Thanks Burr! And actually most of the main new stuff was already mentioned above - Twist, bug fixes for Flow and new Projective option for Flow.

- Michael

Hi Danny, I don't know - I kind of don't like to make the command take up an extra step just for that purpose... It means that every use of the command will require and extra thing to do to finish it.

I guess it depends on whether you're in a kind of experimental mode or not - if you just want to twist something by a known angle the current method of just ending when the angle is entered keeps things nice and direct...

I'll have to think about that a bit more - I guess it's not really the kind of command that you'll need to be running really frequently so maybe an extra step is not too big of a deal. For some commands an extra step is really bad though - imagine for example if you had to do something special to accept a line after drawing the 2 points for it.

- Michael

Thanks Michael!
You've done an awesome work and MoI just keeps getting better and better!
The Projection Flow tool implementation is going to need a little time for me to figure out. :-)

BTW, would you consider some type of control or strength to how quickly the "Limit to Axis" acceleration transitions?




Twisted repetitively in different axes.

When I saw the new Twist command I immediately thought of Ice Cream. I'm normally a "metal" guy, but why not try it.

Ice cream was made by creating a sweep with two pointy ends, cut in half, twist, and deform. Rendered in KeyShot.

I agree with DannyT: "... I noticed as I was using the twist command that I'd enter an angle and thought, 'nope, that's not what I want......undo and enter another value....not quite...undo and enter another angle. Extending the command with a preview would be pretty natural"

It took some trial & error and lots of "undo" to get my result, and if I had the ability to try different values while the result was visible, as with fillet, then I think I could have achieved the exact result I wanted. As it was I said good enough for now. Twist is not something you would use often, but when you do, you want it right. I vote for adding the extra step.

Twist is a nice addition to the toolset - I'll experiment some more.

Ed Ferguson

Very appetizing...for summer :)

Ed! You modeled one of my most favorite things in the whole wide world! =-)

I agree. The Fillet has sort of an ability to get a visual grasp on how much of it's effect there will be.
It's hard to imagine effective angles in the mind's eye. If only there was a virtual "winding" control handle, or some type of dotted lines as a ghost image to help visualize the wanted twist.

Yeah Magic & Pilou - As it rendered I had a sudden urge to drive over to Dairy Queen, but I don't think they are open at 1AM :)

Maybe before posting on the KeyShot forum (they have some advertising professionals over there, so it better be good), I'll add two more cones with new flavors and maybe some sprinkles.

Ed

:-p.... (drooling)

Really cool addition !
Lots of possibilities with this new feature

Just five minutes work...

Hi Michael,

Sorry for the delay,

>> Maybe - do you maybe have any good description available for what those In and Out parameters that you're showing there actually do?

Not really, I think it's a kind of weight system used to describe tcb curves ? I remember having this kind of -1/+1 settings in lw graph editor long time ago.

Here's an illustration, with the preset settings (and the in/out value)




>> Is that something related to some animation controls used in various other places in Modo?

Not really, but you find the same kind of control on every fallof deformation type (linear, spherical, radial).

>> It's a pretty big goal for MoI's UI overall to avoid that kind of huge control panel - that seems to have something like 21 controls in it?

Not really, the main settings are about the fallof position, start, end, direction ... basically you have replace this in MoI by requiring the user to draw his twist axe, while modo create it on the fly when you fire the command.

>> Sometimes then at the end of some commands there may be an "Adjust options" stage, but it can be kind of awkward to add in a separate options tweaking stage all the time for every single command, especially if the options are kind of hard to understand... That seems to me to be where having some ease-in/ease-out adjustment tools would kind of fall.

Yup it's off course up to you to decide, I'm probably a bit used to have this fallof control , so when I saw the new twist command I was immediatly thinking about it. I will easily see it has a little drop menu with some presets, like the 'Ends' option you have in the sweep command.


Now as a more general discussion, I'm wondering if the way modo manage deformation will somehow fit MoI philosophy. As I told you Modo combine micro fonctions to create commands. For example the twist is 'just' a rotation with a linear fallof along an axe. Maybe for future version of MoI, splitting functions in small steps like that can help to avoid having thousand of commands ... well ... just thinking loud :)

Cheers.

