I'm not getting much modeling time at the moment but, although I can see the benefit if dynamic type modeling, I agree with Michael. Get the interaction right first. If you don't then it is next to impossible to change it later.

Michael, I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I am very impressed by your dedication to the usability of MoI. Also credit to you for sticking to your intended direction for your product. This is a precious jewel in a world of deadline, feature and cost driven software.

I'm sure when you add history to MoI it will be like the rest of the tool - both useful and easy to use. In the meantime keep up the good work!

> Hi JTB - definitely history and being able to correct mistakes
> is a good thing, and I certainly want to add more functions for this into MoI.
> But just being able to draw things quickly and easily initially is by itself a critical function.

I agree, that's why I love MoI....

> How often does it happen to you that you drew a sphere of the wrong diameter and then only noticed it several steps later? Hopefully it > is not happening to you every time that you draw something.

By the word "wrong" I ment different than I need... and.... yes, it happens to me very often to change my mind about something I model.


>That's certainly true - but is there any way that you would ever describe 3ds max's interface as easy to use or intuitive?

No, of course not, I've said before that I am not a Max user, I find it's difficult and not intuitive

>But I am still hoping to extend MoI's history functionality later on in the v2 beta, after object organization tools are complete.
>There is quite a lot of work involved to do it though, so I'm not sure yet how much will be finished for v2. But I definitely have many >ideas on how to improve this area in MoI.
Yes, I understand there are priorities, I am glad to hear you have this in mind!


>There are actually many programs out there that focus a lot on history already, like you mentioned 3ds max, and there are also many >solid modelers that focus on it quite extensively like SolidWorks, Pro/E, etc...

Sorry, not much of modeling experience....


>What those systems do not do is make it really easy to just freely draw things. That's one reason why MoI is focused on that area, ...

That's why people love MoI too!

>If I just focused on doing exactly the same thing as other programs, .....

No, that's not what I mean, I certainly want something new and suitable to MoI's UI and capabilities.



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To : -ash-


>I'm not getting much modeling time at the moment but, although I can see the benefit if dynamic type modeling, I agree with Michael. >Get the interaction right first. If you don't then it is next to impossible to change it later.
>Michael, I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I am very impressed by your dedication to the usability of MoI. Also credit to you for >sticking to your intended direction for your product. This is a precious jewel in a world of deadline, feature and cost driven software.

I can't disagree with that, Michael does a great job, MoI is great, and we all try to add something for a better MoI....

Sorry, couldn't resist, this argument has been in the cad world for a while, 'history' or 'history free' that is the question.

Yahsoo JBT,

I've been using history based software at work for several years now and for the designs we do, you need it, because of amount of customer changes involved.
In a large organisation you can't afford to redo things from scratch, that's why the investment is made in high end cad, but that doesn't say it's easy
to use, sometimes history modeling can be a pain in the neck, you can't just model willy nilly and get a result you have to plan your modeling as you go,
you must think about the history 10 steps ahead so you have a sound model that will stick together after you make changes later.
I try to model with the least amount of features in the history tree as possible because the more features involved the more likely something will 'fall off' and if
more features 'fall off' the longer it takes to find the problem and then edit them.

I bought MoI for home use only because of how it is now, quick, accurate and a breath of fresh air from my day to day job.
For conceptual work it's fantastic, I thought I'd give a go on a real job from home that needed to be accurate and it didn't feel like work, but, you still need to
do some up front planning.

> and.... yes, it happens to me very often to change my mind about something I model.

That's where the planning comes into it, you have to see a few steps ahead before you commit a command, in the case I mentioned above I couldn't afford to change my mind,
but we are all human and we do change our mind, that's why before I commited to a boolean or trim I would incremental save at that point 'ALT-S' I was up to about 22 saves when I finished the model.
And there are times when I'd just redo the model from scatch in MoI because it's so quick and easy to model with.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like some more powerful history stuff in MoI too, but if you plan ahead, in your head, we can get by very easily, even more so when Michael starts on the object organisation stuff.

Just one more thing, just 2 days ago, I got back from a new release seminar for the software we use at work and it was a huge hyp about a brand new feature and breakthrough for this version release, it turned out to be they now included the option of 'history', 'history free' or a combanation of both type of modeling, pretty powerful stuff sort of push pull stuff a bit like Spaceclaim that was mentioned in the forum somewhere.

Any way I thought I'd share my experience on the subject.

Cheers

I like XSI's implementation - model until you turn blue in the face or your machine grinds to a halt w/out of memory errors, make that final decision ("okay, I'm happy with this") and then hit the [Freeze M] button which tosses out the whole modeling stack leaving the object in it's final (frozen) state.

Want to change the size of the sphere? Go back to the modeling OP (in the history list) that created the sphere and modify the associated parameters - done!


The great thing about the XSI modeling operator stack is you can go back and adjust each operator provided it's still there.

The bad thing is (obviously) the machine slows down depending on how "far out" you go with your modeling until you freeze your modeling stack.

Working with NURBS data, I'm not sure if MOI would have a "bog down point" similar to XSI, of if you would be able to do MORE work or less before slow downs ruin the interactivity?


The GUI I believe would be simple similar to XSI - a "Freeze M" button to merge down all the operands to the current state, and also the "Immediate" button which turns off the history stack all together letting you "model from the hip" as we mostly do now, along with a list view dialog of all commands previously executed with their input parameters.

The hard part is Michael would have to implement that operator stack where he keeps track of every operation performed from Time(0) and then PLAY THROUGH that operator stack everytime the display of the object requires updating.

Multiply that by every object in the scene that's not in "Immediate" mode!...



Would I like to see FreezeM and Immediate in MOI? Sure!

Do I think Michael could make it Simple and put his "MOI - easy to use!) spin on it? Sure!

Is this something hard to implement? HELL YEAH!


I know Michael has already mentioned some great ideas he has for the history function, I just don't know if they will include being able to modify the very first POINT being laid down (which would be nice btw!), as we're requesting here...

-Will

PS - Would this be a great feature to have in "MOI Pro" - YEP! ;-)

Hi JTB, well I think we're on the same page...

This is just one of those things that takes a significant amount of work to make it happen, that's the only reason why I haven't gotten to it quite yet.

- Michael

>Any way I thought I'd share my experience on the subject.

Cheers
~Danny~

Your HIRED!

Get rid of that new kid... He's and IDOT!

Burr :)