Why doesn't Leaving quad-view brings you to the view under the cursor?

One thing I’d really like to see fixed in MODO is the constant ugly UI artefacts you get when switching layouts. Especially when frequently switching layouts or viewports, this can get pretty annoying - both visually and in terms of how much time it takes to switch viewports in MODO.

https://giant.gfycat.com/FickleMarvelousHoneybee.gif

Both Blender and Maya perform much cleaner, faster and more elegantly here:
https://giant.gfycat.com/SeveralSelfassuredEastrussiancoursinghounds.gif

https://giant.gfycat.com/PositiveSlowHake.gif

However, what I would like to see as standard behaviour in Blender, which both MODO and Maya do but Blender currently doesn’t, is:
Leaving quad-view brings you to the view under the cursor

Under Toggle Quad View button in Display panel of view properties, there are options about quad view.
If you disable lock option, you can obtain this behaviour.

I set my settings to “emulate numberpad” it makes viewport switching a single keystroke in most cases 1,3,7…although for opposing views ctrl+1,3,7 it is always the first change I make to blender…it is also one of the only changes to the way hotkeys work. I’m not a fan of pie menus…they are slow…unless you have no idea what the hotkeys are, then, I guess then they are a good teaching aid to get someone up to speed.

I’m not sure what the hotkey is for quad view though…I never use it…it is a relic from the 90’s I think…

ctrl+alt+Q is the hotkey for quad-view.

Looking at the view demonstrations, it looks like Blender is the only application out of the three that doesn’t have any flashing of any kind when switching to quad view and back (Maya doesn’t have visual artifacts, but does have a flash going to quad view).

I never would’ve thought that such flashing was a thing in modern 3D software made by billion-dollar companies, who knew.

Ah, right! Thanks!
Why is this not on by default? :smiley:
Considering that the feature proposal has 21 votes it seems like I’m not the only one who missed this. :slight_smile:

Maya doesn’t really have any ‘flashing’ in terms of UI glitches. The thing you do show up quickly is the so-called “marking menu”.
You activate the marking menu by holding SPACE pressed, but tapping SPACE quickly toggles between quad and single view.

The Foundry is “only” about $300 million, so not a billion dollar company - but I agree that MODO’s behaviour is extremely inelegant and annoying.

Maya’s doesn’t bother me.

I’ve never found it necessary in Blender’s case, since splitting views is trivial and offers a lot more versatility.

View pie menu for the win in my case : )

Sure but that’s not really the question, is it? :wink:

The question is: Is it better to have “Lock” on by default, or to have it off (as is currently the case) so Blender behaves the way other industry standard applications do and apparently many Blender users would prefer it to behave? :slight_smile:

The Lock option wasn’t really meant for this from what I can see - it’s meant to prevent going into perspective mode by accident in orthographic views. And so it doesn’t work perfectly for the use you describe - for instance the Perspective view (upper right) is set to last entered orthographic view. So to answer the question - in the current state better to have Lock on by default.

I would not say that Blender behaviour is like industry standard’s one.
I think Quad View is locked by default to avoïd user to mess up standard Quad VIew with Top, Front and Right.

When quad view is unlocked, in fact, you are not just allowed to switch from persp view to a standard ortho view passing through quad view.
You have the ability to change splitted part dedicated to Top View to any view.
It is interesting if you want to change it to Bottom View or Right View to Left.

But it is also easy for a newbie who don’t know yet basics of 3D view navigation to mess up its quad view with 4 weird user persp views.

And when you quit an unlocked Quad View to Top View for instance; if you go back to quad view again, you don’t recover previous setup.
Now, you have two Top Views.

For quad views, Box and Clip options are interesting but dependent of a Lock on.

Quad Views were implemented to satisfy new comers during 2.5 interface refactor. But like xrg says areas splitting is much more versatile.
You can easily make a screen with 8 3DViews areas and switch to it like any other screen.

