I am used to navigating using a gizmo. I could stay in 3d view only, and rotate , move and scale an object about very fluidly with a gizmo, without having to pick and accept the object, pick a reference point etc.

Am I missing a better way to navigate in MoI, as it feels a bit restrictive. Any tips?

Hi, by navigating do you mean transforming objects?
You can click and drag an object to move them, if you click near an endpoint, the snapping will origin from there.

Apart from the bounding box controls transformations usually involves a command and two clicks.

I have exactly the inverse feeling towards gizmos; why can't I move/scale/rotate from here to there!
Transforming the origin appears more complicated than this method.

I guess each way has it's advantages, but in a Nurbs modeler like Moi precision and snapping comes to mind.
I learned solid modeling before Poly, so I imagine that make me biased a bit!

Marc

Hi Playdo - "navigating" usually means manipulating the view. But it sounds like you might be talking about transforming an object?

In the 2D views you can do a bunch of object transforms quickly using the edit frame:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_command_reference11.htm#editframe

That is a planar thing though so it's only available on either 2D views or on a planar object when in the 3D view.

In the future I'm probably going to add some sort of 3D manipulator as well for working in the 3D view but that is not in there currently. However, you asked about "rotate, move and scale" - you can do moving in the 3D view just by dragging on an object, there is no manipulator needed for moving.

For rotating and scaling either switch to a 2D view to use the edit frame, or you can use the Transform tools on the side pane.

- Michael

Hi Playdo, for an example of what Marc is referring to check out here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=156.3

That's the kind of precision specific rotation that you can't normally do with a "gizmo" type manipulator because often times with those manipulators they're just mapping some arbitrary amount of pixel movement to an angle, and not giving you a chance to specifically target points on existing geometry. And also just typing in a number doesn't do the complete job either if you want to rotate based on existing geometry and don't know the exact angle beforehand.

That's why MoI's Transform > Rotate command operates the way it does, to allow for those kinds of "precisely specified by point snapping" type of rotations.

- Michael

That edit Frame makes things nicer. I didn't have it enabled in the options. It would be very useful to have that in the 3d view, for when only using the 3d viewport.

I'm looking to hotkey it. Where can I find all of the Command names for the tools/actions?

Hi Playdo,

> I'm looking to hotkey it. Where can I find all of the Command names for the tools/actions?

There's a list of all command names here:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_command_reference11.htm#shortcutkeys

But some things set by checkboxes are not "commands" in the same sense as the Line or Boolean commands and instead need some script to toggle it on or off.

For the edit frame put the following as the command part of a shortcut key to toggle it on or off:

script: /* Toggle edit frame display */ moi.view.showEditFrame = !moi.view.showEditFrame;


But the edit frame is designed to be as unobtrusive as possible - it only has grips at the corners, no connecting lines and even those grips are semi-transparent until you move the mouse over top of on. And then in addition to that since it is a frame that goes around the outside of your object rather than right in the middle of it it does not tend to get in the way like other style gizmo/manipulators can.

Since it's has all that stuff in it to be very low profile I would recommend just leaving it enabled all the time.

- Michael

Thanks Michael