Hi Danny, the other thing that I should mention that may be a little different than what you are used to is that these states are not persisting "modes".

The eyes will show you the status of all objects that belong to that slot, like if all objects are shown, if all are hidden, or if there is a mixture (with the half-eye).

But for example if you go to Styles and do a hide on Style=Red, you will hide all currently existing objects that are assigned Style=Red. But that does not mean that "Red is permanently off from now on no matter what", like if you were to draw a brand new object and give it a style of red, it would be visible and that Red status would switch to be mixed since there are now some visible and some hidden red objects.

This is kind of different than how layers usually work, so I wanted to give you a kind of heads up.

It will be good to hear how it works in practice - the general idea is that by avoiding that kind of "persistent on/off mode" and relying more on "batch actions" instead, it makes it possible to have some more flexibility and have several different kinds of batch categories that you can pick and choose between.

But it would be good to know if you miss some behavior from the "persistent on/off mode" kind of way of working.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

great to see the new beta, this will help a lot with bigger projects.
I have a couple of questions:

-Will there be options for the export, so that we can choose whether the OBJ groups will be defined according to Moi's object names, groups or styles? (I am assuming so). Right now I noticed that the import does not keep the hierarchy structure, but I am assuming this is a work in progress.

-Is there a way to change the default styles' colours and names?
This would be very useful.


Good work once again,

Hi okapi, thanks - please let me know how it feels as you get a chance to mess with it some more.

> -Will there be options for the export, so that we can choose
> whether the OBJ groups will be defined according to Moi's
> object names, groups or styles? (I am assuming so).

Actually OBJ has a pretty good place to store each of these different things...

There is a way to label an "object" in OBJ by using the "o" directive, I was thinking that object names in MoI would map to that.

There is a way to specify group membership by using the "g" directive, so probably groups in MoI would map to that, although that one is not quite exact since OBJ groups cannot have hierarchy like with a group containing another group.

There there is a way in OBJ to specify materials, which is what I was planning on mapping styles to.

So basically I think there will likely be a pretty natural matchup for how to store these things. Do you think you would need a way to force it to work with a different matchup?


> Right now I noticed that the import does not keep the hierarchy
> structure, but I am assuming this is a work in progress.

Could you maybe describe a little more about what kind of import you are referring to?

Import of 3DM files should actually be keeping styles intact.


> -Is there a way to change the default styles' colours and names?

For this one, set up one file the way that you want (to get to the edit styles dialog you currently need to select an object, then go to the properties panel and click on the style entry, then pick "Edit styles" from the flyout), then save that off as a .3DM file and specify that file as the startup template under Options / General / Template file.

You can use that template file mechansim to set up whatever default model you want to be loaded when MoI starts (or when you do File/New), and any styles in the template will replace the defaults.

- Michael

Hi Michael,
No doubt I'll have a few questions after I get into it.

Re: persistent on/off mode, the system at work NX, doesn't follow that style exactly it is a bit more flexible than that, like, you have your traditional layers as such, but then you can have named categories/groups where you assign layers to, then the style and object type control is handled by filters, but unlike MoI there are more mouse clicks involved, it seems you have all this system nicely packaged in one area instead of having different popups to control object organisation, the thing is I always believe humans adapt very well and when you use something for a while it becomes second nature and then you don't really notice the actions it takes to do the task, it just happens, but now that you've implemented the object organisational stuff in MoI and the way you've set it out, no doubt I will notice the difference.

Oh no! maybe I'm going to like the MoI system so much that it's going to make it frustrating using NX, then I won't be able to handle it any more, then I'll quit work and stay home and just use MoI, but then no money will be coming in! then the wife will leave me and take everything and I'll end up on the streets like a bum! OMG!! what have you done Michael!!
:)


No problem, I'll let you know if I miss some behavior, it won't be right away though.

Cheers

Michael
This version is not working cleanly--and my system has not changed. Wierd things happen simply as the mouse traverses between places---- and etc.
I hope the fixes are only a few days away.

Nothing todate that I see that improves on the last version, for me, though presumably there are a lot of sundry finnessed better workings that will be detailed in your list.

