yeah i get you, i guess I was referring to the selection axes rather than the actual vertex axes- this is probably a dumb question. if a vert is on one side of a cube with hard edge normals (i mean no smoothing), I kind of thought the vert normal would be the same anywhere on that plane
edit: in maya, if I take a cube and rotate if off the axes (so I have to use normal translation not world space to move a vert around a flat side of the cube) and cut up a side of it, then switch the move tool to normal- when I move that vertex along U and V (the same 'axis' I was using in VW) the normal does not change
rooster: I have read your text a few times but still can't get exatly what you meant. Anyway, I have change the manipulator's orientation behaviour when the move tools is active. Please let me know if it solves your problem.
sorry IStonia I should have taken the time to make a more detailed description before.
I was expecting when using a local move on a vertex, if the face is flat, for a vertex in the middle of the face to have its 'axes' aligned to the face, wherever it is on the face.
edit: ok, after a bit more looking it appears your selection orientation isn't what I assumed it would be. I thought it would be like move along normals in maya. maybe you could add another selection orientation? (normal)
Do you mean putting those 3DC link features into a toolbar? if so, can you make some samll images (18x18 gif transparent background). 1 for 3DC, 1 for settings and 11 for function buttons. Thanks!
rooster: The vertex G tool has been improved on both edge slide and face slide functions. Please test it.
GregD3: The 3DC applink button is now added into the misc toolbar. The images I mentioned before may not be a necessary as I can use Text. Btw, the app remember its previou position now.
emm, the small square on the center of the move tool, which you click on to move in all axes
edit: its cyan coloured when it's not highlighted
edit2: I noticed, you don't let me highlight it if the vert is selected and the mouse is not over the vert when I activate G- however if you select the vert, put your mouse over it, and *then* hit g, the cyan square stays highlighted yellow and you can't move the vert
edit3: one more bug (I think) with the tweak NormalMove (z) tool- when I use it on a box, I would expect the box to just get bigger or smaller- but the verts sort of twist out of position and it gets warped
If G tool is activated while the move manipulator being highlited, the vertex highlighting will be blocked. I will fix that by dehighlighting the manipulator automatically when G tool(or any streamline tool) is activated.
There is indeed a bug in the normalmove tool. When all the verts in a box are selected it happens. But it's fine if I do the something on a sphere. I will track it down.
Is there a paint select that I'm missing? I'm just trying this out for the first time, admittedly hoping to replace Silo with it eventually. My expected behaviour is that clicking outside of the model engages the box/lasso/etc.-select, but clicking on a component (edge/face/vert) directly and dragging should just add any component I move across with the mouse directly, without engaging a box/lasso/etc.
Edit: I really like the tweak-tool's behaviour of lmb=move mmb=scale and rmb=rotate. Very clever!
The quicktips are also fantastic for people new to the program. Very intuitive!
edit: Another unexpected behaviour is that of the multi-selection mode. If I select an edge, I would expect to be unable to select faces or verts afterwards. Whereas, now if I select an edge, I can still highlight and select faces and verts, which both undo my edge selections.
Just had a bastard of a time finding where to change the viewport background colour as well! Any reasoning as to why that would be seperate? Is this set per scene or per viewport or something?
rooster: I think I have fixed them. Please check. There was a normal calculation bug created yestoday when tried to fix the other bug.
MightyPea: There is a default paint selection tool. Move cursor over a subobject to highlight it, press down MMB and drag. There is also a brush paint select tool, While in subobject mode, press down X key to activate it, you will see the circle brush, Scroll WMB(Wheel mouse button) to adjust the brush size.
LMB and MMB can do both marquee selection. But MMB will select through.
Viewport back color View > Scene Window Back Color.
I will look into the selection behaviour that you don't like. I may create an option as some other people may like it this way already.
Ah, I suppose the Silo preset overwrite that MMB paint selection with the select through. I'll have a look at the preferences and see if I can change that back. (edit: Nope, it works. Cool! Being new to the program, I can't figure out how to make it so lmb does this as well. I can't find it in the customise tools 'selection' part)
I did find Scene Window Back Color, but my question was why it wasn't included with the rest of the colours in the preferences?
Also, thanks! I'm very used to the way Silo behaves. Could you explain the reasoning behind it being this way? Since you can't select multiple types of components at once, what's its purpose?
I wonder if it would be possible to use sticky keys for all the tools it makes sense for. For instance: when holding ` (toggle subD) you see the model subdivided. With sticky keys, I'd expect to get back to my unsubdivided model when I let go of the key. If you just press and immediately release you move to the subdivided model permanently.
Here's a video on Silo's sticky keys: http://nevercenter.com/silo/videos/features/?vidclip=sticky_keys.mov. If at any point you want me to make a gif animation of the desired behaviour, just let me know. (for nice gif capturing software, I recommend http://www.cockos.com/licecap/)
I also asked for a cut-tool as in Silo, but turns out I spoke too soon, I just tried the cut tool in VW and it's exactly like what I wanted. Wonderful! Very nice job on that one. Even better than the Silo one!
I hate to triple post, but there's every chance you won't see this otherwise, so I'll just start a new post.
I ran into a problem with extruding Ngons, here's a gif showing it off: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17715/VW_ExtrudeNgon.gif
I did it once selecting it first, and once with seletion highlighting, just to see if there was a difference.
