Yes, this will be added later I guess, like every other app I know, there are general preferences and project preferences.

WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you both (Michael and Frenchy Pilou) SO MUCH for making this happen for me!!! This capability in MoI opens up (as Frenchy Pilou put it) "infinite possibilities!" AWESOME!!!

This whole thread portion in retrospective ( 275.105 through 275.114) opens up two VERY amazing possibilities within MoI.. for instance:

1) The potential clearly now exists through this same method of making 3D fractals within MoI !!!

By using this method and alternating it with a combination of current MoI scaling and mirroring/symmetry commands (manually or within a script) one may now readily create both scalar and directional/symmetrical itterations of any object within MoI - "MOI 3D FRACTALS" !!!!!!

(I am "psyched" about this!!!)

2) At the end of that thread portion (275.111 through 275.114) the discussion which ensued between JTB and Petr / tyglik gave me an additional idea I'd like to bounce off of Michael...

Michael... how about:

...a single icon which when clicked opens up a simple child window with a filedialog where a user may:

A) Select any existing custom command script (like the command you gave us all here in response to Frenchy Pilou's request)

B) Select a "MoI-friendly icon" for it

C) Add a BRIEF custom command name to it

D) Assign all this to a scrollable "Custom Commands Launchpad" area within this very same window.

This, in my mind at least, would take a load off of you with respect to future balancing of your existing (and highly desireable, I should add) "Minimalist" approach to the MoI GUI Design, and the increasing/inevitable requests for more and more new commands from the power users.

What do you think about the idea?

- 3dvisuals dude

Hi dude
Before the fractal moi 3D maybe you can try this free crazzy amazing prog! Chaoscope!
http://www.chaoscope.org/
Amazing ergonomy! Only 3 keys !
F3 choose F4 Launch the Calculate Esc stop the process
And move(+shift) Rotate Zoom by the mouse : a task !
(you have some formula of factal inside : but don't affraid no need to be Einstein Just click on a word :D)
Have fun! (Alas it's only 2D but it's yet not so bad :)
My images of the day :)

AWESOME Images!!!!

Thanks for the link, I'm grabbing it now!!!

3dvisuals dude

Hi 3dvisuals dude,

> What do you think about the idea? (custom script / macro launcher thingy).

Yup, this is a great idea. I've been thinking of something pretty much along these lines to make it easier for someone to launch a custom script or command.

Probably at first it will just be a list of names so it will look a lot like the recent files listed under the file menu - I was thinking it could list everything it finds within a certain folder, something like a "plugins" folder.

Definitely something is necessary to make it easier to launch custom commands without needing to set up a keyboard shortcut for it.

- Michael

For the fractal I refound the free father prog Fractint :)
http://spanky.triumf.ca/www/fractint/fractint.html (dos)
http://spanky.triumf.ca/www/fractint/getting.html windows :)

free Chaos Pro the son of the father :D http://www.chaospro.de/

Free Fractal explorer http://www.eclectasy.com/Fractal-Explorer/

New small wish about images : Control the size with numbers, not just those grips...more accurate

G1, G2 and G3 Surface filleting!
Maybe its already on the wishlist, I didnt read the whole thread:-(

How about a "Split Edges" feature when exporting OBJs?

Since OBJ files don't support creased edges, when the resulting mesh is subdivided in a subdiv modeler, all the edges will sharpen unless you tediously assign creasing.

"Split Edges" refers to the fact that in the obj file, edges that should remain 'sharp' are exported as 2 closely spaced together edges seperated by small joiner polys. This edge then will remain sharp even upon subdiv in a modeler.

Another option, is to support the Collada subdiv format, which allows for creasing, or the Silo SIA format, which also allows setting edges as creased. SIA is a really simple format, a lot of other 3D apps are getting importers for it, and I think SILO and MOI are a potential match made in heaven. Model your tank in MOI, give it battle damage in Silo using Displacement Painting. Maybe if you ask nevercenter nicely, they'll give you some docs. :)

Hi Crusoe - I guess I don't understand why this feature isn't provided in your sub-d modeler environment.

OBJ files do support the concept of sharp rendered edges within the file. For example, if you draw a cube and export it to an .obj file, you should see a sharp-edged cube when you import it elsewhere.

The cube should have sharp edges because MoI wrote different smoothing information for each face even though the faces share the same x,y,z point locations.

If you want to preserve this creasing in your sub-d modeler, shouldn't they have a method over there to preserve the existing creasing and assign a crease to every current sharp edge?

Maybe I don't quite follow what you're asking for though...

- Michael

But when you subdivide the cube, those edges don't STAY sharp. A edge that stays sharp, even when subdivided, is called "Creased", maybe I should have been clearer. :)

Here's a example:

The top cube has been subdivided 3 times, and now looks like a sphere.

The right cube has 2 edges creased, these edges stay sharp even as we subdivide.

The left bottom cube has 2 edges with a slight bevel. These stay somewhat creased as the cube is subdivided. It depends on how close I can make the 2 edges when beveling. The closer they are, the more it will be creased. If you add a 3rd edge between the 2, it stays even sharper when subdivided.

Ideally, collada (which supports creased edges ) export and X3d would be nice too.

Ok.... But the subd modeler has received the information about the original sharp edges of the model, for instance the edges of the cube.

It seems like your problem would be solved if they had an improved method for building creases, such as building a crease for each sharp edge in the original model that they currently already know about...

Wouldn't that solve your problem? That would also be a more general purpose solution for working in there because it would enable creasing on any imported model.

