Modifier key for rotating the transform gizmos
Scaling an object, or a selection, in an arbitrary direction has been an enduring challenge in Blender.
In Grease Pencil especially, rotating the 2D transform box would be immeasurably useful for adjusting a group of sketchy pen strokes or vertices, with more speed and precision than switching to Sculpt mode.
I expect this feature would be significantly easier to implement first in 2D, possibly with the greater 3D workflow following.
This immediate 2D use-case is my main focus, but in time, I could see Blender providing a means to save a modified axis as a "Transform Axis" object, with which a selection could be translated, scaled or rotated.
4 Comments
That's what the 3d cursor could allow doing easily if we could transform it using G R S as any other component.
There have been quite a few proposals about this:
So I could rotate the cursor, then use one of its updated axes to scale the selection?
I suppose that could work, though it feels like it would be cumbersome without dedicated hotkeys to translate / rotate / scale the cursor specifically, as well as another hotkey to reset it.
Yes, that's why people ask for it 😉
The next alternative in the meantime is to use a temporary object, which is still annoying but is simpler to rotate than the cursor.
A decent solution for 3D modelling, but definitely overkill for a selection of Grease Pencil strokes, if it's even possible.
But who's to say how far those cursor manipulations may evolve. Hopefully someone tries to implement them.