Why do I have to start moving/rotating/scaling before entering the slow-precise mode with gizmos ?
When animating, I often want to add very small movments to a specific controller, and I find it really hard to do with the gizmos.
I know there is the "shift" key to enter a slow precise mode, but I find it pretty much useless for the fact that I can't hit Shift and then drag the axis. I have to select the axis that I want and start moving normally before being able to apply the slow-precise mode. But at that point I'm usually already too far from my starting point, and since I don't have a visual cue of exactly where that starting point was, I almost never get the small change I want.
I don't even understand why it's been set up that way, it doesn't make sense to me. I'm in 2.82.
15 Comments
Oh yes. This is so annoying! I cuss everytime.
The title alone had me voting for this one
IMHO the Gizmo need a lot of rework for animation. Not being able to set some settings beforehand is one issue. They also disappear during transform, the rotation isn't proportional to the gizmo size nor the cursor distance. So on....
* @-L0Lock- * agreed. Agreed. Agreed!
* @-L0Lock- * I find the transform disappearing kinda nice actually. I mean, the axis is already selected, and it makes the view clearer while making the transform. Agreed with the proportion size, though that shift thing would be a good replacement for being precise, imho, if it was working properly.
What do you mean by "set some settings beforehand" ?
* @igeuls14 * when I do local rotations, I want to see how the axes behave, especially if I rotate in gimbal mode, or I am watching for gimbal locks. Gizmo gives also some form of feedback on what I'm doing. This should be possible, a simple checkbox somewhere and everyone can have its gizmo behaving as needed.
Some settings I like to set beforehand when I animate:
Just those are the main ones I use all the time. In Blender, only the snap and steps can be set beforehand, but not the sensitivity or the transform axis/plane.
Though you can set them while transforming, it represents extra steps to do and redo for every transform. Sometimes I spend five minutes on one controller just tweaking its local X translation. That means I may do thirty distinct transform operations per minute: I can't lose time on repeating stuff.
In some other softwares, I can define tX as my default move (one click on a gizmo part in Maya), and set the sensitivity, all once and undoable as fast. So I can do my five minutes of tweaking.
In Blender, I can't set a default transform at all, I can eventually rely on axis lock, but extra steps and not always relevant. There's no way to set sensitivity beforehand neither, it must be enabled after starting the transform. The result being, my five minutes of tweaking becomes ten, and my fingers hurt at the end of the day.
* @-L0Lock- * I see. I haven't gone out of my maya habbits of just animating in local without caring about gimbal, and letting the "euler filter" do the rest, but I sometimes get in trouble because the "discontinuity filter" in blender isn't working well... I never knew of all these possibilities with the gizmo in maya, that's interesting, I ought to give it a look when I'll get back to it. Thanks.
I really hate the way Blender does this, for the exact reason you describe: By the time Blender recognizes that I'm moving the mouse (or tablet pen) for a transformation it has already over-transformed the thing I'm working on, which means I have to "fix" the transform first before I can arrive at the final precision transform that I actually desire.
The gizmos should react correctly and automatically enter precision mode if the modifier key is being held before the gizmo handle is clicked.
Gizmos really are a red-headed stepchild in Blender.
There is a new (free) add-on that solves this exact problem, and it does it rather elegantly too: blendermarket.com/products/gizmodal-ops
gizmos in Blender are more just for show. You never catch me using them (but at least they look pretty)
* @Anže * Besides this problem, I find them to be alright. I'm sure the standard blender method is great for modelling, but in animation I'd rather see the axises so I don't have to constantly guess which axis goes which way. especially since the rigs I'm working with are not consistent with their axis order.
* @Anže * do you work mainly in animation?
* @igeuls14 * If u use not gizmo but keyboard
Gor move tweak - you can set it to start already " accurate ". Just don't use this gizmo... If you need to see axis you can enable showing gizmo from overlay in same time been on some box select tool.* @-L0Lock- * I go over the whole process so not really. I'd say 1/3 of what I do is animating. And when it comes to axis stuff I make all my rigs the same way so I know which axis is which, without having visual help from the gizmos.
* @IIIFGIII * I'm sorry, what does this accurate checkbox do ?
Ok, not a bad idea to show the gizmo and use the standard method, I'll try and see if I can get used to it.