grease pen curve tool
So this started as a more complicated idea whittled down to something simple over on the blender artists forum. original thread. blenderartists.org/t/3d-sketch-in-2-8/1118459
so the feature suggestion for today, pretty simple is a point by point curve tool for the grease pencil. this would probably sit above the line tool option in the shapes menu.
it lets you draw very smooth and accurate curves. heres a youtube video of something similar.
now youre probably asking why when we have the smooth option? this isn't really for artistic sketching, tho it could be used that way. its for drawing out reference curves in the 3d viewport. for say going over a concept sketch in the 3d viewport or sketching out a concept directly. (useful in automotive design)
I think that's enough for my initial post, any questions just ask.
18 Comments
If you're doing this, why not just use a proper Bezier curve object?
@Jason van Gumster: accidental post
@Jason van Gumster: it started out as a proposal for a 3d sketching tool. the assumption being it would be sketched on a tablet or with a pen input. trying to draw with Bezier curves isn't really speedy and natural, its quite a cumbersome way of getting an accurate smooth line whilst drawing. if we do take that approach of why not just use x? then we could get rid of the line tool when you can just use polygons, and the circle tool when you could just create geometry.
its will be a useful addition to drawing. please check the blender forum thread I linekd to and watch the autodesk design sketch video to understand its use as an artistic tool.
@mrjynx: But we can already draw with Bezier curves. with control over thickness and smoothness.
@Jason van Gumster: I have just tried this feature, I would say it is still not quite what I am suggesting. one rather complicated way of doing it is, creating a plane, deleting verts till you have a line, applying a subsurf modifier, making it visible in edit mode then extruding. this becomes like drawing in 3d with the xyz constraint options. I still think just being able to press d and selecting curve would be simpler and more intuitive for new users.
@mrjynx: Why are you using a Plane? Add a Bezier Curve, go into Edit mode and Use the Draw Curve operator (it's in the Create tab of the Toolshelf). You can even adjust options for thickness based on pressure.
@mrjynx: Manual page, for reference
@Jason van Gumster:
that's what I tried, its not the functionality I am suggesting. look 1:43 in this video.
@mrjynx: That's something we already have in Bezier curves as well. <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+Click adds points to the curve to draw like in the video.
@Jason van Gumster: but its still a Bezier curve, that needs point manipulation to make it work. a 90 degree curve with cntrl click on bezier is not pretty.
@mrjynx: So let's suggest improving the <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+click behavior.
@Jason van Gumster: remember this is for the new grease tool in 2.8 I don't know if you have tried this? but the strokes have brush properties attached that you cant use with the Bezier tool or any other tool outside the pencil drawing environment.
@mrjynx: I know you're suggesting this for Grease Pencil. I'm just saying that we already have Bezier curves with controls as objects in Blender. I don't see why we should have two objects that are essentially the same thing.
@Jason van Gumster: because with the grease pencil tool there is currently no way to draw a smooth exact curve. you can only draw a curve and hope that smoothing will fix it after you've drawn it. the line option will let you draw straight lines point by point. but theres no point by point curve drawing option. it shouldn't be a complicated thing to add. rather than re designing how bezier curves are drawn, and still not being able to use those curves with the grease pencil brushes.
@mrjynx: So what if there were a clean (or clean-ish) conversion path between curve objects and grease pencil objects? It would be kind of like what currently exists between curves and meshes.
Actually, that provides some interesting workflow possibilities. While you could use Bezier curve objects to generate curve shapes in the general case, you could also technically do something much more complex with a mesh and modifiers, convert that result to a curve, tweak the shape and control points, and then convert the result to a grease pencil object. Perhaps not something you'd want to do every time, but I could see that being useful... and it avoids confusing users with two object types that overlap a lot, but don't have any way to convert between them.
@Jason van Gumster: youre missing the point, this is an artistic tool, not a mechanical one. having to create a curve in a separate part of blender then convert to grease pencil just to get a smooth line is not a good workflow. yes some people have expressed the wish to have curves or mesh edges being able to be converted to grease pencil strokes. and I would support that. but not as an alternative to my suggestion.
@mrjynx: I'm not missing the point. I'm disagreeing with your premise.
Of course, it's just my opinion on the matter. Whoever is coding it could very well disagree with me and that's fine.
@Jason van Gumster: okay I think we will just have to agree to disagree on the subject. I have no problem with you, perhaps my outline could have been clearer from the start.