this is a wish for later down the road (scene management remains my biggest wish for now):

Do you think it would be possible to include instances in moi?

Hi okapi,

> Do you think it would be possible to include instances in moi?

Yes! But it is probably like a v3 thing.

Is there one primary thing that you would be looking to achieve with instances?

I mean are you looking for reduction in file size, or more as a way to edit something and have that edit reflected in many other spots?

- Michael

file reduction would be a nice bonus from instances, but i would like to see it mainly for editing purposes.
But again, I would much rather see the work continue on the scene management first !

Hi okapi, yes scene management will be for v2, instances will have to wait a while later.

One thing I'm not quite sure about yet is if a deeper history function may possibly provide this style of editing without an actual separate instance function.

- Michael

Just did a search for instances request and found this thread. Can I also put a request in for this. I would think its main use (for me anyway) would be to edit say a window or door (group of objects) and all other instances of that window or door in a building model would also update. Currently they all need replacing manually which is a bit of a bind.

"""to edit say a window or door (group of objects) and all other instances of that window or door in a building model would also update""

This is also the way I would see it.

Maybe an underlying option to instance group while you copy them?

Marc

As see it this way too - but as instances are specific to individual apps I would also like to see an option to convert to real geometry.

Cheers.

I do want to add an instances mechanism in the future, but it will probably be a while yet before that will happen, I don't expect to have that finished for v2.

- Michael

>but as instances are specific to individual apps I would also like to see an option to convert to real geometry.

Yes obviously on export they should be treated as standard geometry. Glad to know it's high in the priority list, if not for the v2 release, Cheers.

I was just thinking, it could be a simple checkbox option in the copy command that would say "make instances" instead of normal copies.

Marc

Hi Marc, that could be one method for creating them...

But there is probably a lot of other management type pieces that would need to go in to really get the full thing working.

It is more normal for an instance to kind of get snapshotted to a special kind of table, so that there is kind of an internal list of "master" objects available and you can insert any of those later on.

Doing it only by a copy command would mean you would have to kind of manage that "master" object yourself and keep it around somewhere in the model if you wanted to insert new instances of it, it seems like it would kind of make for some manual effort in the management process.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Maybe I don't grasp the instance-block concept right but it could be that any instance, (not only the master) could be edited and the change would reflect on all others.

It would be a simple way of managing, and there could be the option of external-file instance thing capability...this way you could easily keep track of a master if you want to.

Just an idea!

Marc

Hi Marc,

> but it could be that any instance, (not only the master)
> could be edited and the change would reflect on all others.

That's one possibility... But also often an instance mechanism allows for things to be positioned independently from the master version.

Like for instance scaling an instance in many systems will only scale that instance and not have a ripple effect of also scaling all the other instances as well.

That allows for something like having a "snowflake" master object, and then a whole snowstorm of snowflake instances, each of which has a different position, orientation, and scale.


> and there could be the option of external-file instance thing capability...

Yup, of course each of these options that gets added adds a lot of work, especially with all the new UI that is involved for them.

For example an external-file capability would need more than just a checkbox on the Copy command to control it...

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Maybe you could allow only uniform scaling and rotation on instances, the changes made anywhere this way would be the same, except for the rotation and scale factor.

For external instances it could work by dragging a file, another button in the 'drag and drop' window would invite you to choose the instance option.

Just some exploratory thoughts, I realize how things can get pretty complex!

Marcus Welby

Hi Marcus, those are definitely some good ideas!

> For external instances it could work by dragging a file,
> another button in the 'drag and drop' window would
> invite you to choose the instance option.

That could possibly be a good way as an alternative shortcut to help set it up.

But I don't think it would work as the _only_ way to set up a file linkage, I mean what if you wanted to see what the linkages were in a file that you opened up from someone else?

What if you wanted to change the linkage to a different file name or remove it?

To fully support these kinds of tasks it really needs some kind of managment mechanism with its own dialogs, etc...


Taken all together, it is quite a large amount of work... I'm not really at a good place yet to dig into it yet.

But it is great to hear different ideas! I just wanted to explain that it may be a while yet before I am able to act on any of those.

- Michael

I guess maybe we'll have to see how you are implimenting the v2 management system before we can make suggestions on how to encorporate instances. I've got a few ideas but it really depends on how the layers and colours system is going to work. Any more sneak peaks into your plans for this michael?

Hi Rob, well it is still kind of a work in progress.

There is some info on the direction and general ideas in these previous posts:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1944.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2127.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2150.5

- Michael