Hi Michael,

I thought you where just going to put out a new beta to address the reported bugs,.. then chill out a bit,.. then work more on the object properties. (I think the "chill out a bit" is needed most).

Take care,


- Steve

Hi Steve, well that was one idea...

But I've been hoping though that I will be able to get at least a part of the properties stuff done for this release, so I keep on waiting for just a bit more to see if I can get it working better, etc...

I do actually have quite a bit of the underlying stuff working, like you can assign object names, the type and size display works, and properties can be assigned to sub-objects and persist through operations such as booleans.


It is the visual style property part that is still not finished yet that is holding things up.


Some of the ideas that I had earlier I don't think will hold up quite so well when additional types of properties are added later on. So I've been a little bit back to the drawing board a couple of times. But I think I'm on a pretty good track at the moment, actually kind of using the styles and formatting mechanism in Microsoft Word as a model.

I think I may know by the end of today whether the current track is going to work or not.

- Michael

Some pretty good progress on object properties today.

This shows the size readout changing when sizing an object, and the current concept for editing visual properties (the style editing part is just an empty UI right now, that part is not hooked up yet).



The general idea is that a "Style" will set bundle of visual properties all in one shot.

You can also edit properties individually by going to the other tabs below Styles. Currently there will just be Colors there but in the future more stuff can get added there such as "Lines", or "Textures".

I'm thinking that there will be 2 options for how the styles get created - you can go to a "Style editor" dialog by pressing that "Edit styles" button to change styles or create a new one, but I would also like to make a new style available anytime you go in and set some individual properties directly (like going to the color tab). So for instance if you go in and set a custom color, then after that an entry for that will show up in Styles to make it easy to pick that same color for other objects. It should be a quick way to make a style without actually needing to go to the full editor... That's the current idea anyway.

Still needs some work though!

- Michael

No unity (cm, mmm...) somewhere?
Colors can be chosen ? (define)
What meaning "CRV"?

Hi Pilou,

> No unity (cm, mmm...) somewhere?

Actually I do have those now - I just had my units set to "No unit system".

If you have units set, a small label will appear at the end of the Size: control:



Also units labels will show up in the bottom toolbar after the x,y,z point and distance controls:



And also after distance/length type input fields in command options, like here is one for drawing a circle:




> Colors can be chosen ? (define)

I'm not sure... I probably won't be able to do any kind of GUI editor for them but maybe read them in from a text file that you could customize if you want.


> What meaning "CRV"?

It's short for "Curve". There is not much space in that area, so I have needed to use some contractions there.

- Michael

Looking good so far Michael! :)

Will there be an inherit properties sort of thing, so we can copy set properties from one object and copy to another ?

---------

thanks for the update michael.
Good to see how things are progressing.

What interests me most, more than object properties, is the scene tree.
Being able to assign objects to certain group/layers/parents etc....
to organize complex scenes
and, very importantly, how these groups export as OBJ.
(to be able to import this hierarchy in other programs), as well being able to somehow preserve layer information from Rhino files.

This to me is the single most important thing that is needed to integrate Moi in a modelling workflow.

How about editing the size of a sketch, solid and surface body ?

-anis

< but maybe read them in from a text file that you could customize if you want.
Maybe yes because for graphic aspect those above are maybe clashing with the all screen of the UI ;)

Michael,
My 2 cents.
It is very important for me that MoI be compatible with Rhino layers ... interchangeable in both directions.
Otherwise it is very difficult to integrate MoI into my workflow ... except using it for smaller details for inserting into the main work.
Is this part of the overall plan?
thanks
eric

I agree with Eric.
It has to play well with Rhino's layers.
It also has to be able to export hierarchies well, to open in external apps (modo, C4d etc....)

Will the size be "editable" from that properties page?

Opacity/Transparency anywhere in the future?

What about Naomi?

Burr

Hi Michael
Just some questions too :)

1)
About the size info, isn't the lower tab from the MoI interface a better area to show this kind of stuff ? somewhere close to this



For me the upper right place is a really important place in MoI, where every tools options are showed, and I think the size info is not something really 'primary'.
I don't said it's not an important info, but maybe I will more look in the bottom for this numeric info, like the world position etc.

2)
Will style include shade mode (wireframe, solid, solid + wireframe etc), transparency, specular etc etc ? ... I mean is it some kind of surface editor that also include dx shader like for example world image reflection, toon shader, etc. Would be great if it might be compatible with stuff comming from shaderfx kind of software ->
http://www.lumonix.net/shaderfx.html.

