Hi Michael,

Nice work, thanks ! ;-)
I really like the align tool. Very useful !

Just add AI import/export and I'm ready to buy the commercial version ! ;-))

As Michael don't refind the keys of It letter's box :)
Here the "french translation" of the 18 Jan version
Just replace the old file "FrenchStrings" by this one in the folder /MoI beta Jan-18-2007/ui
Simple isn't it? :)

Hi Mr Braun

> For Michael, little WISH:
>
> 1) U can add some slider to move the image on x,y,z and one for scale it?

I'll be working on a way to edit the images for the next beta.

What I'm going to try to do is enable direct editing of the images when you are inside the image command - I mean that you will be able to click and drag on an image to move it, and there will be some kind of frame that will appear that will allow you to scale it.

That's the concept anyway.

This should also be a good trial run for an object frame that will eventually become a different way to scale and rotate regular objects as well.

- Michael

@Michael
> You say Angle to Fill
> and Step Angle
> Ok
> But they work singly!
> There is not "Angle to Fill" + "Step Angle" and the same time :)
> That can be cool too!

Hi Pilou, but I don't think it is possible for both to work at the same time! Unless you can explain how it would work...

These are two different ways of calculating the same value - that is what angle to rotate for each item in the array.

Using Angle to fill will take that full angle and then divide it by the number of items - 1 to calculate the rotation angle for each new item.

Using Step angle lets you input the rotation angle for a new item directly.

But they both result in calculating the same thing, that's why you can't have both at the same time. You can't have a new item that is rotated by two different rotations at the same time...


> a tiny tiny "bug"
> When you increase the UIcursor UI to the max of big size, then reduce to the smal size
> width of the UI on the right stay "big" ! (not the caracteres)
> You must press "Default" for a normal use :)

Yeah, I have seen this happen sometimes too. Something is not quite exactly right in the size calculations when going from big to small sometimes.

However, if you close the program and then re-open it, it should use the new size correctly. So that's an easy way to solve the problem.

I probably won't be focusing on fixing this bug very soon because you don't normally need to change the UI size on a very regular basis, it's something that you will more just pick a size you like and use it from there on out - it should work fine for that.

- Michael

Soon Italian Strings of MOI! ;)

P.S:
How i change the UI colors?

Tnx ! ;)

P.S2: Tnx Michael for your work! ;)

Jonah wrote:
> Rhino 4 has this feature called Picture Frame.

Yes I know, I added it to Rhino! :) It has been there since version 1.0, although 1.0 didn't have the rendered view shaded mode to go along with it.

You should be able to get a close equivalent to PictureFrame in MoI now by using images with the "Draw: With objects" style.


I do want to add texturing into MoI eventually, but I don't think that it is really a replacement for dedicated background images.

One problem with a rendered picture frame is that it is shaded by the light which changes the brightness of the image, even in a simple top-view-only tracing scenario.

For example make a small image and make it pure white - in Rhino go to the top view and set up a picture frame. If you look at the picture frame, you can see that it is not white, it has become darkened a bit due to lighting effects. In the 3D view you can see much more dramatic darkening due to lighting.

The other problem is that just a plain textured surface doesn't support either underlay or overlay type display layering modes, which I think are quite useful options for reference images.

So it is helpful to have a specialized tool for background images that can provide these types of specific features that are not important for normal textured objects.


> **PS - the other nice thing about using a surface with displayed image is
> that it will support trimming/splitting operations. So it's especially
> helpful for visualizations such as architectural, using planes to
> represent background objects (or people) in a scene. trim away the
> parts of surface you don't need...

True, this is one positive aspect of doing images through regular render texturing.

But as far as people or object stand-ins go, you can do that with MoI's images by using an alpha channel for the areas that you want to trim away. In fact you should be able to get better results by using alpha for this since you can have some partially translucent blended areas around borders instead of a severe on/off like a trim will produce. It should also be a lot easier task to set up the borders as alpha in a bitmap program since you will have things like the magic wand tool to help you, instead of having to trace the borders as geometry to trim with.

- Michael

Hi MrBraun,

> P.S:
> How i change the UI colors?

You can change the viewport background under Options / Background color.

But there isn't any easy way to change the color for the other UI elements - some of those are drawn using some little bitmap images, so you would have to edit the bitmap to change the colors.

- Michael

Tnx for the answer Michael! ;)

@Michael
Angle to Fill / Step to angle = Item count
So in this case Item count is automatic :)
No need to input it :) So in this case Item count must be disable at the start :)
I am agree I can take my poket calculator :)

Michael,

I like the new Align tool... it's like "Set Points" in Rhino,
only it's easier to use and it works with other objects as well.

Cool, now I don't need "Project to C Plane" anymore... :-)

Nice job!

Jesse

Pilou wrote:
> Angle to Fill / Step to angle = Item count
> So in this case Item count is automatic :)

I see.... But it seems like this creates an inter-dependence between those values that would be difficult to show in the UI.

For example if you entered both an angle to fill and also a step angle which then updated the item count, what would you expect to happen if you then went and edited the item count?