In regards to the radial menus, could they be forced to draw entirely on-screen? So if they're invoked when near the edge of the screen, you'd moved them untill they were shown completely?
I am really getting into VW. In terms of Workflow, the streamline tools really are amazing. I'm fully behind the decision to postpone UI changes untill later, now, to focus on workflow and tools now!
Anyway, trying out the Create Polygon tool in face mode I had this thought to eliminate the last required click. You need to click to close the loop, but wouldn't it be good it it would automatically do this when you release D? I made a short gif to clarify what I mean: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17715/VW_CreatePoly.gif
The first time I do things as I'd like to be able to, but you can see it doesn't create a polygon - it expects you to click once more to complete the loop, as can be seen the second time. That last click seems redundant to me, what do you think?
Also, does anyone every want to create backfacing polygons this way? I keep going clockwise and end up with polygons facing the wrong way (as can also be seen in the gif), which is something that I rarely --if ever-- want.
Also, I can't get Create/Insert/Snap Vertex to work. Not that it's something I find myself wanting a lot, just pointing out that it might be broken (that, or I don't understand it!)
Edit: Ah. Seems I did create vertices, but despite having an edge highlighted they were all create on the grid. Is this intended behaviour?
MightyPea: I'll check your last post later. Here is the response to those early posts.
* The paint select can only perform with MMB. With LMB, you can perform marquee selection from any where, but with MMB you may have to do it from outside the object otherwise it would be paint select instead. The fence selection is an exception.
* viewport color editing is now moved to Preference.
* The multi selection behaviour is changed. Once there is selection of a subobject type, only the same type of subobject can be highlited and selected. Once the selection is cleared, multi selection will come back.
* I can't see what is the problem with docking panels. Can you elaborate?
* V + MMB now works on highlighted subobjects if no selection presented.
* The turning tool on by key tapping seems can't fit into the streamline structure as in VW multi tools can bind to one key so there is no way to tell which tool should be turned on.
* The extrusion bug is fixed. That bug was generated two days ago.
* As to the radial menu, There are two possible ways I can think of. The first one is to constrain its show up location so it's entirely inside screen, but it will cause the location unpredictable. The second one is let user to drag it until its fully visible, but this way takes time as there are times the buttons you want is visible although it's not entirely visible. So I will leave it as is for now.
When welding verts is there a way to make it so that the first vert you click on welds to the second verts position? Default behavior seems to average the position.
Also wondering if you're planning to keep it tablet friendly? Some of us do use our tablets all the time, so we don't necessarily have thumb buttons available
Hoping to get through a whole prop or two with it soon. First impression is very positive .
* The polygon creation can be finished in the way MightyPea suggested by releasing hotkey. To cancel in the middle, either click RMB or hit Escape key. Also the created polygon will allways be facing towards user if possible.
* The Vertex D tool improved. If the edge snapping is on, the created vertex will be inserted into the snapped edge.
Kary: I have checked that the first vertex allways welds to the second vertex with the second vertex position unchanged. I wonder how you get the average position. Please give more detail on the steps you have taken.
I don't have a tablet and also don't know how it works. Please tell me what to do so the app can work with tablets. What is the thumb button you mentioned?
Ah I see. I needed to activate the tool, and it works like target weld. r_fletch_r has a script for max that uses a slightly different behaviour (select verts normally, and it remembers the selection order, and welds from first to second vert when you press the hotkey). My fault there sorry.
The remark on tablets is just that I hope that any core functionality is easy to replicate when you don't have WMB, X1 and X2. A tablet pen only has left, middle, and right click. I'm not sure how many people use a tablet, but I know it's relevant to at least some of us.
The problem with docking was a misunderstanding on my part, I think. I can't recall what I thought the problem was, aside from something to do with the scrollbars, so I'll go ahead and assume I was just being dumb
Thanks for the changes, by the way!
As for the radial menus, I think the first solution is preferable, although ofcourse the mouse-position has to move with the menu, so your cursor is in the right place.
Kary: There are some tools and commands use x1/x2 button, but they are customizable. So the only problem is WMB which is used by some streamline tools, NormalMove/Tweak/TruePaintSelect, to adjust soft selection or paint brush size. I created two tools to simulate the WMB function. For example, when you activate the TruePaintSelect tool under vertex mode by press down X key, you can tap or press down Tab/Caps Lock key to enlarge or shrink the brush size while X is still being held down. These two tools by default are disabled. To enable them. Customize > Customize Tools to open the hotkey form. They are under Common Shortcut Tools group. WMB-Up Simulator/WMB_Down Simulator.
If you have any better idea, please let me know.
MightyPea: Thanks for the efforts! I prefer to keep the ideas and suggestions in one place, this thread. It's easy for me to review things in this way and also good for people to discuss different opinions. It's also good for people who are new to this thread IMO. I'll give the radial menu suggestion a try.
Thanks for the update IStonia, I don't have much time to use for testing voidworld right now, but the suggestions in the collaborative doc MightyPea posted are useful, you should read it.
Little things that bothers me though:
-When using a tool like say extrude, calling it by radial/menu/shortcut: you have to press escape twice to quit the tool, once to deselect twice to really quit the tool.
-Also it would be more standard to be able to quit the current tool by switching to select/translate/rotate/scale manipulator.
