;)

Hi Pior,

> I think what I am trying to get at is that the video I posted is more about
> "refining the idea" (like, holding the object in one's hand to observe it from all
> angles, and making minute adjustments accordingly to balance it based on a rough
> idea sketch) rather than building it accuratley ; <....>

Yeah currently MoI is not really very focused on this area of refinement or tweaking of 3D forms directly. Currently the focus is much more just on being able to construct an initial shape at all, and there is still more stuff to do just in this area first before I'll really focus very hard on tweaking and refinement.

Eventually I do want to have a deeper history mechanism where you'll be able to set up various 2D curves as I showed above to use for the construction, and then be able to edit those curves and have the final result update. That will then give tweakability while still using that 2D curve driven workflow.

That does exist to a limited extent in MoI currently - you can edit the 2D curves that went into a surface creation command like extrude, loft, or sweep and as you edit them the result surface will update, but this updating will not persist if you do further edits to the surface like doing booleans or trimming of it. In the future that's what I want to extend.


> Unfortunately and after years of searching I haven't found a great versatile (and fast !)
> environment to fit such needs ... IHeartSketch came close but unfortunately never got
> released and doesn't have any surfacing tools anyways ; <....>

Unfortunately it's very difficult for a computer algorithm to do the same job as your human judgement and intuition when it comes to filling in a wire outline.

Did you ever check out FreeDimension? I'm not sure if it's still being developed but it's something kind of along the lines of what you are looking for I think..... EDIT: I guess it's gone, their web site does not seem to exist anymore.

- Michael

Hi again Michael !

I think I was reading about your future plans for a deeper history structure a little while ago - that sounds really great, can't wait to try it! It seems like one of the big, important features that will take MOI to the next level.

(Oh and yes - by "regular" 3D programs I meant environments like Max, Maya and XSI as opposed to CAD oriented solutions, for lack of a better word :) )

Regarding the overall subject of intuitive shape creation, it is indeed a bit of a holy grail really ... Sculpting programs are great at organics, but even tho their hardsurface toolsets are steadily improving, it all feels all lumpy to work with. I didn't hear of FreeDimension before, looks interesting (there are still a few videos floating around Youtube). It's a bit of a shame they they closed access to the program, as it was indeed quite promising. According to their new website they seem to be working on a new version, so who knows, it might make a comeback. Anyone here has a copy of the old version from back when it was available ?

Ironically I find that the Network tool in MOI is quite great at solving "random" surfaces defined by their edges as opposed to generated from trims and booleans ; sure enough it often causes pinching and twisting but as a previs tool it is great!

When it comes to sketching object thumbnails, I sometimes use Ink2go over my 3DSMax window - It's a screen annotation software with decent enough sketching tools. But of course having the rough sketches elegantly integrated in the 3D creation environment would be extremely practical.

Anyways - I sure keep a close eye on MOI, since all the features you've been adding always make a lot of sense without sacrificing ease of access and simplicity. Great stuff !

Hi Pior,

> But of course having the rough sketches elegantly integrated
> in the 3D creation environment would be extremely practical.

We have some users doing this within MoI right now, is this what you mean? http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5539.1

~Danny~

Hi,

Maybe it could be nice if tweaking points of a 3d curve would be constrained by the view instead of cplane....
Maybe as an option?



There is also the option to blend lines in 3d space, which is quite useful to explore 3d curves.
You can move the generating curves or it's points afterward and blend will follow.





Marc

Danny - that's pretty awesome ! I was actually originally referring to sketches as in, rough sketches from the front, side and top views, but the example you linked is even better :) I did try it and it does work ; I just had a few issues with the freehand sketch tool Repeat option turning itself off, and also the CPlane alignement options felt a little rough for the sketching process to be really fluid (I still have to experiment further - Ideally, a great way to orient the CPlane in the context of spline sketching would be to pick 2 points in space, then rotate the plane around this line direction until it reaches the desired orientation. and then of course, being able to incrementally move the CPlane in XXZ (world) and in a freeform manner in perspective. A CPlane manipulator could help too - but that's a whole other can of worms :D)

Marc : yeah, pretty much - simply being able to move existing points (and full objects too) in view/screen space would be a sweet thing to have (having real time scene mirroring too, as it would make the whole roughing out process pretty brilliant). But yeah as Michael pointed out it might not fit with the overall and current goal of MOI. But then of course there will always be people bending the rules and using the tool in unintended ways :)

I thought I might aswell resurrect this topic again now that v4 is in dev.

Here's a good example showing someone with a ton of experience with the program, yet still running into the same issue that I run into when it comes to screen space placement of objects/components :

https://youtu.be/lmiCOGKZ7q0?t=180 (3:20 shows the result being very different from what the user intended, leading to him having to undo and try again from another angle more favorable to the transformation he is attempting. Screen mode would completely bypass all that :) ).

I think this is a good example showing that even when embracing the "CAD-like construction" paradigm of MOI, one would still benefit from being able to adjust the position of components in screen mode, without any other constraint.

I hope this makes sense !

Hi Pior, well v4 is at the very end of its development cycle so it's not really a time for experiments right now. There is a lot of information earlier in this thread about why screen space manipulation isn't currently a focus for MoI.

- Michael

Hi there Michael ! That does make complete sense of course. If anything I am glad to have at the very least brought the topic to your attention.

- - - - -

So, without going the route of a screen-based manipulation mode ... is there a way at this time to display some sort of direct world space XYZ manipulator, at the very least ? (I actually tend to avoid the use of manipulators in 3d software as I find them distracting, and tend to rely fully on kb shortcuts instead whenever possible ; but in the case of MOI I do believe that a simple barebones Move manipulator would help quite a bit.)

Either that, or maybe a script/command that could be assigned to a shortcut, allowing to move a selection by a given amount of centimeters on one specific axis (as opposed to having to manually activate and use the regular move tool, or having to go into an ortho view to grab and drag there).

Overall I think this is the common underlying topic of my remarks (both this one here as well as the one about the unneeded highlighting of components) : the MOI UX design is very proactive when it comes to walking the user down the branching paths of possible inputs (for instance : clicking a few times to gradually go down from object mode to edge or face mode ; or similarly, having the user "hunt around" the screen with the mouse until the desired X, Y or Z Straight Snap axis gets selected). But in the case of a user knowing *exactly* what they want to do beforehand, this paradigm gets mildly frustrating because it introduces unneeded options interrupting the flow state.

For instance : if I know in advance that I want to move a selection up on the vertical axis, being presented with 2 other directions picked up by the Straight Snap mode along the way gets irritating because in my mind these options were already ruled out - therefore having them flash on screen somewhat gives the impression of going backwards.

It's a little hard to explain but I hope this makes sense !

Nudge ? 4http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/#Nudge