- Michael

Just don't permit to users to input a number in the Count item !
Only Step and Angle to fill :D
I agree it's not academic :)
maybe it's an too progressive idea ! ;)

It will be the same result than your but with an headhache so Forget it !

Pilou wrote:
> It will be the same result than your but with an headhache so Forget it !

So don't throw away your calculator yet!! ;)

- Michael

You're right. it was in R3, but only accessible through the command line. So i didn't know about it until R4. I've already experienced the "shadow" effect when using picture frames, so i do agree with you there. It's not a perfect solution for everything. But still useful for many situations... Also, i didn't realize you included alpha channel support for background images. Very nice touch, Michael :)

jonah

> Also, i didn't realize you included alpha channel support for background
> images. Very nice touch, Michael :)

Thanks! :) I thought it could come in handy for just this type of thing.

I was going to say that the alpha method would probably be a better way to go for people-type PictureFrames in Rhino as well... Except I just tried it and it doesn't seem to work, unless I missed some setting somewhere?

- Michael

Jesse wrote:

> I like the new Align tool... it's like "Set Points" in Rhino,
> only it's easier to use and it works with other objects as well.
>
> Cool, now I don't need "Project to C Plane" anymore... :-)
>
> Nice job!

Thanks Jesse, I'm glad you like it. Yes, it is kind of a combination of Rhino's SetPoint along with a 2D Illustrator type bounding box alignment tool.

It can work for Project to cplane, but you will have to turn on all the points and select them (unless your object is already planar). That will work for now, but I think eventually there should be an actual project command as well. But I haven't quite figured out where to put a project to cplane command, there is a little bit of a conflict with a different type of project (for projecting a curve to a surface).

I've been meaning to post some pictures of what you can do using Align, since a lot of people are not familiar with SetPoint in Rhino. So here we go.

Let's say you have drawn this curve and moved some points around:




Now you want to do a revolve of this curve, but you want to tune up the points so that they are all lined up - you want the end points to be lined up vertically along the axis, and you also want the first two and last two points to be in a horizontal line so that the revolved shape will be smooth instead of come to a sharp point.

So first, select the endpoints, then you can run Transform/Align, and use the origin snap to line them up to the vertical axis (switch from the default "Horizontal" alignment in the upper-right options area to "Vertical center"). That will line up the endpoints to the axis:



Now select the upper 2 points and do Transform/Align, with the Horizontal option, and pick on the end of the curve:



Repeat for the bottom 2 points:



And there you have all those points squared up with the axis and with each other. So you can use this anytime you want points to be lined up in a straight line - sometimes this might be the last 2 points of a curve so that the curve's ending direction is set to be exactly horizontal or vertical, and you can also do this to several points in the middle of a curve to flatten out a region and make sure that there aren't any little wiggles in it.

- Michael

Nope, you didn't miss it. Rhino still doesn't offer direct support for alphas on picture frames or background images. The workaround is pretty simple though. first make a picture frame of that image you need (to get correct proportion). Then make a new surface by snapping to it. Then assign a texture, and also put a second image into the transparency channel. And then set that object to always be displayed in render mode (this must be done individually for every viewport for that object). It's a lot of steps, but the result is perfect. I also just realized that if the environment mapping and the gloss finish are set to zero, then the image will not be affected by shadows & lighting. And the transparency of the object can be adjusted in the properties. WHEW!!!.... That was quite the workout!!! My fingers are ready for a massage and a shower... :)

jonah

> Then make a new surface by snapping to it.

I don't think you need to create a new surface, because a PictureFrame is already just a plane with a texture map set on it - you can go in and edit the texture map settings, etc.. it's just a normal object where the texture map property gets filled in. The command is just kind of an aid for drawing a plane with the aspect ratio of that image.


> Then assign a texture, and also put a second image into the transparency channel.

I tried doing this by just setting the transparency map to the same image. But this didn't seem to work - I guess the transparency map does not read alpha from an image but instead probably is intended to take a grayscale image and use the intensity as the transparency?

So I guess there is another step in here where you have to strip the alpha channel out of an image and put it as its own separate grayscale image and then use that as the transparency map?


> I also just realized that if the environment mapping and the gloss finish are
> set to zero, then the image will not be affected by shadows & lighting.

I couldn't seem to get these to do this - I think the gloss is specular highlights, which are added in addition to regular light shading, so that doesn't turn lighting off. If you put an environment map on an object, that does turn lighting off, but it also turns the texture map off as well. You need to turn lighting off but leave the texture map on.

What would work is an ambient light setting, you would crank the ambient light all the way to white and that would provide full lighting at all spots. But there doesn't appear to be a per-object setting for ambient lighting...


It's a bit easier to just support the alpha! :)

- Michael

>>It's a bit easier to just support the alpha! :)

>>- Michael


No arguments here :)

@Mr braun :)
and do you remember this :D
http://www.3dcommune.com/3d/galview.mv?ZBrush+hnisSElqI+1079923736+&v_index=6&nd=1169250342