It seems like a good entry for the Sub-d modeler's wishlist instead of MoI's...

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks again for your attentive and thoughtful replies to my questions.

This has possibly already been requested-

The option to lock and inverse lock objects would be helpful
when you have a lot of objects and you want to develop
a specific part, without having the other stuff get in the way,
while having the rest of the model as a visual and operational reference.
( object snaps would still work on the locked objects)

The image is of Rhino doing it's best MoI impersonation :-)
The grayed out curves are locked, the blue curve is "live".

-Jesse

> The option to lock and inverse lock objects would be helpful

I had been thinking of including this along with the whole package of object grouping / organization / properties stuff for V2.

- Michael

The problem is when exporting from Moi, the mesher produces a lot of edges. Some of them don't need to be creased as they are part of a gently varying surface, some do ( IE, the edges formed by 2 intersecting surfaces which do not have G2/G3 continuity? ).

So you need to export with a decently high polygon count so the subdiv surfaces approximate the nurbs surfaces when subdivided. But this high poly count makes hand selection of edges somewhat tedious.

I know it's a limit of the OBJ format, but exporting in a way that keeps sharp edges sharp would be nice. Whether it's doubling certain edges up in the OBJ export, or exporting a subdiv format that supports creases (collada), I think that this would be useful too.

Might be something to consider for V2. :)

I think you're misunderstanding how subdiv modeling works. Unless the edge is weighted as 'creased', it's subdivable. All edges are created equal. And importing a cube and letting the edges subdiv is prefectly fine. A lot of humanoid models start out as a cube, with is cut, extruded, subdivd, etc. The original points of the cube can be considered the control cage of the subdivd model, you can drag them around to affect the resulting subdiv'd mesh.

If you want a edge to stay sharp on import, you mark it as 'creased' in formats that support it, or you double up the edges by defining a very very very small bevel in those that don't ( obj ).

This is important when I'm modeling something in moi that contains both gentle curves, and hard edges. When exported as a mesh, and imported into Silo ( To sculpt some blast craters ), as I subdiv the model, all the edges would go soft, as you can't denote which edges should be creased in a OBJ file.

I'll post a simple example of what I mean.

> The problem is when exporting from Moi, the mesher produces a lot of edges. Some
> of them don't need to be creased as they are part of a gently varying surface, some
> do ( IE, the edges formed by 2 intersecting surfaces which do not have G2/G3
> continuity? ).

Hi Crusoe, sorry, I'm still not quite understanding what you're saying....

Information about shared smooth edges (as opposed to sharp) is being written to the OBJ file currently, actually in 2 different ways.

Each polygon face in an OBJ file has a set of vertex normals on it that are used for shading - each face on either side of a sharp edge uses different vertex normals to make a sharp crease there (a break in the shading). But when there is a shared surface normal along that edge (surfaces connected in a smooth-tangent way for example fillets), each face along those edges will refer to the same shared vertex normal, unless you have unchecked welding.

So by examining the vertex normals of adjacent faces, an application can know whether that edge is sharp (different normals), or smooth (same normals).

In addition to this there is smoothing group data which clusters together all the faces that belong to one connected smooth set, this is additional data that an application can use to know about where sharp edges are in the model - there is no sharp edge between 2 faces within the same smoothing group, but there are sharp edges between faces that are in different smoothing groups.

So I don't understand why you think this is a limitation of the OBJ format... This information is included in the OBJ file that MoI writes.

If a target application doesn't process this information it isn't a fault of the OBJ format itself, it means the application needs to look at the data to harvest this information.



> But this high poly count makes hand selection of edges somewhat tedious.

It seems like that's why they should include a feature that puts creases along all sharp edges in the polygon data, but not along smooth edges.

- Michael

Hi Crusoe,

> as you can't denote which edges should be creased in a OBJ file.

There is information in the OBJ file about which edges of a model are sharp, and which are smooth.

It sounds like you want an option for sharp edges to have a sub-d crease, and smooth edges to not have a sub-d crease.

All of this information is available to the sub-d modeler, so it seems like this is a feature that the sub-d modeler should provide for you - "make creases on sharp poly edges".

It's better for them to do that since that way they will provide this functionality on the OBJ files imported from any application that writes them correctly.

Maybe you might get better results if you export a non-welded mesh and use your modeler's merge points function, if that has an option to automatically apply creases when it is merging points together.

- Michael

Currently it's possible to click on profile/rail curves for sweeps, show points, and change their orientation, size, and shape.

I would like the same functionality for solids. Unless I missed it somewhere, it'd be nice to click on a sphere, cube, cone, cylinder, etc, and be able to adjust/tweak them after the fact.

Hi Michael!

My wishes for v3-4

Instances!!! - they should also have custom user parameters(to which we can assign parameter types) assigned to them so that we could count our assembly parts and possibly export that data out into Excel via obdc port?

Views Browser!
Communication of our design requires many many views to be exported out of model.
Main principle behind Revit success is a view browser which allow us to create/delete views (based on section planes) and place them onto a sheet which is another type of a view in the same browser
*a much more elegant solution than that of a SketchUp

Section planes!!
those actually create new views (with view depth and crop box)

Sheets!!! (see pic also)
Part of a view browser - are actually 2D views which allow us to use our custom design sheets and place formatted text (very moderately formatted) (Ability to add dimensions with various tick forms along with text is also required)

this is all for v3-4 - yet another list for v5-6 is already compiled))

Michael, I know your software is for artists mainly - and there is soft like Alibre and so on out there.. but if you implement these wishes there will be no need to use any of those anymore)))

Regards
Igor