Brian

Hello Michael!

I am absolutely satisfied! Great features, go on :) and thanks for your unbroken enthusiasm.

> Right now I noticed that the import does not keep the hierarchy
> structure, but I am assuming this is a work in progress.
>>Could you maybe describe a little more about what kind of import you are referring to?
>>Import of 3DM files should actually be keeping styles intact.

sorry, I meant importing the OBJ in another 3d app....
I have not tried yet the import of 3dm with layers into MOI.



The mapping systems you describe seem very good, I'll wait to test them out and see how they work.

Hooray, Rhino layers are preserved! Nice!!!

Couple of notes:

*Object name does not transfer to/from Rhino

*How about being able to right click on a 'Style' in the 'Browser' and edit its name or color?

And once again, Hooray! :)

Looks very functional and quite extensive for a new feature!

Marc

V2 Object Export to HyperShot.

I created a solid cylinder using the Draw Solid tool. Then assigned each end cap, and the cylinder a different object name and a different color. The hide/unhide eyes work as expected to isolate each of the three surfaces. I selected all and saved as OBJ.

When I opened in Hypershot, I can't assign a different material to each surface. However, after running seperateobj.exe on the obj file, I can.

Am I doing something wrong?

Ed
Seattle, WA

Hi Brian, thanks for testing this new release!

> This version is not working cleanly--and my system has
> not changed. Wierd things happen simply as the mouse
> traverses between places---- and etc.

Hmmm, so far I haven't heard about this from anyone else.

I'll need a bit more precise description on what is happening, I just don't know what "weird things" means exactly.

Is it that you see objects far away from your mouse get selection highlights?

If so, then that is something that can happen with certain video drivers if you have set anti-aliasing to be turned on for all applications in the driver settings. If you have recently adjusted that setting, please try switching it back to "application controlled" and that may solve your problem.

Otherwise, can you please give a previous version a try (either the previous beta or v1) to see if you run into the same problem there or not?


> I hope the fixes are only a few days away.

I can't really make a fix if I don't know what the problem is.

Hopefully if you can provide a description of the problem, or if I get some more bug reports of it from other users, that may clarify it and help me to track it down.

- Michael

Hi Andras,

> I am absolutely satisfied! Great features, go on :) and
> thanks for your unbroken enthusiasm.

Thanks! :)

I still have a bunch of things to tune up with these new functions, but the basic functions are working well enough that I wanted to get it out there so people could make use of them.

- Michael

Hi okapi,

> sorry, I meant importing the OBJ in another 3d app....

Yeah that part is not functional yet.


> I have not tried yet the import of 3dm with layers into MOI.

This part should be working though, please let me know if you see any problems with this area.


> The mapping systems you describe seem very good, I'll wait
> to test them out and see how they work.

One thing that can be tricky is that some programs will only read in some of these pieces of information from OBJ and not other pieces, so exactly how it will work will also depend on how your target program deals with OBJ as well.

But I think that object name and styles as material assignments are likely to be handled by quite a lot of receiving applications.

- Michael

Hi Nick,

> Hooray, Rhino layers are preserved! Nice!!!

Yup, I just got that part working only yesterday, one of the last things I wrapped up before this release.

I figured that would be a pretty useful part to get working!


> *Object name does not transfer to/from Rhino

Ooops, I had meant to do that one as well but I forgot. I've fixed this one up now for the next v2 beta so that object names will go back and forth as well.


> *How about being able to right click on a 'Style' in the 'Browser'
> and edit its name or color?

Well, currently right-click is already being used for different things than that - right-click on the status (the eye) is used for "isolate" type hide/show, right-click on the swatch is used for setting the active style, and right-click on the name is used for "isolate" select or deselect.

I figure that editing the names and colors are not really done as frequently as these other tasks, so the general plan for that is to have a separate style editor dialog for doing that. I think I'm going to see if I can put some button at the top of the styles section in the browser as another way to open up the edit dialog though, currently you have to do it through the flyout on the properties panel.

