Wanna shift your selection in edit mode?
Having selected a region of vertices, edges, or faces in edit-mode, it might make sense to shift a selection much like we can already grow or shrink it using hotkeys “Ctrl+” or “Ctrl-“. Shifting would occur in object tangent space or whatever coordinate space is currently active. It should be relatively easy to implement as well since one only needs to project the edge directions agains the space unit vectors to determine left, up, forward, et cetera .
Can you imagine what happens when you shift your selection towards and around sharp mesh corners? A left ward shift would ‘clamp’ the selection to the corner where the mesh bends and reverses towards the right . When instead shifting the selection away from such corner, one optionally wants to stick to or release from the corners.
This is the equivalent to shifting a selection in 2D pixel drawing software, except that the pixels happen to be irregularly placed edges, faces, and vertices.
8 Comments
The way I understand it, @Ivo is suggesting a feature that behaves something like this:
{attachment shift_selectionpng}
* @Jason van Gumster * Interesting, I wonder how this would be implemented in a general sense, considering how hard a time the "select next" operator has finding the next element in anything other than grid topology. I suppose this new operator would fail under similar circumstances, eh?
* @testure * Perhaps. But it is interesting to think about. :)
* @Jason van Gumster * Precisely. Thank you for making this mockup; I am not that versed in clarifying ideas by images yet my words seemed to be enough for your understanding :)
* @testure * An algorithm would need to evaluate all un-selected edges that touch the perimeter of the current selection. For each such (normalized) edge, the dot-product is computed against the current coordinate space unit vectors. When their dot-product exceeds a certain threshold (e.g.: sqrt(2)), it is considered to be "along that unit vector" and thus a candidate for selection along that direction. When the user hits [Ctrl-Left], it could be understood to add edges to the selection that have a dot-product along the negative x-axis.
I don't think such operator could ever fail ; it might only result in unexpected changes to the current selection which are easily undone [Ctrl-Z]. Since it only evaluates individual edges, the algorithm would easily deal with splits, n-gons, self-intersection, degenerate edges, et cetera.
* @Jason van Gumster * This is called Pick Walk in Maya, and it's a nice feature.
this proposal could benefit from some mockups, I'm having a really hard time visualizing what it is you're describing.
* @testure * Hi it's one of the most missing features for me, switching from Maya to Blender. I actually use it all time! As it's already said it's called Pickwalk in Maya (I know other programms have the feature too, but I don't know, how they call it.) and it works VIEW-BASED. For example, when you want to jump to Face/Edge/Vtx right-hand side of the active one in your viewport you use the right arrow key. This makes it quite intuitive to use. As Ivo expects, it doesn't give you always the wanted selection-result. Nevertheless, finetuning a mesh in Maya is unlike easier than in Blender, same for lining up verticies to a blueprint:
MAYA
One specified transformation has to be active (e.g. Move in Z). (Maya keeps the last action inklusive direction axis), put your fingers on the Arrows, move active Vtx (click-drag somewhere in the viewport), jump to next Vtx (Arrowkey), ... move active Vtx ...
Summary Maya:
You use left-hand fingers IN ONE PLACE on the keyboard (Arrows) and right hand on the mouse, select Vtx - drag Vtx - jump - drag Vtx - jump - drag - jump - drag - jump...
BLENDER
First you MOVE the mouse, catching the Vtx, MOVE left hand to G, MOVE left hand to X/Y/Z (or MMB to repeat last direction, but still!), click-drag somewhere in the viewport.
Summary Blender:
LMB select Vtx - G - select axis - drag Vtx - LMB select Vtx - G - select axis - drag Vtx - LMB select Vtx - G - select axis - drag Vtx - select Vtx - G - select axis - drag - select - G - axis - drag - ...
Comparison
Maya: ... - jump - drag Vtx - ...
Blender: ... - select Vtx - G - select axis - drag Vtx -...
Maya: Focus on model
Blender: Focus on Keyboard
I hope this explanation is understandable (...after editing 100 times).
Just Imagine to keep your left hand over the arrows all time and only press one to change selected Vtx, then move it with the mouse immediately...
Here is Mayas documentation: knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/Maya-Modeling/files/GUID-1DF4577E-E0C3-481A-8E16-20DF7B060E1F-htm.html