[Bf-committers] true edge and face edit modes

[Compman]

Sounds like a good idea. I'm often annoyed by the fact blender only has 
a vertex edit mode. It can be painful to preform some face functions in 
there, at least for me...
-Compman

Brecht Van Lommel wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I will have quite some time to code in the following weeks / months. So
>I thought I would just take on this project. I'm posting this to see who
>has interest / time / ideas. It's just a rough proposal, on how we could
>do it code-wise. It doesn't include any ideas of how to really take
>advantage of these modes. It's not perfect, but I thought I'd post
>something to maybe get things going.
>
>True Face en Edge Mode:
>
>- Three modes: Vertex, Edge and Face.
>- Use same EditMesh data structure, and make it available in all three
>  modes. Hopefully no or only slight changes will be needed.
>- The modes will not be really different internally. A function should
>  not have to know in which mode it is, unless it wants to offer
>  different behavior for different modes. There would also be fast
>  switching: no or at least very little data conversion needed when
>  switching modes.
>- Edit Mode functions will still work while this is WIP, can modified to
>  have different behavior in different modes later.
>- Face Select Mode (and paint) functions will need to be converted
>  completely, but the functions are not that complicated as far as I've
>  seen. For some off the more complex ones, it would be best to rethink
>  to be faster with the new data structures available.
>- Need plan to convert code step by step. Keep things 'working' as much
>  as possible.
>
>Plan:
>
>1. Make EditMesh structure available in Face Select, Paint Mode, don't
>   disable old data structures immediately.
>2. Convert Face Select drawing functions to use EditMesh. Keep old
>   drawing available somehow, for some time, for next step.
>3. Convert Face Select, Paint functions to use EditMesh. While working
>   on this, the old an new data structure will not automatically be in
>   sync, but that's why it is possible to draw both data structure.
>4. Introduce Edge Select Mode.
>5. Make Edge and (Edit Mode ready) Face drawing functions.
>6. Adapt Edit Mode functions to work different in different modes, if
>   necessary (Extrude for example).
>
>All this is quite some work, but not impossible in my opinion.
>
>This might not be the ideal time to propose this, weeks before the next
>release and maybe near exams for some. I also know there are also some
>plans to move Edit Mode functions to python, and I have not taken them
>into account. I simply have no idea how it would all work, or how these
>plans would affect this.
>
>I think I could already start on the first steps (merging Edit Mode and
>Face Select Mode), in the next weeks. Downloading Wings now to get some
>inspiration :).
>
>Any comments?
>
>Cheers,
>Brecht
>
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