-Still concerning extrude: you can chamfer with a sticky key and have visual feedback without click, with extrude once the tool is activated you have to click on the component you want to extrude, it would be best suited if it acted like chamfer.
a little bug i found while being in weld mode:
i wanted to type in a range for the treshold, used 3 or something and it changed the subtool rather than changing the value.
an idea:
if there are vertices selected already draw a radius around them showing which verts will be affected.
xXm0RpH3usXx: I don't see any thing wrong with the soft-selection falloff value input control. Possibly before you hit the number key, the control has lost focus already.
I will draw a circle as you suggested.
Tri selection is not supported in VW.
BeatKitano: I will make change so you only need to hit Escape key once to close a visual tool. But I am not going to use manipulator activation for tool closing. Manipulators can be active when a visual tool is live. For example with extrude tool opened, you can extrude a face, use the manipulator to rotate the extruded face, then make another extrusion. That way you don't have to exit the tool for rotation in the middle.
I don't know what's wrong with streamline extrude tool. Under polygon mode, I press down A key then move the mouse without clicking, the selected or highlighted polygons will extrude. This hapened because the A tool's NMB Function has been signed to an extrusion tool.
As for Fbx file exporter, it is impossible at the moment because the SDK only suport in C++ so I don't know how to use it.
MightyPea: The fbs reading may not be reliable. In VW, rendering is triggered by mouse movement. If the mouse stay still, no rendering will happen. If you move the mouse very very slow, the output fbs reading will be low, but that doesn't mean the performance is low. You don't have to render 10 frames when the cursor moves just one pixel, 1 is enough.
As to the Retopology tool, can you down load a copy of voidWorld 2.3. It has a Retopo tool under polygon mode. You can test it and let me know how it is. http://digitalfossils.com/Downloads.aspx
Too bad about fbx, that would have been reaaaally cool.
As for extrude here is what I get:
First time i activate extrude and show that it doesn't do anything. Then I reactivate it and click+drag: now it works. In sticky key mode it should start to extrude as soon as the tool is activated and mouse dragged (imho).
When the Extrude tool activated, there should be an Instant Help tool tip drop down. Inside that, can you see this
Extrude
-Defined Tools-
*NMB Tool: Polygon_Extrude_PolygonNormal Drag to extrude...
*LMB Tool:...
...
hi IStonia, I'm wondering how the snap tools work- am I missing something?
I want to creat a box say, 8x6x2- if I turn on grid snap, only my first click seems to be snapped to the grid. with subsequent placements, the grid snap icon appears when I'm close to a grid point, but I can still move my mouse a bit off the grid with the snap icon present, and create a point which is like 6.217
Hi guys,
New user here. I have just downloaded the latest version of Voidworld and am having a little play with it, I tried the truck tutorial and made a little progress, learning to navigate is a little tricky at the moment, also I couldn't find any scenes or models I could open and play with, but I do have a couple of questions if I may?
Is there a way to turn on tooltips, I am not sure what all the icons do and when I hover the mouse over them nothing pops up ?
Am I right in assuming, from what I have read in these forums that the rendering and animation options are disabled ?
For the radial menus, what does everyone think of them always being centerred in the screen? It'll maximise the distance you can go in any direction, and avoid the mouse being blocked by the edges of the screen.
Is it possible to do this, and move the mouse to the middle as well? And afterwards, put the cursor back where it was when you called up the radial menu?
Also, for snapping: What does everyone think of holding shift for snapping, ctrl for value stepping? So you click one of the axis' on the move maipulator, then press shift while dragging and it will snap to verts/grid/whatever you've got set in the options. And doing the same thing with ctrl, it'll move in increments of 10/25/whatever you've chosen beforehand. Same with rotation. This seems like a really nice and standardised way of doing it, rather than the 3dsmax way. (which is to click a button to toggle incremental rotation, which only works for rotation)
Oh, about the fps as well: I know it goes down when you're not rotating or anything, but the point of my animation is to show that the fps drop when I experience a slowdown while rotating. And it really is a quite severe slowdown, things are suddenly very stuttery. Earlier you mentioned this may be due to mouse drivers or something? Is there anything I can do to narrow this problem down? Running a debug build?
BeatKitano: Thanks for the bug report! it's fixed now.
MightyPea: I think it's from the multi-threading in rendering. How many cores do you have in your computer. Goto Edit > Set Number of Processors and set the number to 1. If the performance becomes slower but stable, my guessing will be right.
Also, I tried to install 2.3 to check out the retopology, but the installer won't let me. It complains that I don't have the right .net, even after I download and install what it asks for.
Anyway, when it comes to repotology, I think the most important part is that the tools are the same as those for modeling, where applicable. One thought is to add an identifier to meshes, which by default is 'reference' but can be set to retopo. This way, you can set a mesh to retopo and any geometry created in that mesh will be constrained to the reference meshes.
As far specialised tools, I'd like to hear from people who use 3dcoat and topogun for what their favourite tools are, and then see how those can be recreated using as much of the existing VW tools as possible, and adjusted where needed.
I also wonder, what does everyone think of the radial menu and snapping suggestions in my previous post?
Another idea I had in regard to selection is to have dbl-click on a single face select the entire mesh (all connecting faces, so Full Grow). Only if nothing else is already selected ofcourse, otherwise it'd conflict with loop-select. Example Animation
Also, snapping would seem a lot more useful to me if the highlighted component would be snapped to, instead of the mouse cursor. Example Animation
Rooster: Well, you're a maya-user so I gather you're much more used to Radial/Marking Menus than I am, so I'll trust your opinion on this. Can you weigh in on how the Maya and VoidWorld implementations differ, and what you think the pros and cons are?
