Re: Expression, the link for the free old Expression v3 vector drawing program is:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/5/d/a5d625a5-2e3d-4e9c-8608-6de48d7b569f/CreatureHouseExpression3_3.exe

It was a pretty cool and interesting drawing program, it's too bad the developers weren't able to stick things out on their own.


> Ah yes! also a solid TORUS and may be some Dodécahédric volumes,
> a trick to make easily geodesic domes.

Well, a torus is formed pretty easily by drawing a circle and using Revolve on it.

For something like a dodecahedron, the easiest thing is to have a library of shapes saved off as separate 3DM files and then you can use File > Import to place any of them into your current model. Also if you right-click on import you'll do an "ImportPart" which lets you also position and rotate the imported object right then as well.

There's a page here with all kinds of various polyhedra in 3DM format that can be loaded into MoI:
http://www.rhino3d.nl/pythposter/pyth3dm-eng.html

- Michael

Oups!

Ok BARD, maintenant pose cette bouteille et calme toi, l'ambulance va arriver...

Let me know how much you would like to pay me, and I'll look at compiling a library of various objects that could be picked by a single keystoke and clcik...

Ah! I see the link with RHINO -CEROS, "C'est rosse"; translation: "It's horrid, hard hard".

Yes a TORUS is not hard to built with MoI, it's just that we have to built it.

Why we have a CUBE and a SPHERE? It's so easy to built a cube (6 plans) or a sphere (rotation) in MoI?
You should to delete these basic volumes, to see the reaction of the users (LOL). We could to import any cube or sphere from outside, no? ...
It's too the same sort of valid idea for a library of shapes, that we have to search outside of one application. I prefer always to have all beneath the hand (To see by example, BRYCE 3D of Eric Wenger, the most excellent 3D software never offered to ARTISTS of the Whole World; & for a very small price at this time).

It's a waste of time to search a thing that we need immediately, that breaks the INSPIRATION, & sometimes kills it definitively. You know it; a true Artist is not a Roman, it's not a calculating, scheming guys. A simple ring of a phone can to make lose the best idea that you gone to find just before this alarm bell (noise of danger); in a snap of the fingers. It's why Artists pass for crazy without senses, lines, directions, to the eyes of any Cubit or Human (a "Cubit = Size of one elbow; forearm"; a small-dwarf or monkey; a pygmée = goblin, impish, a beast, a stocky, a antik-greek & its worst counterfeit, the "Roman of romA = +14 MILLIONS DEAD in only 4th centuries").

But, I repeat often the same question: "After the death & the total disparition of any civilisation; what it stays, remains from it? What we find from she (if we consider the ancient Living peoples)?
The answer is : "Just & ALWAYS ARTS, the work of ARTISTS or ARTISANS (Craft, Craftmen, it's the same)".

So I add this question: "Who are the Peoples the most important for the TIME, SPIRIT & EARTH?"
Answer: The ARTISANS or ARTISTS (it's exactly the same words = The one who products EARTH = AR, ARE, AREA, CLAY, objets, domains, states, countries, cultures on the floor...). I consider always a FARMER like an Artist or an Artisan; a Farmer have to make GOOD cultures (growings).

It's why an true ARTIST or ARTISAN has never one second to lose; he is always a master of Time who misses always of Time to do something (As a shoemaker wears bad shoes). You are an ARTIST too, you know very well what is Time; it's not "Money" for "Cubits", but a length of complex processes that we cannot find again, when or if, we lost this time or these Moments of Inspirations (Breath or MoI); it is a question of engineering, work of genius, not a material thing, imposed (taxpaid) by romans, crooks, robbers, traders or hoaxers). Brief! ...

The INSPIRATION is something very light, very fluid, very fluctuating. It's not a stable or reliable element. Inspiration is not made for Accounters, Book-keepings, if you see what I want to say. In some minutes of time, You inspire (prompt, breath) by dozens.... So calculate me, how many inspirations You have lost, after 12 months of work, with a tool which you have to search what you need directly, promptly? ... (bip, bip, bip). Well...

What is MoI? if not, "MOMENT of INSPIRATION" and not "MOMENT of PROGRAMMATION, CALCULATION, PREVISION".

As Artist or Artisan, me like all the others, we don't like & we don't know to program, to make libraries (it's not our center of worries, concerns, preoccupations). We follow inspiration; aspiration, the breath, spirit; something furtive, surreptitious, stealthy, sly. Is MoI is thinking for ARTISTS (ARTISANS), or made for Mathematicians, Progammers or Managers? I ask the question.
This good library of RHINO should to be accessible, available, directly in MoI (that's besides my conviction, idea, opinion).

If you see BRYCE 3D, you understand the right concept for Artist (Artisan); it's one of the best references & a product very complete for landscapes, realist renderings, creative 3D (a lot of Designers used or had used Bryce). After BRYCE & METACREATION, all the softwares have changed; ARTISTS have changed the World in GOOD in BEAUTIFUL, in conviviality. We cannot never say the same thing, for CUBITS-BANKERS or Humans.

"To be or not to be"; is the answer. It's not the question.

