything can be done without layers...

JTB

That is your own preference tho'. No disrespect but I see this a lot with architects on the Rhino NG and it's annoying !!!
There are other people like me in the Mold&Die industries and many more professions I dont care to mention that also use
MoI and other modeling systems.

>> Please, don't go this way, named objects, groups, selection sets etc are much more interesting

Interesting doesn't come into it IMHO.....it has to be functional and quick period.

Im sure Michael will be giving this his usual care & attention, lets just see what comes out in the betas eh, then comment?

Rgds,

Hi JTB, Hi Paul,

It is not fully planned out yet, but I'm going to be trying to do a kind of more flexible system than "traditional" AutoCAD style layers.

I really want to get some of the functionality for layers, grouping, and named selection sets all within one object management interface instead of having 3 separate mechanisms for those things.

It won't be too much longer before I start to focus on this area and I will start discussing it a lot more then.

- Michael

@Karter :
I didn't say that layers are not useful, please read my post again.... I just think that MoI cannot just use layers and nothing more.... 3dsMax for example, has layers, named objects, groups, selection sets, everything....

"I really want to get some of the functionality for layers, grouping, and named selection sets all within one object management interface instead of having 3 separate mechanisms for those things."

I wish you the best for this... If you make it work, it will be the greatest thing Moi has.... I wouldn't mind having all of them... In future releases, you will probably add to import options, so an obj file can be handled with named objects and groups and selection sets, while an Autocad file or similar, could be easily manipulated using just layers. You will probably have to recognize all of them... Rhino for example, has a great list of import options.

I am sure you will find a nice way to do things, again....

Hi JTB, yeah I think it should be able to work with imported traditional "layer" data from AutoCAD (or actually Rhino's layers are the same too).

I mean there will be a lot of similarities to layers, it will be a way to assign objects to a certain kind of "tag" which is kind of the basic element of how layers work.

The main difference will be that you won't be forced to only assign an object to a single "tag", which is normally the big limitation with traditional layers where each object has a property of which layer it is on, and it can only be on just one.

I'd like to make it so that objects can belong to different "tags" instead of only just one.

With a little bit of additional support in the UI I think this same method will work for grouping - a group would be a tag that you create and then set an option on the tag for "Select as one".

Also somewhere in the UI I'll try to make it easy to click something to select all the objects on a certain tag - I think that should let it work as a named selection set as well.


So the idea is to have something more flexible than layers, and also incorporate named selection sets, and grouping all in the same interface instead of as totally separate concepts.

- Michael

Someone can hook your crazzy ideas ;)