IStonia: Could that be extended to the lmb select as well? I don't find doubleclicking MMB to be nearly as comfortable as dblclicking LMB.
Edit: I forgot to mention: I have a Dualcore Pentium
Here's how maya marking menus work, it's the direction that determine the selection (it enables the user to quick move in a direction without even aiming for the command to activate it).
The thing that is very different in vw is that the command is actually very close to the central point and and isn't selected if you go past the command button, also the slight "jump" the menu does when switching to a submenu is scary cause you're never sure you actually selected the right command if you go too fast.
In maya if you look at the gif, this jump also occur but the central point doesn't move giving the user the certainty that he was really on his first choice and the possibility to go back without having to find a new central point position. It helps tremendously when making quick choices.
Also note that option commands are next to central point contrary to maya where they are at the end: in maya it avoids getting the selection command by error, to aim for it to have the option, and wanting the option is a conscious choice
ALSO A VERY IMPORTANT THING, it would be very neat and in the perfect line of voidworld (contextual edition) to have the commands change depending on the selection, this is what maya does (I know voidworld does it too, but you have to go to the tool submenu which defeat the purpose of marking menu entirely) :
ORDER in the gif: mesh general selection/face selection/edge selection/verts selection/mesh operations.
Here's a simple reason why vw marking menu are hard to use right now:
[Edit] now that I'm looking at those gifs, I understand why the marking menu line on maya, it's simply a user feedback thing, with that you know where your input went, this may be a hugge element in the user friendliness..
PS definately think the 'anchor point' should be fixed on first click.. as it is you can wander the menu all over the place by going into a menu and back a few times
I think I would really prefer hotbox functionality, or like it added..
what I love about mayas hotbox (hold space to display) is it gives you 5 configurable areas to click in: center, up, down, left, right. Clicking in one of these areas brings up a custom radial menu
so you can have top: editing tools
left: create object commands
right: scene/graph editors
center: UV mapping commands
whatever
you can cram so much in there, and its easy to navigate
Great post, Beat. Rooster also mentions my problem with the current implementation, which is that it moving all over the place makes it very easy to run out of space.
I also agree that the hotbox would be very nice to have! In 3ds max in work in 'expert mode' a lot of the time, which just means with most of the interface hidden.
As mentioned in the image, it helps in problem areas, when something's going wrong but you're not sure why. Ideally there'd be a toggle in preferences or the display menu for this, although if it's not too overwhelming I think this could be turned on all the time.
Summary of changes:
* Instance feature is added. Instance object can be created/selected/transformed/scaled under object mode. Instance object's instance settings can be modified through Instance Opt tool at any time. To convert instance object into an independent editable object, use the Deinstance tool.
* In addition to MMB double click, LMB double click at the same polygon will select the whole shell if there is no polygon(Except the one under cursor) selection before this action. Otherwise the programe will attemp to do loop selecting.
* Snappings now are fully used in primitive creation. In cases where you want to disable snapping in the middle of the operation, use radial menu to do it.
* Options > Radial Menu Options > Show in Screen Center.
* Square marquee selection tool has got some options so user can do window selection or crossing selection without having to switch that option through UI but by using Left-To-Right or Right-To-Left dragging to accomplish it. It is customizable. Customize > Preference > Square Marquee Options.
-Anchoring the radial menu is the good move, for that thank you, but can you add another option: center on mouse position ?
Right now I understand some people like it always is in the same position, but coming from maya I don't really like it: whenever you click you always have to move you eye position to look at another point on screen, this isn't natural.
I know that may sound like a nitpicking but that is very annoying when you used marking menu on maya for a few years everyday.
-Also I don't know if it's on the way but: in the radial menu customisation:
Can you make every menu items available in every menus ?
That would allow for every menu to be fully customisable (with the need to be contextual aware ie: vertex command visible only when in vertex mask mode, edge commands in edge mode etc) which I think is in the right line traced by the extreme customisation options of voidworld.
-I'm working with udk environment assets at the moment, and I can't use voidworld which make me VERY sad: to be able to use it with udk Voidworld need a unit system to setup udk scale to vw scale. Currently this is not possible. Can you look into it ?
These minor problems set aside, Voidworld is probably gonna replace maya as my main modeler very soon. You've done a very impressive work when I look back at when you started this thread.
It's been only 8 months, you're amazing (and no this is no bootlicking, this is sincere)
High five !
BeatKitano: What is the 'center on mouse position' you mean?
I will make top menu items available in radial menu as many as possible at some stage. lots work. And probably not all top menu items can be done.
What is udk's unit scale? In VW, you can change the scene space scale. 'View > Floor Settings' to bring up a dlg. Then change the scale. You can see the floor's size changed. After that, 'View > Best Fit(All Views)' to adjust camera setting so objects can be rendered properly.
Thanks for the comments! High five too!
"Center on mouse position": The radial menu doesn't spawn on center of screen but take the coordinate of mouse cursor as spawn origin. Exactly like it does without the center screen option but still locked on that first coordinate set.
For the menu itesm, I was talking about the menu items available in the radial menu customisation window, not the app menus.
