Dragging a guidline has already shown its usefullness to me but they don't seem to persist.
One can use a 'real' line in it's stead but that's not obvously visually different than your modelling geometry.
The possability to add persistant thin or dashed guidlines would be usefull, I feel.
Any thoughts?
cheers
Spinner

I want to add this at some point, but then there will need to be provisions to select and delete them later on... It will be a little fussy because you probably don't want to select them all the time like regular geometry because they'd get in the way.

It's those additional tasks that make keeping them somewhat more work than it first appears.

- Michael

I see what you mean.
It would need a delete guidelines button or guidelines selectability toggle.
More clutter in the interface.
Cheers
Spinner

> More clutter in the interface.

Yup, these are the kinds of things that I've got to be a bit careful of, every button that is added to the top level UI brings some complexity to the interface.

This might have to wait until there is a more general purpose object list / object organizer that would have general support for locking down objects to make them unselectable. Then at that point the persistent construction lines could be selectable like regular objects, and you could use that general purpose object organizer to lock them to prevent selecting them.

But that general purpose object organizer is a major piece of work, it will be a ways off.


It is easier to add more functionality when it is nested down one level in the UI, I mean when it only shows up when you click on something else first and then goes away after that. There is not quite a good socket for construction line related stuff like this yet though.

- Michael

You have a looooong way to go before the interface is anything remotely resembling cluttered. Have you SEEN Houdini? Or any compositing app, for that matter? ;)

I had an idea on how to fit them into the interface, as well as improve the way they work. Add them in as an option under the line tool. Click the button and you go into guideline edit mode. Add and remove guidelines as you wish. Click DONE to turn guideline mode off. If you want to edit the guidelines or add new ones, just go back into edit mode.

I didn't realize the power of guidelines until I saw a Studio Tools video the other day. Then the genius hit me. Having that kind of ability in MoI would be phenomenal.

> Add them in as an option under the line tool. Click the button and
> you go into guideline edit mode. Add and remove guidelines as
> you wish. Click DONE to turn guideline mode off. If you want to
> edit the guidelines or add new ones, just go back into edit mode.

This sounds good for adding new ones, but not as good for the edit/remove part - that part just doesn't seem to quite fit into that area organizationally speaking. I mean that there isn't any other functionality under the "Draw curve" section that is currently about editing or deleting curves, just only about drawing new ones...

- Michael

Then put the "edit guidelines" button next to the "show points" button. Same basic idea.

< until I saw a Studio Tools video the other day
Have some links for that?

You have to sign up to download the Alias Studio PLE, then you can download the tutorial videos as well. Definitely check it out. It's some wickedly powerful software. Just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay friggin' expensive. Full shebang runs about $65,000. o_O

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=6866433

Thx but seems ther are some animations here :)
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=6871498#section10

Hu 65 000 $ is not a little toy :D

> Then put the "edit guidelines" button next to the "show points" button. Same basic idea.

That could work, I guess it is similar in effect to show points. But I hestitate to add a new button there for it, the Edit palette is already getting quite crowded. It seems like a more general purpose "Lock/Unlock" type mechanism that worked both on construction lines as well as other objects would be better than a button devoted just to editing construction lines alone.

- Michael

The cheapest version of Alias Studio clocks in at $7500. I guess if you really need ridiculously good NURBS then it's worth it.