- Michael

Hi Marc,

> Looks very functional and quite extensive for a new feature!

Thanks! Please let me know how it feels like once you've had a chance to use it some more.

- Michael

Hi Ed, re: export to Hypershot.

> Am I doing something wrong?

Nope, that part for export to OBJ is just not finished quite yet - it should end up working like you were expecting in an upcoming beta release.

The focus for this particular beta is on getting the interface and hide/show stuff working first.

This release is sort of more "half baked" than they normally are, but I wanted to get this new stuff out there even though it is not quite all wrapped up yet.

- Michael

Thanks Michael - looking forward to the beta releases and "fully baked" version 2. I'll be standing by with credit card in hand.

Ed

So far I like it a lot, I like having the browser features - I can't wait till I can export defined surfaces!

Michael, will the LWO exports be able to carry info similar to OBJs or is it more limited over the OBJ format?

I believe LWO supports surfaces and parts - just wondering what this will look like going into LWOs when it's done...

-Will

Hi Will, I'm glad that you are liking it so far!

> will the LWO exports be able to carry info similar to OBJs or is
> it more limited over the OBJ format?

Yeah some similar stuff should be feasible to put into LWO as well.

Right now I'm thinking that Styles will map to Surfaces in the LWO file, and I should be able to cluster each named object into its own "layer" in the LWO file.

I'm not quite sure how to use the "part" mechanism in LWO, from the LWO docs it says that a particular polygon can only belong to one part, so it is not really clear to me how that is supposed to be any different than LWO layers...

But bringing object names and styles over as surface/materials should be a good step forward for LWO export.

- Michael

Hi Danny,

> <...> then the style and object type control is handled by filters,
> but unlike MoI there are more mouse clicks involved, it seems you
> have all this system nicely packaged in one area instead of having
> different popups to control object organisation, <...>

Yeah, when I got to a design that handled the type stuff in the same location and with the same UI as other kinds of batch operations, that's when things seemed to be coming together in a good direction.

That's pretty common in other applications for this kind of functionality to be split out into many different mechanisms like "layers", "named selection sets", "groups", and "commands to select by certain types", each with slightly different interfaces, access points, and capabilities.

It's been a pretty big goal for me to try and make a more streamlined UI that provides those kinds of tools but with a more unified and common access point and interface. I still have some pieces left to finish up for "Groups", but it seems like it is zeroing in pretty well to hit that overall goal now.

One thing that is pretty nice about this approach is that I can add quite a bit of additional power to the mechanism which does not end up being too hard to learn how to use since it is consistent between all the pieces.

Like for instance you can right-click on an eye to do an "isolate" - a right-click on solids will hide everything else except solids, right-click on the eye for "the Red style" will hide everything else except the red things, etc... That consistency helps with not needing to learn too many different kinds of things or navigate to too many different places to do batch operations, and it helps to provide some convenient capabilities like "isolate all curves" can now be a very natural single-click action rather than having to use a combination like "1: Select all curves, 2 : Invert selection , 3: Hide", which is what you would normally have to do if you had a types mechanism that only focused on selection and not other actions.

I had previously been thinking of dealing with types batching by having a select menu with stuff on it like "Select solids", "Select curves", etc... , but now the browser handles that job plus more direct actions like show/hide, isolation, deselection, - these would have added up to a lot of different menu items spread out through a few places.

It is kind of a new system not quite 100% following existing patterns, so there may be some kinks to work out. But I think it is based on some good principles so hopefully it should work out well...

> then I won't be able to handle it any more, then I'll
> quit work and stay home and just use MoI, but then
> no money will be coming in! then the wife will leave
> me and take everything and I'll end up on the streets
> like a bum! OMG!! what have you done Michael!!
> :)

:) If you're lucky it will just end up leading to general malaise and wistful thoughts of "if only I was using MoI", kind of only making your life more unpleasant and unhappy instead of putting you out on the streets. You are welcome. ;)

(just kidding of course, but if it does work out well there is an element to truth in there that you may very well get more grumbly about dealing with other UI as a side effect!)

- Michael