About udk scale: yes I saw that parameter (after the silo scale incident if you remember), but this is relative to vw scale, but we don't know what vw units are compared to real world units, so we can't adjust it to other software such as udk.
hi, I'd like to second this request.. the main reason I like the anchoring is so that the menu stays put once its there, but i'ts weird for it to appear somewhere other than the cursor position imo
also on the snap object create: I still can't create my 6x4x3 (or whatever) box, because the upward movement is still snapped to the x-y plane, and touching over any grid position gives the box a height of 0. Maybe I'm attempting this a different way than you would use the program? how would you achieve this?
the other thing I want to ask about with snapping/movement, is there a way I can set the move tool to only move stuff by x amount? so whichever way I drag a manipulator arrow, it moves in say, .5 increments, or whatever?
I find this very useful for modular pieces which need to fit together precisely but can be positioned at varying heights, so just using grid snap won't work
PS. are there tooltips available for the top menu buttons? I think I've figured them out but it'd be nice to check
Replies
edit: in maya, if I take a cube and rotate if off the axes (so I have to use normal translation not world space to move a vert around a flat side of the cube) and cut up a side of it, then switch the move tool to normal- when I move that vertex along U and V (the same 'axis' I was using in VW) the normal does not change
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-jan-31-11.rar
rooster: I have read your text a few times but still can't get exatly what you meant. Anyway, I have change the manipulator's orientation behaviour when the move tools is active. Please let me know if it solves your problem.
I was expecting when using a local move on a vertex, if the face is flat, for a vertex in the middle of the face to have its 'axes' aligned to the face, wherever it is on the face.
edit: ok, after a bit more looking it appears your selection orientation isn't what I assumed it would be. I thought it would be like move along normals in maya. maybe you could add another selection orientation? (normal)
heres a pic:
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-feb-1-11.rar
Also the vertex G + MMB tool can do the similar thing.
ps- i just tried the G slide tools, but it feels a bit weird to me as the vert doesn't stay under the cursor when I move it
The window position does not seem to be remembered and could you make the 3D-Coat AppLink a palette?
Nice UI improvements!
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-feb-2-11.rar
rooster: The vertex G tool has been improved on both edge slide and face slide functions. Please test it.
GregD3: The 3DC applink button is now added into the misc toolbar. The images I mentioned before may not be a necessary as I can use Text. Btw, the app remember its previou position now.
one thing I'm noticing with repeated use, it seems to 'stick' sometimes and not move when I try so slide a vert.
it seems to be when I already have a vert selected and try to do it, and the small yellow square gets highlighted instead of the vertex
edit: its cyan coloured when it's not highlighted
edit2: I noticed, you don't let me highlight it if the vert is selected and the mouse is not over the vert when I activate G- however if you select the vert, put your mouse over it, and *then* hit g, the cyan square stays highlighted yellow and you can't move the vert
edit3: one more bug (I think) with the tweak NormalMove (z) tool- when I use it on a box, I would expect the box to just get bigger or smaller- but the verts sort of twist out of position and it gets warped
There is indeed a bug in the normalmove tool. When all the verts in a box are selected it happens. But it's fine if I do the something on a sphere. I will track it down.
Edit: I really like the tweak-tool's behaviour of lmb=move mmb=scale and rmb=rotate. Very clever!
The quicktips are also fantastic for people new to the program. Very intuitive!
edit: Another unexpected behaviour is that of the multi-selection mode. If I select an edge, I would expect to be unable to select faces or verts afterwards. Whereas, now if I select an edge, I can still highlight and select faces and verts, which both undo my edge selections.
Just had a bastard of a time finding where to change the viewport background colour as well! Any reasoning as to why that would be seperate? Is this set per scene or per viewport or something?
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-feb-2a-11.rar
rooster: I think I have fixed them. Please check. There was a normal calculation bug created yestoday when tried to fix the other bug.
MightyPea: There is a default paint selection tool. Move cursor over a subobject to highlight it, press down MMB and drag. There is also a brush paint select tool, While in subobject mode, press down X key to activate it, you will see the circle brush, Scroll WMB(Wheel mouse button) to adjust the brush size.
LMB and MMB can do both marquee selection. But MMB will select through.
Viewport back color View > Scene Window Back Color.
I will look into the selection behaviour that you don't like. I may create an option as some other people may like it this way already.
I did find Scene Window Back Color, but my question was why it wasn't included with the rest of the colours in the preferences?
Also, thanks! I'm very used to the way Silo behaves. Could you explain the reasoning behind it being this way? Since you can't select multiple types of components at once, what's its purpose?
Also, I found a potential problem with the autohiding windows:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17715/VW_scrollproblem.jpg
I'll keep playing around with VW and report back on any problems I find.
Edit: With pressing v, could it be made so that mmb slides highlighted components, not just selected?
Here's a video on Silo's sticky keys: http://nevercenter.com/silo/videos/features/?vidclip=sticky_keys.mov. If at any point you want me to make a gif animation of the desired behaviour, just let me know. (for nice gif capturing software, I recommend http://www.cockos.com/licecap/)
In addition to that, here's a video on Silo's selection modes, which might be helpful to explain what I'm used to: http://nevercenter.com/silo/videos/features/?vidclip=selection_modes.mov
I also asked for a cut-tool as in Silo, but turns out I spoke too soon, I just tried the cut tool in VW and it's exactly like what I wanted. Wonderful! Very nice job on that one. Even better than the Silo one!
