[Bf-committers] Transform Refactoring

[Martin Poirier]

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

> One thing I'd like to see is more of the 'special'
> transforms like 
> Warp, Shear, Shrink/Fatten. Having other options
> (that we already have 
> access to via commands) like Smooth, Noise, To
> Sphere, or even new 
> things like 'Twist' or 'Taper' as interactive
> transforms would be 
> excellent and make life much easier. The 'To Sphere'
> command borders on 
> useless right now, since trying to estimate how much
> 'percentage' to 
> use before you execute the command is almost
> impossible, but if you 
> could just interactively move through the range of
> 1% to 100% with the 
> mouse, in a transformation, it'd be so much clearer
> and easier. Perhaps 
> a generic system that lets coders easily 'plug in'
> new types of 
> transforms like this would help.

I haven't looked at the particular code, but this
would probably be easy. Would also be a good proof
that the refactored code can take in new functionality
without becoming overbloated.

> Another thing that would be great is if the
> transforming itself was 
> made separate to the input events, allowing you to
> use more than just 
> the mouse position as the input to transforms. For
> example, a way to 
> 'paint' transformations as in Zbrush would be just
> awesome (do a loop 
> while the mouse button is pressed, as in brush
> select, but instead of 
> selecting the verts, perform a small transformation
> over and over 
> again). If this was a general input to transform
> functionality then you 
> might get all the different tools very easily, for
> example if the last 
> request of having things like 'Smooth' encapsulated
> in the transform 
> code happened, so you could just go and 'rub over'
> the bumps in a model 
> to smooth it out.

An excellent idea. In my plans, input will split
between mouse input (integrated in each
transformation) and numerical input (independant). In
that case, adding new input would very well be a
possibility.


> Another interesting idea (maybe similar to what
> Ton's talking about 
> with 'flow split') is a feature of Modo's called
> 'sketch extrude'. 
> Basically you move the mouse in the viewport, and
> the extrusion follows 
> the path of the mouse. It seems like a relatively
> simple, but very 
> useful idea, code-wise - do an extrude, then when
> the distance from the 
> mouse pointer to the original location reaches a
> certain threshold, 
> automatically confirm that extrusion and start a new
> one from that 
> point. Maybe there are more nifty ideas to be
> thought up that involve 
> integrating transforms with other functionality
> (like extrude) to come 
> up with some new interactive features.

That I see more as a specific extrude function (I've
talked to Twingy once about doing the same for NURBS
creation, albeit more elaborated).

> Anyway, some food for thought, I guess...

It is.

Martin


		
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