1D, 2D and 3D flexible sliders.
I would like sliders as a new kind of objects 3D, for simplify rigging. These sliders should allow you to adjust the value of one or more attributes, and adjust to the shape of the object they had below. For this reason I call them flexible. They should also have 3 modes, one to place them, another to adjust the attributes and another to deform them minimally. It would also be good to be able to put them together and to create a unique object with many attributes. To top it off, it would be great to be able to apply the Shrinkwrap/SurfaceDeform modifier to the slider so that it would always remain on the mesh of another object.
5 Comments
Don't know so much about rigging but, maybe it could be an addon similar to the one Bassam Kurdali did some time ago:
youtube.com/watch
@Julio Garcia (sephirothtbm): Although they are also slider this addon shows them in the form of list, oriented to camera, and with the relative scale to the window. My concept would allow you to adjust and stick it any geometry so that its influence can be seen more easily. It is more similar to another addon that allows you to use groups of faces as a slider. Thanks for comment.
In truth, with bones you can achieve the same, limiting their transformation, pairing them to vertices or other bones, using constraints and modifying their shape, you can get the bones to skate over the mesh and activate ShapesKeys. To achieve a similar interaction the required structure is much greater. On the other hand I think that as a Slider you could better adjust its representation by playing with opacity, the thickness of line, the way values are displayed (ex: only when manipulated) ... I see much easier to draw the sliders on the mesh, and apply a Shrinkwarp or a SurfaceDeform so that they always remain on the surface of the driven object.
@wevon: Which is why I mentioned the custom widgets in 2.8. Most, if not all, of what you're looking for will come from that.
How is this an improvement over using bone shapes? With bone shapes, you can basically do all of this already.
Also, consider the fact that Blender 2.8 is going to have custom widgets, with an API that you can access from Python for use and creation. That should provide even more flexibility.