I ran into a problem with extruding Ngons, here's a gif showing it off:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17715/VW_ExtrudeNgon.gif
I did it once selecting it first, and once with seletion highlighting, just to see if there was a difference.
In regards to the radial menus, could they be forced to draw entirely on-screen? So if they're invoked when near the edge of the screen, you'd moved them untill they were shown completely?
MightyPea, thanks for sharing the gif recorder, I've been looking for something like that.
Anyway, trying out the Create Polygon tool in face mode I had this thought to eliminate the last required click. You need to click to close the loop, but wouldn't it be good it it would automatically do this when you release D? I made a short gif to clarify what I mean:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17715/VW_CreatePoly.gif
The first time I do things as I'd like to be able to, but you can see it doesn't create a polygon - it expects you to click once more to complete the loop, as can be seen the second time. That last click seems redundant to me, what do you think?
Also, does anyone every want to create backfacing polygons this way? I keep going clockwise and end up with polygons facing the wrong way (as can also be seen in the gif), which is something that I rarely --if ever-- want.
Also, I can't get Create/Insert/Snap Vertex to work. Not that it's something I find myself wanting a lot, just pointing out that it might be broken (that, or I don't understand it!)
Edit: Ah. Seems I did create vertices, but despite having an edge highlighted they were all create on the grid. Is this intended behaviour?
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-feb-3-11.rar
MightyPea: I'll check your last post later. Here is the response to those early posts.
* The paint select can only perform with MMB. With LMB, you can perform marquee selection from any where, but with MMB you may have to do it from outside the object otherwise it would be paint select instead. The fence selection is an exception.
* viewport color editing is now moved to Preference.
* The multi selection behaviour is changed. Once there is selection of a subobject type, only the same type of subobject can be highlited and selected. Once the selection is cleared, multi selection will come back.
* I can't see what is the problem with docking panels. Can you elaborate?
* V + MMB now works on highlighted subobjects if no selection presented.
* The turning tool on by key tapping seems can't fit into the streamline structure as in VW multi tools can bind to one key so there is no way to tell which tool should be turned on.
* The extrusion bug is fixed. That bug was generated two days ago.
* As to the radial menu, There are two possible ways I can think of. The first one is to constrain its show up location so it's entirely inside screen, but it will cause the location unpredictable. The second one is let user to drag it until its fully visible, but this way takes time as there are times the buttons you want is visible although it's not entirely visible. So I will leave it as is for now.
Also wondering if you're planning to keep it tablet friendly? Some of us do use our tablets all the time, so we don't necessarily have thumb buttons available
Hoping to get through a whole prop or two with it soon. First impression is very positive
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-feb-4-11.rar
* The polygon creation can be finished in the way MightyPea suggested by releasing hotkey. To cancel in the middle, either click RMB or hit Escape key. Also the created polygon will allways be facing towards user if possible.
* The Vertex D tool improved. If the edge snapping is on, the created vertex will be inserted into the snapped edge.
Kary: I have checked that the first vertex allways welds to the second vertex with the second vertex position unchanged. I wonder how you get the average position. Please give more detail on the steps you have taken.
I don't have a tablet and also don't know how it works. Please tell me what to do so the app can work with tablets. What is the thumb button you mentioned?
The remark on tablets is just that I hope that any core functionality is easy to replicate when you don't have WMB, X1 and X2. A tablet pen only has left, middle, and right click. I'm not sure how many people use a tablet, but I know it's relevant to at least some of us.
Thanks for the changes, by the way!
As for the radial menus, I think the first solution is preferable, although ofcourse the mouse-position has to move with the menu, so your cursor is in the right place.
Edit: I started compiling whatever comes to mind while I use VW in a Google Docs file. Maybe this can be a good place for people to post their requests in one place? Since this thread's already got 24 pages, some requests might get lost otherwise.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WSOsPp-JpYrzULDILaHZjYh12wxVdVCgKv8gMKKyyqY/edit?hl=en&authkey=CK7U2vMN
It's easiest if everyone signs their comments. Also, you need to sign in to edit, to possibly prevent vandalism, but let me know if that's annoying.
What do you say, good idea, bad idea?
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-feb-5-11.rar
Kary: There are some tools and commands use x1/x2 button, but they are customizable. So the only problem is WMB which is used by some streamline tools, NormalMove/Tweak/TruePaintSelect, to adjust soft selection or paint brush size. I created two tools to simulate the WMB function. For example, when you activate the TruePaintSelect tool under vertex mode by press down X key, you can tap or press down Tab/Caps Lock key to enlarge or shrink the brush size while X is still being held down. These two tools by default are disabled. To enable them. Customize > Customize Tools to open the hotkey form. They are under Common Shortcut Tools group. WMB-Up Simulator/WMB_Down Simulator.
If you have any better idea, please let me know.
MightyPea: Thanks for the efforts! I prefer to keep the ideas and suggestions in one place, this thread. It's easy for me to review things in this way and also good for people to discuss different opinions. It's also good for people who are new to this thread IMO. I'll give the radial menu suggestion a try.
Little things that bothers me though:
-When using a tool like say extrude, calling it by radial/menu/shortcut: you have to press escape twice to quit the tool, once to deselect twice to really quit the tool.
-Also it would be more standard to be able to quit the current tool by switching to select/translate/rotate/scale manipulator.
