Improvement to numeric input while moving an object
Hi!
I think a handy and intuitive feature would be if when moving an object and typing in a single numeric input value, instead of Blender interpreting it by default as an increment along the X-axis as it does now, it interpreted it as an increment along whatever direction the object is being placed. For instance, if I wanted to move an object exactly 0.3 units along a given eyeballed direction, I could hit G, followed by 0.3, and picked a direction by clicking.
This would be especially powerful when used together with snapping. To move an object a given distance towards another object, I had to hit G with snapping on, move the cursor to snap it to my direction-defining object, and without moving the cursor, type the desired distance and click.
This could be further extended with a "Relative" mode so that typing, for instance, "R0.2" would move the object not by 0.2 units but would place it at 1/5 the distance between its initial position and the newly picked position.
I hope this has not been discussed already. If so, I apologize for cluttering this board.
Cheers!
3 Comments
But then we'd lose the ability to place at arbitrary ditance? What if I want to place a box exactly at 0.333m?
* @ Lsscpp * I meant to add the “relative” mode as an extra, in addition to the absolute mode that is the default mode. Just to provide an example, I suggested that the Relative mode could have been toggled by hitting R before typing in the value, but possibly a better toggle could be conceived.
The core of my proposal is however to have an easy way to move an object towards a snap a given value.
An alternative to the mechanism I had suggested above, could be having a command that constrained the movement of an object to a custom axis determined by the position of the object in that moment. So, as hitting X, Y, or Z constrains the movement along one of the 3 main axes, hitting this new button would create a new custom axis and constrained the movement of the object to it, with the benefit that then, typing in a value would be interpreted as along that axis.
To further try to convince you, imagine this scenario: I had two randomly placed boxes, and I wanted to create another two in between them, aligned and equally distributed. I selected the first one, SHIFT D, snapped to the second, typed "R0.333" (or "R=1/3"), and clicked; then repeated the process again with "R0.666" ("R=2/3"). Done. Quick and dirty, yet super effective.