[Bf-committers] 2.8 3D Manipulator Design

Ton Roosendaal ton at blender.org
Tue Aug 23 11:35:20 CEST 2016


Hi,

Aside of some details, this is what Antony and Julian already have been working on.
The basics is simple, the implications and implementation not - especially to achieve top level (and pleasant) interaction.

-Ton-

--------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
Chairman Blender Foundation, Producer Blender Institute
Support us - join blender.cloud or Blender Dev Fund.

> On 23 Aug 2016, at 10:29, Joe Eagar <joeedh at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all.  I had a rather panicky reaction on pursing Autodesk Fusion 360
> videos:
> 
> http://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360
> 
> Here's a direct link to one of the videos:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/embed/KZyjLwKWyOw?rel=0
> 
> So!  3D widget interfaces on steroids.  I've dome similar stuff in the
> past, so I thought I'd write up how I went about designing a 3D widget API
> (to fit inside my Blender-derived application architecture).
> 
> The basic concept is pretty simple, and is a lot like a 2D user interface
> API.  You have shapes that live in the 3D viewport (and participate in the
> dependency graph).  These shapes have event callbacks (and an "am I still
> alive" method) and can contain other shapes.  They also participate in the
> dependency graph.
> 
> Shapes never store direct pointers to data.  References to scene objects
> and the like are stored as RNA paths.
> 
> In my implementation shape widgets could not go modal.  Instead they would
> invoke modal tool operators, and if necessary insert a temporary DAG node
> to update themselves interactively.  For example, a translate manipulator
> widget has a DAG reference to the active object.  When it invokes
> transform, the widget automatically moves as the user expects.
> 
> One final point.  3D widget user interfaces are remarkably difficult to
> design, and I don't have a lot of talent for that myself.  Before any
> coding happens, we should solicit proposals from people with 3D UI design
> talent.
> 
> Anyway, cheers!
> 
> Joe
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