<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On 10/11/2007, at 6:42 AM, Jason van Gumster wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"Sangwoo Hong" <<A href="mailto:sahngwoo@gmail.com">sahngwoo@gmail.com</A>> wrote:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Then perhaps it should be called "sets" instead of "layers".<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Why use</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">a word that has misleading implicit meaning when a perfectly fine</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">word exists that actually describes what it does which you use to</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">describe what it actually does. :)</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Layering systems similar to Blender's do exist in other apps and their</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">called layers there, too.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I definitely recall seeing this in a couple</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">CAD apps.</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>I always thought that 'layers' was a bad metaphor for what Blender does.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>A little while ago I was thinking about layer systems etc, and thought maybe instead of layers you could call it 'tags'. The idea of tags is pretty common these days, especially on the web on sites like flickr where you can add tags to photos as a way of categorising and describing them.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So rather than put an object in a layer (which is a bit counterintuitive when having multiple layers), you'd apply a tag to an object. In essence, it could work very similarly to how Blender does now, where before you press M to move an object to a layer, here you would press M and apply a tag to the object. You'd be able to add as many tags as you like, with various names (and maybe could even start off with a default 1-20 as in Blender now).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Though I guess there's a lot of overlap between this idea (and layers) and groups. It would be interesting to think about that too - where do you draw the line between layers and groups? Are there (and what are the) fundamental differences in what they're used for.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It's conceivable that we could easily use the 'Groups' display in the outliner to work as a layer system, by adding the view/select/render icons there (individual objects in multiple groups would just show the ORed result of all groups its in or something like that).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>cheers</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Matt</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>------------------------------------------</DIV><DIV>Matt Ebb . matt@mke3.net . <A href="http://mke3.net">http://mke3.net</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>