Radial Array
We all know what it is. We've all been asking for it for a long time. We all know how convoluted the creation of one is in current Blender. Yet we don't have it.
This might have been proposed before, but I gave it a search and couldn't find a proposal that wasn't rolled into many other improvements at once. I did find some feature tasks on Developer. One of the reasons it hasn't been implemented is because they don't want to add more instancing modifiers since they are inefficient, and instead insist on the use of duplicators or node trees (which don't exist yet). Problem is, this is just as convoluted and time-consuming. As of right now, we don't have a solution. Having a solution for a system that doesn't exist yet isn't helping anyone, and this task was abandoned back in May 2018.
A tickbox in the current Array modifier or a dedicated modifier that wraps around the object origin would be all that's needed. Writing up this proposal just to drum up interest again, maybe get a task up and moving.
Modo has a button for this. You press it and BAM instant Radial Array. This isn't a case of "copy the other guys", but of implementing an essential artist feature. No more wasting time on arrays and empties!
25 Comments
Duplicate of this proposal
* @Jason van Gumster * It's a shame to see that's as far back as 2016. Do we have a cut-off date on proposals before they are treated as duplicates? That proposal is so long ago it's basically irrelevant.
* @Jason van Gumster * This one too!
* @ammusionist * Why on Earth does this keep getting ignored and shut-down. That's got a ton of upvotes.
* @Logan Preshaw * If you googled for "radial array blender" you'd have your answer! wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/AntiFeatures
Let me save you some time and paste it in here. Important information in BOLD .
* @testure * Thanks. I knew about all of that. This was all proposed a good 4 years ago however. An alternate feature until Everything Nodes is implemented would have been nice, since other modifiers that generate geometry have been updated in the meantime for 2.8.
As of right now Duplicators are a more time-consuming setup than the classic empty-and-array. It’s good that a new system is on the way, but we’ve been stuck without a (fairly simplistic) solution in the meantime. There’s also no guarantee that new system will act in the way we desire it to either, so this is also an effort to drum up attention towards a one-click solution like in other industry software once that system is in place.
It was necessary to make a gif-demonstration for greater efficiency.
This is one of the prime examples used when devs talk about the functions branch, aka 'everything nodes'. So it's technically already in development.. modifiers will be one of the first things to get the function branch treatment (after particles I believe)
* @testure * The issue here is that we can't use something we don't have. People were asking for a radial array modifier well before Everything Nodes was conceived.
Good to know it's being worked on though. Here's hoping the implementation isn't as long-winded as setting up a radial array via an empty. I think a one-button solution is entirely necessary, and hopefully Everything Nodes will have presets that allow that.
* @Logan Preshaw * We will see. Yet I do agree with the devs that it's better to take time to create a robust and consistent solution than rush something that needs to be changed a year later. Yes it's annoying to not having it right now but as much as I love the swiftness Modo can create arrays and duplicates with - as soon as you drop the tool it's fixed. That DOES have it's downsides as well.
So what IS cool about Modo's way of doing it is the 3D pivot for Replication and arrays. It's super fast to set a line of pillars along a wall for example. Modifying the number and desired gaps directly in the viewport is so much faster and more natural than editing a modifier. Or setting up the empty as a pivot first.
If nodes are the desired way to go, though: It really might be a cool thing to have a node preset setup on a shortcut/button. Assuming the ideas behind nodes is to NOT work destructive where possible - a preset could set up a node and pivot to rotate or duplicate along and expose the important values like amount and distance (like modo does) in a box. The node setup would be in the background so that the user doesn't need to open an extra editor for it but it's there if needed or if the user wants to tweak or change it later or or even refine it from there. Otherwise an Apply button could then make this final and bake the meshes as well as delete the node setup.
* @motionblur.of.doom * Yeah Nodes will be super-powerful for sure. I agree with you on a fixed solution as well: Flexibility is paramount.
