[Bf-funboard] Curves creating

[Martin Poirier]

--- Matt Ebb <matt at mke3.net> wrote:

> Then you have to go back over the whole thing,
> tweaking and tweaking to 
> get it to look the way you want. And even this is a
> chore - in 'real' 
> vector drawing apps like Illustrator, you can use
> the "open triangle 
> icon tool" (can't remember what it's called) to
> simply drag a control 
> point to get the desired rotation, with equidistant
> tangent points for 
> a nice smooth curve. In Blender this requires
> repeatedly pressing, R, 
> S, R, S, to get it the way you want it. And of
> course you can't do that 
> to any control point, even in the default state as
> they are created, 
> you have to press H before this is possible at all!
> That's right, you 
> can't even go through the repetitive process of
> rotating or scaling a 
> control point that has just been created by extrude
> or Ctrl click, you 
> have to convert it to something else by pressing H
> before this 
> fundamental operation is even possible. How
> intuitive!

You could also just grab one handle and move it
around, it automaticly converts both side to Aligned
Handles.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but doing that, the only
difference with illustrator is that it doesn't keep
both handle the same length. Personnaly, when I was
working with illustrator for my design course, there's
nothing I hated more in curve editing than this
particular feature, but I do understand how it can be
useful.
Having it as a toggle in the curve panel of the
Editing buttons would be a good compromise (I think).

> Oh, but wait, if the control point in question is on
> an open end of a 
> curve, you *still* can't scale or rotate it, even
> after pressing the 
> make-my-application-work-properly key, H!

I just tried and it worked, so I must be doing
something you're not. I just added a bezier circle,
opened it, press H and rotated one of the end CV...

> The only thing you can do is 
> move one of the tangent points, ruining the symmetry
> of the control point.

Which is why you should use Aligned Handles in those
case, not Free Handles.

> (of course rotating or scaling a single point is 
> geometrically impossible, and should do nothing)

Ever heard of different center mode? ;o)

It converts from Auto to Aligned when rotating or
scaling for the same reason it does so when
translating it directly.

> Then I've spent 10 minutes drawing a simple curve
> and scratching my 
> head, when I could have done it properly on the
> first try in about 30 
> seconds in an app like Illustrator.

Here I more or less agree (given, I've only used
illustrator for a semester and a half so you most
likely have ton more experience than me there but
still enough to get a good grasp of the toolset).

While creating the curve is a breeze in Illustrator
(or Inkscape for that matter) with the click drag
motion to create handles, I find the editing part a
lot more powerful in Blender because of the explicit
handle modes, the fact that all your curve is always
visible at once, all the tricks you can do with
transform in cursor center mode that are hellish to do
otherwise and probably other stuff I'm missing.

Martin

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