PaQ,

You could try in MoI, to enable "Limit to Axis", place the start of the twist point at the bottom and place the top point maybe at almost twice the height above the object.
You'll get more twist action at the top, because the other end of the eased twist is in the aether.

Michael,

If you might consider it: could you allow for an "Axial" (Spiral) twist option?

I achieved a good result here, but I had to jump through a bunch of hoops.


My object in the pic was just a test, anything more complex can be used.

To add this option to the Twist command, you would first pick an axis by two points, then pick the effected area with a start and end point, and it would twist in that area. An overall spiral twist would occur by choosing the center of an object, then the start would be in the center and the end on the outside by direction of the radius.


For anyone interested in how I did the spiral twist in the above pic:
1) Make a freeform curve. (do not make it flat, but lift one of the points)
2) Make the Flow reference circle by revolving the curve. Then flatten it.
3) Take a copy of that freeform curve, and edit it's points. Rotate the curve at a 45, with the center up higher.
4) Revolve the angled curve at the middle point. You have a cone.
5) TWIST the cone x-degrees to suit. Flatten the cone to make it a circle... Look at the respective point structure of each circle... notice something?
6) Perform the Flow command on the desired object to spiral twist selecting the appropriate reference and target circles. (Take care of the crazy stuff in the middle)
Enjoy.

Hi Mike,

> If you might consider it: could you allow for an "Axial" (Spiral)
> twist option?

You mean something that would kind of make a whirlpool effect?

If I understand correctly, in that case the length of the axis would actually have no effect on the result, is that correct?

That probably means it would not be a great fit to be directly included inside of Twist, because a whirlpool-izing effect would be more focused on picking a circle so you'd probably pick a center point and a radius and not pick an axis line like Twist does.

Note how your Flow solution happens completely in a plane with no height component to it at all?

So because it has no height/axis length relevance, it would probably be a separate command that picked different inputs (center point and radius and angle or something like that) and not an axis line like Twist does.


... Basically a whirlpoolizer would not make use of a helix in it, so the inputs for twist which are helix-centric (with the axis line) would not be a good match.


- Michael

Hi PaQ,

> Not really, I think it's a kind of weight system used to describe tcb curves ?
> I remember having this kind of -1/+1 settings in lw graph editor long time ago.
>
> Here's an illustration, with the preset settings (and the in/out value)

Thanks for the examples - yeah I guess that with those -1/+1 settings that's probably controlling one of the parameters for a tcb curve for the blending function.

I'll see about experimenting with something similar in MoI - I'll probably need something just a bit different than the regular tcb curve because the transition probably needs to be just a little more gradual by default in order for twisting just the middle part of an object to work very well.

But anyway the tcb curve type method gives me something more concrete to focus on, that's a lot more simple than a full function curve editor mechanism.

- Michael

Hi Schbeurd, nice examples - yup propeller and fan blades should be quick to produce using Twist!

- Michael

Thanks Michael... Yeah, the "Whirlpoolizer" tool. :-)

Oh... just think of the applications!

I imagine that one would go like this: 1) pick an axis with two points - because it could whirlpool in any direction.
2) pick a first radius to start the whirlpool twist - that way, maybe you want to leave the middle part intact.
4) pick the extent radius of the effect.
5) Enter in the degrees of rotation for the extent point.

Or maybe it would just be a rotation degree and forget about the effect zone, and all it would need is an axis and a degree.

...I'll put it in the wish list...

=EDDYF=
When I saw the new Twist command I immediately thought of Ice Cream. I'm normally a "metal" guy, but why not try it.

------

Let me say you have done a great simple work with your ice-cream cone
Moi is not only for "metal stuff" but much more..i'm supporting it !
Congratulations !!!

Mauro

Just a quick first test with twist.. Works very nice..
Thanks for adding this Michael......






Peace,
Rich_Art. ;-)

Clean!

Thanks Pilou..

Peace,
Rich_Art. ;-)