Edit: I remember that during 2.5 UI experiments it was possible to split interior region of an area.
But without anyways to cancel changes made, experimentation was quickly abondonned.
IMHO, it is not a bad idea to have subareas but it implies a minimum storage of properties for each subarea created.
It would be cool to be able to store a custom quad view setup.

How so? I can still rotate out of a “fixed” (front/back/top/down/right/left) orthographic view even with Lock turned on in Quad View?

In quad view, 3/4 of view are supposed to be locked except top/right 1/4 that is free.

If it is not the case, maybe you discovered a bug related to quad view.

It used to be locked by default but was changed to be unlocked so it’s apparently better to have it unlocked. :stuck_out_tongue:

You can see why if you test the quad view unlocked, if you open quad view and close it with a view selected, then open it again, the top right view is replaced with the view you selected. This view is a user view (and not necessarily perspective) so it gets replaced with the view you selected when you closed the quad view. Of course this is a bit strange so this behavior was changed to always enter the user view instead so you don’t lose the view you had set up.

I’m pretty sure most Blender users prefer the default behavior instead of the unlocked behavior where your user view gets randomly replaced. Who are these “many Blender users” anyway? The 21 people who voted for it on rightclickselect.com? :stuck_out_tongue:

You could make an argument that it should work like in Maya or whatever but due to the way Blender works (user view isn’t remembered) you would have to write that code yourself and make it an option or something. So your best option is to write that code yourself or hope that someone takes a look at it on the way to 2.8.

Then again, how many users even use the quad view? To me it doesn’t seem very useful since you’ve got axis constraints with keyboard shortcuts or middle mouse drag anyway. And the view - quad view - another view is even more strange because if you just wanted to change the view you can use pie menus instead. Personally I don’t use the quad view at all but instead use a single view/two user views when needed.

No I agree with you - I was testing it on the top right view and there it did allow me to go in and out of orthographic views. The other three 3D viewports are indeed locked when Lock is ticked on. Seems to be working as intended.

Is there a way to decouple the “With Quad View active, go to the 3D view under the cursor when the user presses CTRL+ALT+Q” from the “Lock three of the four 3D viewports so the user cannot accidentally mess them up/rotate out of them” setting in the Lock thingy? I feel like the former should just be the standard unchangeable default - and the Lock check box should only affect the latter. (Please don’t add another check box/setting for the former!! :wink: )

What’s strange is that even if Lock is turned off - if you have your cursor over an orthographic view and hit CTRL+ALT+Q to maximise that view, what seems to actually happen is that Blender maximises the top right view but matches its view point to whatever your cursor was over. You can see that if you go back to Quad View via CTRL+ALT+Q again: You’ll then have two views of the same sort.

https://gfycat.com/ElatedMessyGiantschnauzer

As I mentioned in the comments of my Right-Click Select suggestion, it’s great that there is the Lock functionality, though who know how long it would have taken me to figure it out had someone not mentioned it in that post, but Chris is right that the way toggling between quad-view and a single view with Lock disabled works. It seems odd and counterintuitive to what I’d expect (and have experienced with Cinema 4D and Maya).

You don’t have to figure it out, you could just read the manual. Although admittedly, while the locked option is mentioned there, it doesn’t say where to find it, so the docs could be improved here a bit.

In fact, I did read the manual before posting that feature request. Nowhere does it state that by disabling the Lock you will be able to shift out of quad-view to the view below the cursor.

Toggling Quad View will split the 3D window into 4 views: 3 Ortho views and a Camera / User View. This view will allow you to instantly see your model from a number of view points. In this arrangement, you can zoom and pan each view independently but you cannot rotate the view. Note that this is different from splitting the windows and aligning the view manually. In Quad View, the four views are still part of a single 3D window. So they share the same draw options and layers.

If you want to be able to rotate each view, you can un-check the Locked option.

saltorio, yeah, it’s a bit sparse with info about details of the the lock function. I understood you meant figuring out that there is this function, which the manual mentions, so I thought you hadn’t seen it. My apologies.