-Still concerning extrude: you can chamfer with a sticky key and have visual feedback without click, with extrude once the tool is activated you have to click on the component you want to extrude, it would be best suited if it acted like chamfer.
i wanted to type in a range for the treshold, used 3 or something and it changed the subtool rather than changing the value.
an idea:
if there are vertices selected already draw a radius around them showing which verts will be affected.
can i select tris somehow rather than faces?
I will draw a circle as you suggested.
Tri selection is not supported in VW.
BeatKitano: I will make change so you only need to hit Escape key once to close a visual tool. But I am not going to use manipulator activation for tool closing. Manipulators can be active when a visual tool is live. For example with extrude tool opened, you can extrude a face, use the manipulator to rotate the extruded face, then make another extrusion. That way you don't have to exit the tool for rotation in the middle.
I don't know what's wrong with streamline extrude tool. Under polygon mode, I press down A key then move the mouse without clicking, the selected or highlighted polygons will extrude. This hapened because the A tool's NMB Function has been signed to an extrusion tool.
As for Fbx file exporter, it is impossible at the moment because the SDK only suport in C++ so I don't know how to use it.
MightyPea: The fbs reading may not be reliable. In VW, rendering is triggered by mouse movement. If the mouse stay still, no rendering will happen. If you move the mouse very very slow, the output fbs reading will be low, but that doesn't mean the performance is low. You don't have to render 10 frames when the cursor moves just one pixel, 1 is enough.
As to the Retopology tool, can you down load a copy of voidWorld 2.3. It has a Retopo tool under polygon mode. You can test it and let me know how it is.
http://digitalfossils.com/Downloads.aspx
As for extrude here is what I get:
First time i activate extrude and show that it doesn't do anything. Then I reactivate it and click+drag: now it works. In sticky key mode it should start to extrude as soon as the tool is activated and mouse dragged (imho).
Extrude
-Defined Tools-
*NMB Tool: Polygon_Extrude_PolygonNormal Drag to extrude...
*LMB Tool:...
...
I want to creat a box say, 8x6x2- if I turn on grid snap, only my first click seems to be snapped to the grid. with subsequent placements, the grid snap icon appears when I'm close to a grid point, but I can still move my mouse a bit off the grid with the snap icon present, and create a point which is like 6.217
New user here. I have just downloaded the latest version of Voidworld and am having a little play with it, I tried the truck tutorial and made a little progress, learning to navigate is a little tricky at the moment, also I couldn't find any scenes or models I could open and play with, but I do have a couple of questions if I may?
Is there a way to turn on tooltips, I am not sure what all the icons do and when I hover the mouse over them nothing pops up ?
Am I right in assuming, from what I have read in these forums that the rendering and animation options are disabled ?
Thanks in advance
Step to reproduce: create a primitive, select an edge, translate the edge, go back to mesh selection, select the mesh, delete: bug.
After that I can close the dialog error, I can still rotate/pan/zoom but everything else is frozen in the app.
Is it possible to do this, and move the mouse to the middle as well? And afterwards, put the cursor back where it was when you called up the radial menu?
Also, for snapping: What does everyone think of holding shift for snapping, ctrl for value stepping? So you click one of the axis' on the move maipulator, then press shift while dragging and it will snap to verts/grid/whatever you've got set in the options. And doing the same thing with ctrl, it'll move in increments of 10/25/whatever you've chosen beforehand. Same with rotation. This seems like a really nice and standardised way of doing it, rather than the 3dsmax way. (which is to click a button to toggle incremental rotation, which only works for rotation)
Oh, about the fps as well: I know it goes down when you're not rotating or anything, but the point of my animation is to show that the fps drop when I experience a slowdown while rotating. And it really is a quite severe slowdown, things are suddenly very stuttery. Earlier you mentioned this may be due to mouse drivers or something? Is there anything I can do to narrow this problem down? Running a debug build?
MightyPea: I think it's from the multi-threading in rendering. How many cores do you have in your computer. Goto Edit > Set Number of Processors and set the number to 1. If the performance becomes slower but stable, my guessing will be right.
Also, I tried to install 2.3 to check out the retopology, but the installer won't let me. It complains that I don't have the right .net, even after I download and install what it asks for.
Anyway, when it comes to repotology, I think the most important part is that the tools are the same as those for modeling, where applicable. One thought is to add an identifier to meshes, which by default is 'reference' but can be set to retopo. This way, you can set a mesh to retopo and any geometry created in that mesh will be constrained to the reference meshes.
As far specialised tools, I'd like to hear from people who use 3dcoat and topogun for what their favourite tools are, and then see how those can be recreated using as much of the existing VW tools as possible, and adjusted where needed.
I also wonder, what does everyone think of the radial menu and snapping suggestions in my previous post?
Another idea I had in regard to selection is to have dbl-click on a single face select the entire mesh (all connecting faces, so Full Grow). Only if nothing else is already selected ofcourse, otherwise it'd conflict with loop-select.
Example Animation
Also, snapping would seem a lot more useful to me if the highlighted component would be snapped to, instead of the mouse cursor.
Example Animation
Can your tell me how many cores you have?
IStonia: Could that be extended to the lmb select as well? I don't find doubleclicking MMB to be nearly as comfortable as dblclicking LMB.
Edit: I forgot to mention: I have a Dualcore Pentium
The thing that is very different in vw is that the command is actually very close to the central point and and isn't selected if you go past the command button, also the slight "jump" the menu does when switching to a submenu is scary cause you're never sure you actually selected the right command if you go too fast.
