[Bf-committers] 3D Cursor and Border Select

metalliandy metalliandy666 at googlemail.com
Sun Mar 4 14:58:03 CET 2012


I agree. It seems like the most sensible way to get around the 
accidental placement of the 3d cursor would be to assign it to double 
left click or Shift+Left click.
I never place the 3d cursor with left click as it's just not precise 
enough and am always accidentally moving its location when the Blender 
window loses focus (especially when using Blender across 2 monitors), so 
I cant imagine what it's like for a new or less experienced users.
When I first started to learn Blender, it took me forever to properly 
understand what the 3d Cursor did and how its position could 
dramatically alter the functionality of some of Blenders tools. Equally 
frustrating was the fact that I didn't know how to reset it :P

As more experienced Blender users, I feel that we can often forget how 
the 3d Cursor is an alien concept to even seasoned 3d artists who are 
fluent in other applications such as Max/Maya/Softimage/Modo etc.. Most 
of the people who learn Blender after using another application just 
want to make it vanish or find it annoying because they don't understand 
its purpose, and that they keep placing it in a random location 
accidentally. I feel these proposed changes could help reduce some of 
this annoyance because it wont constantly be moving position with 
accidental clicks.

It also seems like a little bit of a waste to have the 3d cursor placed 
with the left mouse button, as I can't imagine that many people use it 
so much as to justify such a prominent key binding (though I could be wrong)


On 04/03/2012 07:41, Dan Eicher wrote:
> I use the 3d cursor all the time -- it's a very powerful feature once
> you know how to 'correctly' use it -- but rarely, if ever, use LMB to
> set it. Mostly I just use my pie menu script that mirrors the shift+S
> menu when I'm in that mode since there isn't really a good/fast way to
> set it and the built-in menu kind of sucks ass when doing a lot of 3d
> cursor work (for stuff like snapping bones' head/tails and such).
>
> My opinion is that it shouldn't be hidden for the 'benefit' of noobs
> because there's a lot of power that will be lost to them without
> having to go through all the trouble of finding some check box in some
> random panel to turn it on. Kind of like the 'lock view to cursor'
> feature, how many people can say they even know it exists since it's
> hidden away in the N panel View settings -- honestly I totally forgot
> about it myself before reading this discussion and I wrote the patch
> (not that I'm saying it should be more visible/accessible, just using
> it as an example of a 'hidden' feature)...
>
> OTOH LMB select for cursor placement should be reconsidered since
> using the LMB to set the cursor would suggest it is a *very* important
> operation (LMB being one of the main UI input methods) while it is
> mostly not a practical method for accurate/usable placement (2d mouse
> pointer + 3d view matrix + 3d cursor previous position == not usually
> what you want unless you specifically know that's what you want (ie,
> in one of the named view modes)).
>
> Setting it to double-click LMB would open up that UI input method to
> something which really is a *very* important operation (like regular
> select without all the RMB Select Dogma -- not that I care about that
> though).
>
> Dan
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