> While we are on the subject of the obj exporter I would like to
> suggest that the user be able to select whether to export to a Y
> up or Z up coordinate space.

Hi Joe, there is an option for this but it is currently only settable in the moi.ini file -
[OBJ Export]
SwapAxes=y

If you turn SwapAxes=n there, then it will export to a z-up coordinate space.

I do plan on making that setting available in the Settings dialog, once I get a chance to overhaul the settings UI.

- Michael

Great news, thanks!

I say blue for be in design with the prog, sure Red is more informative and preventive :)

> I say blue for be in design with the prog, sure Red is more informative and preventive :)

Well, red is often times used as a type of warning. That's great if you are expecting a warning.

But if you don't know what it is that you are being warned about, or if the warning does not apply to you, then it can be confusing to see a warning... I really want to try to minimize this type of "confusion feeling" as much as possible.

That's why I would probably put it as an optional thing that you could turn on, rather than just showing some red surfaces to people by default.

- Michael

Suggestion of more effective ergonomy by Steph :)
(on the right :) maybe more efficient than slot

Double side are not good in the optic of the real time render engine :)

Subdo has culling http://www.vb2s.com/download/videos/subdo/culling_tools/culling_tools.html
(adjust normals)

Hi Pilou, I can understand why he wants it that way, but it is not practical for me to do that by default for several reasons.

First, the text is so small for many of the icons on the bottom as to be unreadable. For example, I need to approach very close to the screen to read the text for "separate" in that screen.

For text to be useful it has to be of a certain legible size. That means that the buttons need to be generally fairly larger than what he has shown in this example.

Larger buttons also require more space - to have legible button text means that the number of buttons that he shows here would not fit on a 1280x1024 screen (let alone a 1024x768 one).

User interface design is a very tricky thing. I would be a lot more free to do a design like this if made MoI only run on a 1600x1200 resolution screen, but there are a lot of people that don't have that high of a screen resolution. I want MoI to work well for people who also have lower resolution screens instead of only being a specialized tool that requires specific hardware.


The other major problem is scalability. By which I mean the ability to add more functionality in the future. If I completely fill up the screen with all available tools now, then that makes it difficult for me to add functionality in the future because there would be nowhere to put it! One big reason for the current tabbed design is that it includes scalability built in, since not all the tools are displayed simultaneously. This will make it easier for me to add additional functionality in the future.


At some point in the future I would like to make the UI more easily configurable so that you could have some control over it. However, I decided for V1 to put my effort into making an easy to use default UI instead of putting a lot of effort into making it easily customizable (by drag/drop, etc... - it is actually possible to modify it right now if you editing the HTML UI code).


If I had the luxury of designing the UI for a specific resolution and without the need for future expansion, the it would be possible to do as he suggests. But these are important limitations that I have had to work within.

A lot of UI design is about compromise, because if you optimize a whole lot for just one person, it can be detrimental to a large number of other people.

I appreciate the suggestion though!

- Michael

> Subdo has culling http://www.vb2s.com/download/videos/subdo/culling_tools/culling_tools.html
> (adjust normals)

Then doesn't using that tool solve the problem?

I guess I don't understand why Subdo was brought up - is there a problem that can't be solved with bringing objects into Subdo, or does using that tool above fix the problem?

I can understand that it is convenient to have control over this at export time, but I don't understand why this is being described as such a major problem with different applications, like Subdo for example.

- Michael

Yes I know the problem of Size text, icone, resolution, size screen ... :)

Steph see the interface in the optic of professional productivity not for the point of view of beginner user !)

No Subdo was just used for test the Moi export result as any other 3D prog

In fact he want to find the less operations to make between Moi export and the input in the 3D real time engine

> Steph see the interface in the optic of professional productivity not
> for the point of view of beginner user !)

Certainly. But not all of these considerations are only for the benefit of beginners. For example having a good plan for future expansion of the UI is of good value to professionals.

Some other things such as large buttons are easier to click both for professionals and beginners alike.

- Michael

First image "Moi" smoothing
Second image Global Phong smoothing

Real time engine = low poly
infos given by original Moi's normal help to simulate a virtual smoothing by light's modification and not physicaly by polygon :)

in case of "wrong normal orientation" global Phong don't enough sufficed : if low angle for have good straight edges but lost smooth on curves (and defauts of ngon topology or triangles)
if hight angles straight edges are "smoothed" !
So "circle's squaring" if inverse normal is not making in moi ;)

Hi Pilou, earlier you wrote:

> another complaint :)
> Seems Moi export to OBJ all objects even "hidden" objects !
> Is that normal?

I looked at this, and I could not find any problem. MoI seems to be already skipping hidden objects as you would expect.

To test, I drew 3 spheres, then hid one sphere. Then I did a SaveAs and saved as an OBJ file.

Then loading the OBJ file into Cinema4D, only the 2 visible spheres are present, the hidden sphere is not there.

Are there any steps that he can give to produce the problem?

- Michael

Hi Michael
answer of Steph
That was in the past in old version beta so maybe you have resolve the hidden problem at this date!
So if your test works (3 spheres + 1 hidden -->2 spheres) that's all is good !:)

Many bugs have been fixed since old beta versions! :)

- Michael

Hi Michael, a feature request

1. When you select a set of objects could an area select repeated of part of them( say a set of planar faces just select included faces), and then if repeated give you edges.

One select gives included solids
Two selects gives included faces
Three selects gives included edges

It can be tedious to select a lot of planar faces to chamfer!

regards Tim.

Hi Tim,

> One select gives included solids
> Two selects gives included faces
> Three selects gives included edges

Hi Tim, there is actually a way to target faces with an area selection right now. You need to first "prime the pump" by selecting at least one face with a click.

Once you have selected one face, that object will be in face selection mode, which means that any further selections on it (either clicks, or area selects, or even invert or select all) will target faces.

If you want to area select some faces that are hard to click on, one trick you can use is to do the initial face selection on just the biggest one that is easiest to grab. Then that sets the selection mode for that object, so you can do further area selections to target the faces you are really interested in. Once you are done with that, click on that big face once more to deselect it.

The same thing works with edges - if you want to target edges, select one edge first with a drill-in click and then you can area select further ones.


I think there would be some complications to change things to work the way you are describing above, if I understand you correctly. The biggest one would be that sometimes you may want to do more than one area selection to get all the faces that you want. If it worked like you describe, you would be limited to only doing one single area select to get your faces because the next area select would switch to grab edges instead of grabbing more faces...

- Michael

1) Some kind of grouping function, so groups of disjoint figures can be aligned with each other. Say centering chunks of 3D text relative to other items. As it stands now, trying to blocks of figures relative to other blocks causes some of them to be moved to the alignment point, instead of preserving their relative offsets.

2) A way to align or distribute a group of objects along a curve ( like 3d text ).

As a side not, it seems to be impossible to project text outlines onto a cylinder using "Closest Point". Direction works fine

What about "patch" ?