In maya if you look at the gif, this jump also occur but the central point doesn't move giving the user the certainty that he was really on his first choice and the possibility to go back without having to find a new central point position. It helps tremendously when making quick choices.
Also note that option commands are next to central point contrary to maya where they are at the end: in maya it avoids getting the selection command by error, to aim for it to have the option, and wanting the option is a conscious choice
ALSO A VERY IMPORTANT THING, it would be very neat and in the perfect line of voidworld (contextual edition) to have the commands change depending on the selection, this is what maya does (I know voidworld does it too, but you have to go to the tool submenu which defeat the purpose of marking menu entirely) :
ORDER in the gif: mesh general selection/face selection/edge selection/verts selection/mesh operations.
Here's a simple reason why vw marking menu are hard to use right now:
[Edit] now that I'm looking at those gifs, I understand why the marking menu line on maya, it's simply a user feedback thing, with that you know where your input went, this may be a hugge element in the user friendliness..
PS definately think the 'anchor point' should be fixed on first click.. as it is you can wander the menu all over the place by going into a menu and back a few times
I think I would really prefer hotbox functionality, or like it added..
what I love about mayas hotbox (hold space to display) is it gives you 5 configurable areas to click in: center, up, down, left, right. Clicking in one of these areas brings up a custom radial menu
so you can have top: editing tools
left: create object commands
right: scene/graph editors
center: UV mapping commands
whatever
you can cram so much in there, and its easy to navigate
I also agree that the hotbox would be very nice to have! In 3ds max in work in 'expert mode' a lot of the time, which just means with most of the interface hidden.
I created two more animations, one for value snapping (used with move here, but could just as easily be used for rotation and scale):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17715/VW_valuesnap.gif
And one for a nice implementation of gestures for 'Constrain to Axis':
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17715/VW_Tweak_axis.gif
And here's an image of another thing I quite like in Blender, the gradients on lines: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17715/Vert_Fade.png
As mentioned in the image, it helps in problem areas, when something's going wrong but you're not sure why. Ideally there'd be a toggle in preferences or the display menu for this, although if it's not too overwhelming I think this could be turned on all the time.
new update.
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-feb-10-11.rar
Summary of changes:
* Instance feature is added. Instance object can be created/selected/transformed/scaled under object mode. Instance object's instance settings can be modified through Instance Opt tool at any time. To convert instance object into an independent editable object, use the Deinstance tool.
* In addition to MMB double click, LMB double click at the same polygon will select the whole shell if there is no polygon(Except the one under cursor) selection before this action. Otherwise the programe will attemp to do loop selecting.
* Snappings now are fully used in primitive creation. In cases where you want to disable snapping in the middle of the operation, use radial menu to do it.
* Options > Radial Menu Options > Show in Screen Center.
* Square marquee selection tool has got some options so user can do window selection or crossing selection without having to switch that option through UI but by using Left-To-Right or Right-To-Left dragging to accomplish it. It is customizable. Customize > Preference > Square Marquee Options.
Thanks!
Right now I understand some people like it always is in the same position, but coming from maya I don't really like it: whenever you click you always have to move you eye position to look at another point on screen, this isn't natural.
I know that may sound like a nitpicking but that is very annoying when you used marking menu on maya for a few years everyday.
-Also I don't know if it's on the way but: in the radial menu customisation:
Can you make every menu items available in every menus ?
That would allow for every menu to be fully customisable (with the need to be contextual aware ie: vertex command visible only when in vertex mask mode, edge commands in edge mode etc) which I think is in the right line traced by the extreme customisation options of voidworld.
-I'm working with udk environment assets at the moment, and I can't use voidworld which make me VERY sad: to be able to use it with udk Voidworld need a unit system to setup udk scale to vw scale. Currently this is not possible. Can you look into it ?
These minor problems set aside, Voidworld is probably gonna replace maya as my main modeler very soon. You've done a very impressive work when I look back at when you started this thread.
It's been only 8 months, you're amazing (and no this is no bootlicking, this is sincere)
High five !
I will make top menu items available in radial menu as many as possible at some stage. lots work. And probably not all top menu items can be done.
What is udk's unit scale? In VW, you can change the scene space scale. 'View > Floor Settings' to bring up a dlg. Then change the scale. You can see the floor's size changed. After that, 'View > Best Fit(All Views)' to adjust camera setting so objects can be rendered properly.
Thanks for the comments! High five too!
For the menu itesm, I was talking about the menu items available in the radial menu customisation window, not the app menus.
About udk scale: yes I saw that parameter (after the silo scale incident if you remember), but this is relative to vw scale, but we don't know what vw units are compared to real world units, so we can't adjust it to other software such as udk.
also on the snap object create: I still can't create my 6x4x3 (or whatever) box, because the upward movement is still snapped to the x-y plane, and touching over any grid position gives the box a height of 0. Maybe I'm attempting this a different way than you would use the program? how would you achieve this?
the other thing I want to ask about with snapping/movement, is there a way I can set the move tool to only move stuff by x amount? so whichever way I drag a manipulator arrow, it moves in say, .5 increments, or whatever?
I find this very useful for modular pieces which need to fit together precisely but can be positioned at varying heights, so just using grid snap won't work
PS. are there tooltips available for the top menu buttons? I think I've figured them out but it'd be nice to check