Hello BurrMan,

I let you know that I paid you with 1 ton of gratitude & 1 quintal of mercy.
That is a good price, isn't it? A deared price...

Hello Ycarry: Une bouteille de RHUM' c'est un coulage de nez! Hic!!!
& un FORUM, c'est un coulage de foire (marchés aux bestiaux; voire aussi: Négoce & Esclaves). Un BUZZ.

A bottle of RHUM' ("Rhume = Cold") it's a flow of nose! Hips!...
& a FORUM, it's a flow of fair (market). A BUZZ.

Ycarry: Super! Great! Very realistic rendering. All is made with MoI?
It's incredible...

""""""""""Hello BurrMan,

I let you know that I paid you with 1 ton of gratitude & 1 quintal of mercy.
That is a good price, isn't it? A deared price... """"""""""

Those are great payments! But I'm a brand new dad. So all my extra work has to produce currency to pay for those little guy's.. Sorry, maybe when they get older.

Hi Bard,

> Why we have a CUBE and a SPHERE?

It's because those are used so frequently by a large number of people.

The number of people using a torus frequently and repeatedly for their modeling is extremely low.

Sure, you may want to use one every now and then, but there is a big difference between something that you do infrequently versus something that you need to do all the time.

If you need to create only 1 torus a day, then the 5 seconds that it takes to create one by drawing a circle and doing revolve is not any kind of significant interruption to your workflow.

In fact, it's much more the opposite - having the UI clogged up with a whole lot of things that would only save you 5 seconds once a week or so is really bad overall because there is a negative effect to having a whole ton of stuff in the UI that you have to sort through every time you want to do the stuff that you need to do much more frequently than that.


> I prefer always to have all beneath the hand <...>

Unfortunately that does not scale well - adding in a ton of stuff that is rarely used is exactly what causes "bloat", making the UI ponderous and more difficult to use - it's way more difficult to have to sort through some giant UI panel containing 100 things in it than it is to deal with something streamlined to have more essential stuff in it.


In the future I want to make it easier to do stuff like have a list of plug-ins that you could browse to add in some more specialized functions - a torus command would be a good fit as a plug-in like that.

But for the time being it does literally take only 5 seconds to create one, I just timed myself to do it right now.

- Michael

"""""""""""""But I'm a brand new dad"""""""""""""

Congratulations Mr Burr!

Marc

Boré da Mihangel Michael!

<< The number of people using a torus frequently and repeatedly for their modeling is extremely low.>>

How do you know this? Have you a numbered return on the use of a Cone in a 3D software? ...
I use torus one thousand times more than everybody, I want to click 1000 times in this poll...

<< In the future I want to make it easier to do stuff like have a list of plug-ins that you could browse to add in some more specialized functions - a torus command would be a good fit as a plug-in like that.>>

Yes, that will be good all that. I thought to suggest to plan a custom space or box of "Ressources" with tabs for user, where we could slide and drop customs colors, textures (maybe), shapes, lines (strokes), patterns or backgrounds.

I asked me also, if it will be possible to apply a degree of transparence to objets. By example, if we built a glass with water inside among solid objets; to be abble to simulate what it is not opaque, but translucent or transparent. This possibility should to interest a lot of users. I hope that I am not the lonely-poor-western to want this?

Hi Bard,

> How do you know this? Have you a numbered return on
> the use of a Cone in a 3D software? ...

I know it from my long experience of developing CAD software and working with customers and helping them do stuff.

Especially by helping people work through their problems I get a chance to see what kinds of problems they are running into and see patterns in how many people are experiencing the same problem. The particular problem of "not being able to create a torus fast enough" is extremely rare...


> Yes, that will be good all that. I thought to suggest to plan a
> custom space or box of "Ressources" with tabs for user, where
> we could slide and drop customs colors, textures (maybe),
> shapes, lines (strokes), patterns or backgrounds.

Yeah I want to have customizable tabs eventually but that's more complex to implement and it's probably further out.

In a sooner time frame than that, I want to have a "Plug-ins" button on the bottom toolbar next to Options which will pop up a menu where various extensions will be listed. I'm not exactly sure when that will happen either yet though.


> I asked me also, if it will be possible to apply a degree
> of transparence to objets.

Yeah this comes up more often - I do want to have this as well, but the way video cards function does not make it particularly easy to make translucent things, it basically requires a lot of special sorting work to be done by the application and it's something that could easily degrade performance significantly unless it's done quite carefully. Things that can impact display performance a lot require a lot of additional development time with stuff like a lot of measurements and testing being done, so it's time consuming work.

It's difficult for me to know exactly when some particular feature that will require a lot of work will be completed. Often times focusing on an area that requires a lot of work is a tradeoff that means doing that particular feature would then postpone other features until some later time. Right now I kind of place new modeling functions at a higher priority level.

- Michael

Hi Burr, almost missed this:

> > But I'm a brand new dad


A new addition to the family? Congratulations!!!

- Michael

Sorry, guy's a bit misleading... No "Brand new" ones.... (It still feels brand new though :) They just seem to be getting more expensive a couple years in.... Thanks for the wishes though..Still with the original 2.