EIM Good

#1

Since EIM is going to come into being for the second time, I would like to start a thread with three parts to it.

EIM good: What users see as the parts that work well or very well.
EIM bad: What does not work very well, or not at all, or need improvement.
EIM additions: What users have perhaps seen in other programs that they like and
could maybe incorporated into the new EIM work flow.

I’ll start it off with some of the obvious stuff:

EIM good: The layers system - I’ve not used anything that comes close to this system.
Booleans, superb. Wires, this cutting system saves so much time its unbelievable.

EIM bad: Snapping, if the existing system worked as well as Rhino it would be excellent.
Surface tools, I hardly use them because I just get frustrated, so I will leave it to others to go into detail. Lattice Deform, this cage tool could and should be a really useful tool. Unfortunately even when it doesn’t cause the app to crash the resulting geometry is usually useless for any further work - plus it can cause a file to corrupt so that when you try and reopen it you discover that it won’t.

EIM additions: Although I really don’t like the work flow of ViaCad it has some really neat stuff in it. Illustrator imports actually work, I am able to generate viable geometry with it. History, being able to manipulate splines after the fact to change geometry.

#2

EIM addition: some inmediate and easy modifications and refinements to last version’s UI.

-NEW DISPLAY PALETTE OR CONTEXTUAL MENU OPTIONS: oftentimes one wishes that Preferences’ view options pane’s checkboxes were more directly available, as something as simple as a different zoom level of a complex design can get so crowded with visual cues (normals, edge directions, etc.) that one has to be constantly changing these settings on and off.

-SCREENSETS: or at the very least an user default windows setup different to the “Reset Windows” one, including custom palettes’ positions.

-TURN THE STATUS PALETTE INTO A MINI-TOOL INSPECTOR: most tools have at most two or three very essential parameters, be it numerical (e.g.: round radius) or switch-like (e.g.: create filled/unfilled rectangle), that could very well be as available there as the move/scale/rotate value fields are.

-FLOATABLE LAYER PALETTE: as an option. Even with my 24" monitor I am constantly having to “rescue” it from being buried under other windows.

-SEE-THROUGH TEMPLATES IN FRONT-TOP-SIDE WINDOWS: being able to see the grid, curves and objects through template images. At the very least being able to adjust their transparency to get that.

-MOUSEWHEEL SUPPORT: for Tools and Layer palettes. For zooming in/out too, perhaps.

#3

Im game…

Updated Ubernurbs/Ubermesh tools…
softdrag or points
smooth, jitter, pinch, pull and other cage manipulation tools
Cage point selection sets
updated mirror tools

updated deforms

sds input<->output

UV tools

Cj

#4

Perhaps a bit of a Hexagon/Modo feel to the manipulators widgets and the ÜberNURBS cage tools.

#5

Good: Icons (very descriptive of actions) Sub-D see Bad, Powerful nurbs, slick various spline/v-spline options (hermite and whatever those other ones where) Almost golden except few bugs here and there.

Bad:

Selection Tools lack object selection preview.

Sub D Cage:
I mainly used SubD cage better undos.

Model Export:
Tessellation, Tessellation Tessellation. Very random results based on various approaches of modeling and complexity. for instance a NURBS may have odd tessellation, an uber-nurbs may generate a blocky pattern mesh OR a super dense mesh.

Additions:

First we need a manual that highlight system video cards that may work for bare minimum. Tedious to do but a chart with various cards and tested performance is a plus. Even a cinebench style app for EI would be welcome.

Keyboard Shortcuts (need I say more)
Keyboard Mouse Shortcuts

Selection Tools:
Need better shortcuts to access the various tools.
Need better pointing and selecting options (highlighting of faces edges as in silo, modo hexagon)
Double clicking and triple clicking for various effects creating a closed or open Nurb or bezier curve. Similar to FormZ.

Uber Nurbs
More tools, better xray open GL.
booleans within Uber

Model Preview:
No way to test textures prior to exporting FACT and loading into EI and repeat.
No test renderer for mesh tessellation preview.

Round Edges:
A rough preview prior to applying the round tool.

Model Export:
Tessellation previews for various formats. Better explain global tessellation settings, preview tessellation and export tessellation and per object tessellation.

Import: My guess would be other 3d apps. Maya XSI and MAX may be at top of the list

UV mapping implementation with socket/shader implementation to pre-visualize final model.

rough renderer, or renderer.