Having node-based operation presets with gizmos would be an amazing workflow. We already have something similar with HardOps: When you set a mirror, a gizmo pops up for you to select which side. When you want an array, you define which axis and how many. Setting up nodes can be a pain, so having them tied to a preset that you can drag-and-drop onto objects and use a gizmo to edit would be the dream solution.
A lot of modeling operations have gizmos in 2.8 now, so I desperately hope node-based modifiers with gizmos are on the developers minds.
* @Logan Preshaw * I was actually also more aiming at an automated "Emtpy" Setup where a preset would create an empty in the scene and more or less merely reduce the annoying steps necessary for a setup. The empty could remain in the scene for later tweaking. I don't know if an extra gizmo would be necessary or more intuitive in this case.
An "Apply" button could then bake down the array if necessary and remove the node/gizmos in the background.
* @Logan Preshaw * You can't use something you don't have? Right now you don't have either, so you're asking for a second thing that would divert effort away from achieving a more robust solution that solves more than one specific problem. THAT is my point.
* @testure * Well, thanks for focusing on that one sentence? I acknowledged a solution is being worked on and only expressed hopes it will not replicate the effort-intensive system we have now. I’m not hung up on it not being a modifier.
If everything will be shifted to nodes eventually anyway, a tickbox and slider in the Array modifier isn’t too much to ask, and is something that could have been implemented as a placeholder feature 4 years ago when this was proposed.
Why not just use an empty as a pivot point and object-array around it?
* @ammusionist * I'm fully aware of that process, but it's unnecessarily time-consuming. You can imagine if modeling with a lot of radial details, it becomes very inconvenient. Just because there is a solution, doesn't mean it can't be done better and faster. I feel sometimes great tools are shut-down because a solution already exists, even though that solution is convoluted and slow.
A one-click modifier would resolve this quickly and allow for rapid modeling. Many people have asked for it in the past, and other packages are speeding past Blender in this area.
* @Logan Preshaw * Fair enough. I wonder if This Proposal might help.
* @Logan Preshaw * I agree with this too. I often doubt if to make the 'empty' process that involves -
On the other side - The empty offset has a big freedom because it joins intuitively all transforms into another object. With 2.8 gizmos however, I'm not sure why this should even be another object, and not just a gizmo.
* @vilem.duha * A modifier with a gizmo would be the intention. Primarily if you're doing booleans, it becomes an incredible pain to constantly repeat the setup of empty-modifier-link-scale.
* @Logan Preshaw * Perhaps a radial type that can use object offset (Empty) as the centre and your mesh as an initial point on the circle. Then the empty object X,Y scaling can be used to vary the circle as an ellipse!
* @ammusionist * Perhaps. I guess optimally it would be based on the object origin in the place of an empty, with controls for the amount and axes scaling in the modifier panel.
* @vilem.duha * As I said above - I could imagine a workflow where the whole setup is more automated so that it doesn't take so many steps or that people who are not aware of the workflow at all get it set up.
Have a button create all the steps, set up an empty, set up the nodes in the background (when the system is in place) and have exposed essential options so peaople who need more complex setups can dig into the nodes afterwards and everybody else doesn't need to open the node editor because everything is happening in the beackground.
An "Apply" button could then bake down the array if necessary and remove the node/gizmos in the background.
(edit) or DO use a widget by any means and simply set up an empty in the background. Or just have a destructive but fast option like Modo has ... would also be fine with me.
* @motionblur.of.doom *
You mean like the Spin Duplicates tool that we already have?
* @Jason van Gumster * Oh cool. In fact ... yes. I do! Very much so. Doesn't yet seem work too well with undo (resets everything not just the last tweak) and also doesn't work on object level, if I got that right but I like the functionality and feel of it very much! In that context "destructive" for me also means creating entire object copies/instances where the alignment of the array can't be edited as soon as the tool is dropped (unlike a modifier). But hell yeah. I completely forgot about that one, indeed.
Pair that with another tool for linear duplication and actual object copies or instances. Fabulous! :D
***@Jason van Yeah the point of it would be to the ability to edit the geometry after the fact, in line with the rest of Blender’s non-destructive modeling mindset.
So that tool with instances, essentially.