Hi Don, so actually the thing that corresponds most closely to "Layers" in MoI are called Styles - they're a kind of category that an object can be assigned to and it also controls the color of the object's display.
There are 2 ways you can assign an object to a particular style.
One is to click on the style line in the Properties Panel here:
That will pop open a menu that will let you pick the style to assign.
The other way is if you have the scene browser open you can click on a the color swatch portion of a Style entry to assign to that style, by clicking here:
That second way is more convenient if you tend to have the Scene Browser open most of the time.
But using styles as the method of organizing things is usually what people who use Layers in other applications are most comfortable with.
But in addition to using styles, it is also possible to use Object names to organize things as well - this is when you assign a name label to an object by clicking on the name line in the properties panel. Objects that are named in that way will show up with an entry under the "Objects" section of the Scene browser to be manipulated there. It sounds like this is the method that you've been using so far.
This is often times used more for tagging just one particular object but you can also assign multiple objects the same name so that they are all controlled by that one entry.
I've cooked up a plug-in that can help make it easier to assign an already existing name to the selected objects, see this previous post for some information on it:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3830.4
If you download that AssignName.zip attachment in that message, you can then install the plug-in by copying the 2 files into the \commands sub-folder underneath MoI's main installation folder. That will make a new command available called AssignName, and you can set up a shortcut key with AssignName as the command name for the shortcut to call when triggered. That will then make it easier to assign the same object name to the currently selected objects.
But you may want to use Style assignments for a layer-like organization method instead of object names, but I'm trying to make things flexible enough so that you have the option to use a couple of different kinds of organization methods instead of only one. In MoI v3 I also want to add a "Group" mechanism which will let you set up a parent/child hierarchy type thing.
One other aspect of styles as opposed to object names is that you can set a certain style as the "Active style" by right-clicking on its swatch, this will make it show with a ring around the swatch. Then after that newly created objects will be assigned to have that style right when they are first drawn.
- Michael