Option to export still models to renderman, or other rendering apps.

EIM dedicated team, similar to EIAS team for forums and troubleshooting.

Bones or model placement boxes for IK.

Better deformations that allow falloffs.

If no UV allowed then a texture mapping method, to preview the model somewhat.

I’m sure I have more recommendations but I’ll have to sit model another scene and then remember in detail the key tools shortcuts or I wish list to add on to here.

Tessellation or tessellation smoothing both built into EIAS and EIM would allow for less polygons and smoother models. Option for organic modeling vs solid and create a hybrid of the 2.

I’ll probably post more later.

#6

ADDITIONS: Tutorials, tutorials, tutorials.

When EIM is newly released it would be nice to have a range of tutorials that explain why things are done how by the EIM gurus out there. I fell in love with EIM very late in the game: as soon as I felt I was beginning to get a handle of it, EIAS terminated it. I more or less know my way around it and things, but the manual and its tutorials back then fell a bit short of explaining most “why so”.

(for example: I know Bezier curves are most frowned upon in a NURBS modeler, but there must be some way of making them useful beyond the simplest modeling acts, as they still are the most flexible, easy and precise ones to lay. Even if they are no good for anything but templating, that issue merits a whole discourse itself)

These tutorials ought to be sincere enough to face what’s difficult to do in EIM and ways to solve them. If anything, I would like them to feel as DigitalTutors’ Maya ones in tone: informal, pointing out where the quirks are, and no entering of magic numbers, something I am afraid the DVGarage ones were a bit too prone to (I don’t mean by this that they ought to be videotutorials).

#7

utorials[QUOTE=juanxer]ADDITIONS: Tutorials, tutorials, tutorials.

When EIM is newly released it would be nice to have a range of tutorials that explain why things are done how by the EIM gurus out there. I became enamored of EIM very late in the game: as soon as I felt I was beginning to get a handle of it, EIAS terminated it. I more or less know my way around it and things, but the manual and its tutorials back then fell a bit short of explaining most “why so”.

(for example: I know Bezier curves are most frowned upon in a NURBS modeler, but there must be some way of making them useful beyond the simplest modeling acts, as they still are the most flexible, easy and precise ones to lay. Even if they are no good for anything but templating, that issue merits a whole discourse itself)

These tutorials ought to be sincere enough to face what’s difficult to do in EIM and ways to solve them. If anything, I would like them to feel as DigitalTutors’ Maya ones in tone: informal, pointing out where the quirks are, and no entering of magic numbers,omething I am afraid the DVGarage ones were a bit too prone to (I don’t mean by this that they ought to be videotutorials). [QUOTE)

I agree, I didn’t like the DV Garage tuts at all. Hex has those great little video tuts encapsulated within the online help, and Paul has mentioned how good the Modo ones are. ViaCad has an annoying, non searchable, non linkable help that takes a huge amount of time to find anything in. If you are going to do something like that at least link the contents titles with the actual page so that you can click once and get there.
EI tutorials - until recently - have been virtually non existent, with the result that a lot of potential new users have probably found one of the simpler 3D programs, (one of its strengths), far more impenetrable than it should be.

#8

EIM good: Layers system - Knives and Booleans - Tesselation to polys

EIM bad: Rounds and Fillets, very crash prone, error trapping should cancel the action, not the application.

Surface tools - difficult to use, g1, g2, g3 blends hard to make happen.

Derived lines - intersection lines and projected lines were unstable, made further operations difficult or impossible.

Isometric display - very funky, needs a true 3d perspective display a la MoI.

EIM add: Need pop up inferences and construction guide lines (mid, tangent, perpendicular, angles, equal heights, etc. see MoI).

Snapping should have better user feedback, it should “SNAP” so you know you’ve acomplished the move.

More intelligent (intuitive) workflow. MoI uses the same tool for trims, doesn’t need a wire knife for wires and a sheet knife for surfaces-same tool. MoI doesn’t require you set a workplane, where you set your points based on snapping and construction inferences determines where the element goes.

History Tree- features should be adjustable all along the workflow to allow updates as the design idea develops. These updates should propogate out to EIAS.

UberNURBS needs to have SOTA sds modeling tools, including cuts, loop and ring selections, inset, soft selections, etc. High Frequency detailing via the paint workflow would be nice - see Silo and ZBrush.

