Some ideas fo Blender (mostly for modeling)
Hi guys!
As a former Softimage user, I have a few ideas on how to improve modeling in Blender.
It seems to me that it is not difficult to implement (in fact, I don’t know) and it will be convenient both for users from other software and experienced Blender users.
1 - Simulation of a dynamic pivot. As in Maya or Softimage.
2 - Highlight border edges. Very useful for finding holes and errors in the topology.
3 - Extrude and Bevel for border edges. At the moment, doesn't do anything, but it would be cool if I did at least something.
4 - Vertex surface slide. Not along the edges, but free slide along same geometry. Very useful for tweaking purposes.
What do you guys think? And thank you for your attention!
P.S. About the dynamic pivot, I think it's easy to implement. You just need to add a mode in which the Cursor to Selected command is run after each selection.
At least it seems easy to me))
12 Comments
There are a bunch of ideas in this post. It would be much better if you were to separate them and post each one individually. That way each feature idea could be discussed and voted on independently.
@Jason van Gumster: Yeah, now I realize that you are right. Maybe a little later I will create different topics for each idea. Thanks for the advice.
#4 sounds mucho nice
Highlight border edges is a good idea for an overlay, but have you seen MeshLint? It's awesome, and it will find and select bad geo for you. Triangles, six-edge poles, nGons, it checks your naming conventions, very helpful!
@Josephbburg: Looks like a great addon. Now I select one quad, then Select Similar and invert selection )). The addon is much more convenient. Thanks!
In the first example. Apart from moving the selection so it snaps to vert all the other things are already possible with 2.79 although you need to adjust your settings for each operation depending whether you want to pivot around active element, 3d cursor, average or individual elements. Or if you want to use local, global or normal orientation which all need different mesh element selection (vert/edge/face).
2.8 is still in alpha and the usability needs a lot of work. But in 2.79 you can turn on snapping (or press ctrl) and you can select where your pivot point origin is shown. The gizmo can be always visible like in softimage although blender still does not have the planar movements. Snapping in edit mode in blender is kind of weak.
The idea of highlighting border edges in the mesh is a good idea. Blender has some tools to combat those but to find overlapping geometry you need to know to look for it and you need to know what to look for. Having some kind of indicator for this would be useful especially when in blender it is easy to extrude and go back in the wrong way so the extruded double edge is left there.
The bevel idea is great for edgy edges. As for the extrude example blender has "extrude individual faces" extrusion tool but that doesn't work for edges. It would be good if it did but obviously the softimage extrusion with normals support is superior as it doesn't create overlapping geometry, respects the local normals for each vert (top goes up, side goes sideways) and does it all in one operation. I blender that is like 10 operations if you want to get those verts to merge perfectly at the corner.
Those vert/edge/faces move along surface tools would be awesome though. I'd love if it also had the option to use the face normals to move up and down because when trying to get smooth geometry that is something you need to do often if you model a car body for example.
@o7216059:
This part bothers me. It takes a lot of time because we select and move things all the time. And it seems to me that in the video I showed that I am aware of these possibilities, but a small refinement can significantly improve the whole process (I think so))).
@o7216059:
totally agree, that would be a great addition. I think now people will explain that such functionality already exists. But the point is not to switch between the tools and not to press unnecessary hotkeys. One good tool for tweaking.
@Brandon Ayers:
I kinda wrote and showed that I know. But it lacks a bit of functionality.
Please add at least a basic list of suggestions. The video is nice for those who want to see the examples but your post should have more info.
@o7216059:
Сorrected. Thanks for the advice