Michael,

I enjoy the occasional Rhino tutorial. It's neat to see someone hack away at the zillion-button Rube-Goldberg machine, that is Rhino, doing many things that happen seemingly without effort in MoI.

- well, to that effect.

I could actually see myself learning Rhino with less consternation in the future. It's neat to see guys make things in their tutorials as I think to myself: "I can do that with MoI... I can do that too!". :-)


The following isn't a hardcore request, but another item for the wish-list.




This is some kind of surface tool. But I bet this could be done with an enhanced Blend tool. This seems to be a surface that respects four different side tangencies if needed...

[I thought about doing this kind of thing with a Network mesh, but the Network tool does not work in a way where it sees tangency]


Since the Blend tool works off surface edge tangents, why not possibly allow the option for the blend to add tangency off of the two adjacent side surfaces as well?

But, with no convoluted options or funky dialogs like Rhino would use. - When you activate Blend, you could either just select your two standard surface edges... or add another... and the fourth.


You said a while ago that you might consider allowing Blend to select multiple curve segments (to define one whole of one side edge). Maybe the new Blend will be able to 'see' past T-intersections.

That alone would float my boat.

> But a corner frame mechanism like the 2D edit frame is more snappable since you can actually snap the corners on to other objects in the model when you drag them.

Yes, I like those. I've learned that depending on which way to move the corner handles, you can effect the way that the (z) hidden directions on an object can be scaled also.
I utilize this feature when prepping profile rings, so that I can either shrink them proportionally or just by height.

Hi Mike - that Rhino command you're showing there is Rhino's NetworkSrf command. The equivalent thing in MoI of making a surface from 4 boundary edges is MoI's Network command. Blend is a little different since Blend focuses on building a connection between 2 sides.

But really the main goal for that kind of continuity stuff is to have a separate command like Rhino's MatchSrf that will allow you to tweak a surface to make it smooth to other adjacent surfaces. That's more flexible than only something built into Network since you can use it in many other situations as well. Then later on after that I'd figure out if it's necessary to integrate it into other commands as a kind of bundled operation, but maybe not - it can kind of increase command complexity when trying to kind of bundle things that you could already do with existing commands kind of baked in like that.

- Michael

Hi Mike,

> I've learned that depending on which way to move the
> corner handles, you can effect the way that the (z) hidden
> directions on an object can be scaled also.

Actually if I understand what you're talking about (doing uniform scaling vs only doing 2D scaling and leaving the vertical direction unscaled, right?) then that's controlled by holding down the Shift key when you drag a handle.

Normally when you drag it does a uniform scale but if you hold down shift it will do the non-uniform 2D type scale.

The way you move the corner handles does control whether you'll do a 1 directional stretch or not though - if you track along the horizontal or vertical line when dragging the corner it will do a 1D stretch in that horizontal or vertical direction, you'll get a tracking line displayed when that is active to help you see where you need to keep the mouse nearby to get the stretch.

If you don't want any 1D stretching, move your mouse a ways off of that line and then it will stop doing the 1D stretch stuff - that way you can kind of "shake off" the stretch mode.

- Michael

Hi Mike - also regarding that Network example that you posted - usually you're better off building things as larger surfaces and instead cutting pieces of the big extended surface off rather than trying to build things in little bits at a time.

That will still generally be a better way even at the time that there are continuity controls - continuity controls only adjust shapes at the very edges of a surface, and it's pretty easy for surfaces to have a kind of bunching up in form near the end even if they are technically fully curvature continuous at their edges.

When you build larger more extended surfaces, that tends to make shapes that are more naturally smooth with more evenly distributed curvature throughout themselves rather than trying to tweak a patchwork of little bits just by their edge zones to be smooth to one another.

Doing that kind of "one patch at a time" type modeling doesn't really exploit the greatest strengths of NURBS modeling which are actually more in the areas of being able to cut and slice pieces more freely than you can in polygon modeling. If you want to build things one little patch at a time, a polygon sub-d modeler is actually a better overall technology for that kind of an approach because it kind of more fully melts things together than edge continuity tweaking.

That's why those kinds of tools were not a big priority for MoI initially - they can be useful but they're kind of a workflow that isn't going along the absolute strongest area of NURBS modeling.

- Michael

> usually you're better off building things as larger surfaces and instead cutting pieces of the big extended surface off rather than trying to build things in little bits at a time.
> That will still generally be a better way even at the time that there are continuity controls - ...only adjust shapes at the very edges of a surface, and it's pretty easy for surfaces to have a kind of bunching up in form near the end even if they are technically fully curvature continuous at their edges.


I definitely get you on those points.

So what would be nice to have the NetworkSrf tool and some kind of "super point-cluster/surface/de-buncher smoother" tool... ;-)

Yes, I agree with your insight that a more 'whole'-istically designed surface is a "better" designed surface. And I'm glad you're prime directive with MoI is the KISS principle, which is why it's so attractive to artistic folks like myself in the first place.
Intuitive controls should be preferred over complex ones.

Case in point, with what you said above about the subtle control of the 1D/2D scaling handles. It's more efficient in the long run to be able to do commands with subtle mouse movements than to have to constantly check boxes and tweak settings and depress complex key combos.

With that said - your implementation of (on view) interactive spacing and distance choosing is an absolute Godsend.


Well thank you very much Michael for taking the time to explain and expound these concepts to me! I certainly appreciate the thoughtful feedback, and I think this sentiment goes for many more of us that enjoy using MoI.

Wow Michael that Flow command looks super useful! :D

I can't wait to have a play around with it :)

For the kind of work I do, I'm sure I'll get a lot of use out of it.

Ok - got sidetracked for the past couple of days tracking down an offset bug in the updated geometry library. Now that's fixed and I'm back tuning up the new Flow command. Once that is a bit more finished up it will be time for the v3 beta. Flow will need some more tuning after the first v3 beta to improve surface quality - in the first release when morphing solids with curved pieces it can tend to make kind of lumpy results. But morphing curves works well and also morphing planar surfaces work well so for text right now morphing text that is just a flat planar surface (using the "Create:Surfaces" option in the Text command) and then shelling it to thicken it into a solid once it is in place will work better than morphing solid text directly, at least for now.

- Michael

Is it wierd that I got nervous??? :o

Good luck Michael!

Will you make a special forum for V3 Betatesting or is it in the general forum?

Rudl

Hi Rudl - beta stuff will just go here in the regular forum.

- Michael

All this stuff is just great!! Groups for the scene browser is still on the list doesnt it??

Hi Ed, yup groups is still planned for v3. It won't be in this very first v3 beta but I'll probably be working on it in not too long.

- Michael

Oh good, I love groups ^^

Will be fun to play around with Flow!

Burr - no, it's not weird - MoI is a big part of our lives :D

Great!

> Burr - no, it's not weird - MoI is a big part of our lives :D

That starting to make me worry... could repeated MoI use be considered an addiction?

It may leave the Dorsal and Ventral Stream underworked, but The Lateral Occipital Complex and it's Semantic Processing while using MoI will never invoke Visual Agnosias and may actually enhance it's absence.... FYI

Still working on the new Flow command - I think I've got a good way to tweak things to get some better quality in the deformed results, they were kind of bumpy.

- Michael

Hi Michael, still working on 2D or 3D flow ?

Hi Anis - currently working on the surface-to-surface flow.

- Michael