UV Mapping - texture alignment tools.

Morph Target modeling.

There’s more I’m sure, but if you could meet the ease of use and stability of MoI, it would be a start. UberNURBS needs to approach the Silo - ZBrush level of functionality to attract more users back into the fold.

And for God’s sake don’t leave us hanging. Training, training, and more training. Adobe got big in part by making sure people knew how to use their stuff. Training.

#9

(Whatever happens, please don’t change the way EITG’s apps rotate Iso or perspective views to ViaCAD and Modo’s; their “virtual Trackball”-style applies roll based on clicking distance from window center, so usually one has to do small roll corrections after any major rotate gesture. It’s really off-putting and makes me want to behead Tim Olson and Brad Peebler. Slowly. Twice)

EIM Additions:

-OBJECT/LAYER INSTANCING: where clones accept at least position/rotation/resize data that gets carried over to Animator (I seem to remember someone saying a long time ago that duplicating objects inside Animator was less efficient that having these duplicates actually being inside the FACT files already. Was that so, and is it still so?). As cloning usually makes more sense for complex groups of objects rather than just single ones, I guess Layer-level instancing would be required, or one would need to Join objects previous to cloning.

(The best instancing feature I ever saw was StrataStudio’s: you could really apply nearly all sort of changes to an instance without breaking its link to the original object set)

-ALIGN/DISTRIBUTE TOOLS: these would be handy in Animator, too.

#10

please please please… standardize 3d navigation between EI & EIM

Cj

#11

EIM has a lot of good, I use it for many projects and I am really glad it’s coming back. To make it even better…

(1 & 2 are really improvements to EIAS but they relate to EIM)

  1. Better communication with EIAS. The ability to save a file from EIM, import to EIAS, then when edited and saved, it is automatically updated in EIAS. Similar to a placed psd in Illustrator.

  2. Move the tessellation function to EIAS. I have no idea if this possible at all but it would be nice to export, for example, an SAT file and import it into EIAS then apply the tessellation in EIAS. You could even have separate settings for Animator and Camera.

  3. Construction history and editable construction curves.

  4. Update to current ACIS version (and keep current).

  5. Customize interface, keyboard shortcuts.

  6. Image Template should be behind the grid and path drawn on top.

  7. Selecting and translating multiple points in Bezier curves.

bw

#12

  1. Selecting and translating multiple points in Bezier curves.

    bw[/QUOTE]

Yes, I forgot about that one. Despite all the talk of how splines are better and cleaner I still have more luck with Bezier’s most of the time and this would be a real time saver.
I was trying to do something in ViaCad with the Bezier’s yesterday and eventually just gave up and went back to Modeler - one of those tools I just find better implemented, even as is.
Also tool selection consistency would be good. I don’t know how many times I have saved and then started work again only to find that the particular tool I have been using had been deselected.

#13

Yes: ViaCAD Beziers are just terrible. EIM’s are quite Freehand/Illustrator like, and could get even more so. I know one oughtn’t rely on them because the resulting 3D surfaces and objects are multipatch ones, but at least one knows where these patchs and seams will appear, so one can deal with them.

(Tutorial #1: how to get used to pure NURBS and learn to draw them as precisely as Beziers. I’d put an smiley there if not for this being actually a very real need)

#14

EIM’s bezier curves are quite nice - multiple select would be even nicer.

Just view the bezier curves as multiple nurbs curves and/or poly lines joined at each knot.

#15

The layers system is great - with one caveat - I don’t like the fact that when you are using a tool and select something from there it automatically defaults back to the main selection tool. It would be a great time saver if the current tool remained selected.

Also a hot key or button for smooth shading from wireframe would be nice. This is one of the things that come in very handy in ViaCad.

#16

If I understand your request you already can - ‘option + V’ toggles the smooth shading on and off.

#17

Is that on a Mac or PC Paul? Won’t work for me on the PC.

#18

‘Open Recent’ I use this all the time in EIAS. Miss it in Modeler.

#19

That’s on a Mac.

#20

I’m trying the ‘option+v’ toggle in EIM 5.0.2 on a Mac. It doesn’t affect the shading mode. Tried some other combinations too. Shading mode unchanged.

I’m on a Mac mini 1.42Ghz PPC. Maybe my graphics card doesn’t cut it?