A thumbnail system that will show the style look would be sexy too (if I really understand what styles are)

3)
Like few others, I can't wait to see any kind of system that will help to manage bigger scene ( layers =o) ? )

Hi Danny,

> Will there be an inherit properties sort of thing, so we
> can copy set properties from one object and copy to another ?

The current idea is that once you set properties on one object, a new style will then be available after that in the Styles section.

So if you want to apply the same properties to another object, select the other object, and then apply that new style to it.

I'll probably see how that works first, but I'm also thinking of adding a "Match" button to that flyout in the lower-left corner, which if you pushed it would let you pick an object and suck its properties over to the ones that you had selected before that.

- Michael

Hi Okapi,

> What interests me most, more than object properties, is the scene tree.
> Being able to assign objects to certain group/layers/parents etc....

This will be coming in another beta release beyond the next one.

My first area of focus is this properties panel stuff, and once that is wrapped up then I will be moving to that object browser / scene tree type thing.

It will probably take a few beta releases before it is all wrapped up and fully working.

- Michael

Hi Anis,

> How about editing the size of a sketch, solid and surface body ?

Actually you can do that currently with the Transform / Scale command.

But I am planning on some alternate ways to do it, I had been thinking of doing the editing on a "Details" dialog (which won't be ready for this next beta), but maybe I should revisit editing the size in that new Size readout as well.

- Michael

Hi Pilou,

> Maybe yes because for graphic aspect those above are
> maybe clashing with the all screen of the UI ;)

Those ones are just some quick test items, they are not the ones that will be in there when it is finished up.

- Michael

Hi Eric,

> It is very important for me that MoI be compatible with Rhino
> layers ... interchangeable in both directions.
> <...>
> Is this part of the overall plan?

Yes - I do want to have data transfer including layers.

They may not quite completely map since I'm not doing an implementation of "straight layers" within MoI, to try and avoid some of the limitations that system has.

I think you'll probably be able to choose whether you want to export MoI Groups as layers, or whether you want to export MoI Styles as layers. And maybe the default should be Styles since that will be a singular property of an object similar to how an object can only be on one layer in Rhino.

This interchange with layers will not be part of the first beta with this stuff in it though, my initial focus is on getting a good UI and workflow set within MoI and once that is looking good I will be looking at data interchange after that.

- Michael

Hi Burr,

> Will the size be "editable" from that properties page?

I was thinking that it would be editable from a "Details" dialog that you would pop up with an additional button (which is not going to be ready for this next beta though).

But now I've been thinking about making that field more directly editable as well, I think I'll experiment with that some today.


> Opacity/Transparency anywhere in the future?

Definitely in the future at some point! But not likely for v2.

- Michael

Hi PaQ,

> About the size info, isn't the lower tab from the MoI
> interface a better area to show this kind of stuff ? somewhere
> close to this

There isn't really any room left down in there for something wide like that - on a 1024x768, or also even a 1280x1024 screen with large fonts, that bottom row is pretty much full right now already.

Eventually I will probably need to do something about this, and have things like some optional controls that only appear when you have more room down there on your particular screen (a user editable toolbar where you could drag and drop buttons to could work well for this). But so far I have tried to avoid doing that and have attempted to have just one UI that works with all screens right now.


> For me the upper right place is a really important place
> in MoI, where every tools options are showed, and I think
> the size info is not something really 'primary'.

That properties stuff I showed in that upper-right area only shows up when you are not in a command, and therefore have no command options being displayed. It's pretty much the main blank area that I have to leverage that works on all screen resolutions.

Just like it shows the "tools options" for the active tool, think of it as showing the "objects options" for the currently selected object when you are in selection mode before starting a command.

Anyway that's the other logic behind having the stuff that can change depending on what is selected (which includes size readout) all be in one location there.



> Will style include shade mode (wireframe, solid, solid + wireframe
> etc), transparency, specular etc etc ? ...

Eventually yes, but probably not for v2.


> I mean is it some kind of surface editor that also include dx
> shader like for example world image reflection, toon shader, etc.

It won't have that kind of an editor in it yet - think of it more as an overall mechanism and area of the UI that will hold such things when they are added in the future.

Those will become additional tabs on the left side, to control those additional properties.

Then a "Style" is a bundle of all those possible properties, so that you can set up a kind of property template and apply numerous properties (all relating to visual display) in just one click.


I'm thinking that probably there will also be a "Styles" section in the scene browser tree view thing as well, which hopefully can use the same mechanism for groups for hiding / showing / selecting objects that all have a particular style easily.


> A thumbnail system that will show the style look would
> be sexy too (if I really understand what styles are)

Yup, I would like to do that eventually, like show a small curve or cube or something in there instead of just a color swatch. For v2 I think it will just be a plain swatch though.

- Michael