As it is, the 3d cursor seems more like a lazy fallback for developers than a tool designed to improve the users workflow. I don’t mind that it exists, but it has a lot of room for improvement before I’d say it’s an ideal UX design.
Considering it’s a precise point in 3d space, it’s ironic how clumsy it is to position it accurately.
Since it has its own somewhat hidden snapping functions, properties, and doesn’t work with undo, the 3d cursor feels like a poorly integrated addon rather than native functionality.
Due to the sloppy integration, almost everything it touches winds up with worse UX design as well (e.g. spin tool).
If it can be made so it actually works well I’d be in favor of it. But if it were up to me, I’d probably cut it in favor of designing better ways to handle those tasks. A makeshift pivot is the only thing it almost handles well, but even that is not great due to it being a PITA to position accurately.
2 It doesn’t have good grid by default though, so set size bigger and change subdivision to 11 from 10:
3 Change viewpoint visibility in object properties to wire:
insert objects where the cursor is - compare that with Maya
or when you want to repeatedly scale to the 3d cursor
there Rhino then would become more labor intensive
if it would be me I would keep the 3D cursor as it is - in blender it can even be rotated !!!
scale and rotate tools however need two ways to operate
one rotate where you just rotate around the defined origin
one where you via cursor select center, start and then end rotation point.
that would actually make Blender complete and better
In other systems you can define the start and end point. Meaning that you would first snap it to the center of the lower edge and then snap the object from the lower vertex of one of the edges you have selected in your image to the center of the same edge.
Since in Blender you can not chose where to snap from you have to do it with the 3d cursor.
However, imagine the same object but with only one of the vertical edges you have selected. You would not be able to place the 3d cursor easily where you placed it. But with the system other programs use this would be doable in exactly the same way.
The 3D cursor is very good. It could be improved a lot. However, Blenders snapping system is very lacking.
Those supporting the existence and workflow of the 3D Cursor have probably never used Modo before (basic proficiency). I went from Maya to Blender, to Modo and now back to Blender and the switch from Modo to Blender was probably the hardest as it showed me how fragmented and often unnecessary some of Blender’s features are, even in 2.8.
The 3D Cursor is one of those unnecessary features imo. Modo shows how you can do the same things with less work in the viewport and often with more control.
There is a lot of stuff Blender can and should take from Modo. They are already very similar to one another, with the difference being Modo takes a smarter less convoluted approach. This is why it became one of the best modelers in the industry right out of the box. In fact 2.8 clearly shows it has been paying attention to these differences, we just need to keep pushing it further in the right direction.
We can get the same results with the 3D Cursor without the 3D Cursor.
The start and end pick is handy, blender also has pick snap points during interactive snapping.
I don’t understand the part you said “with only one edge” how can you pick the end point to get the similar result which is not possible with cursor. could you please explain more or show a mock up?
Another case that i prefer cursor over interactive snapping is viewport clutter in which picking start and end point is flickery and inaccurate, i don’t know how modo or rhino handle precedence and selection priority during snapping in populated scenes but in 3dsmax i had bad experiences with interactive viewport picking operations.
I think there should be both interactive snapping and cursor system.
That’s is OK but why they removed it before the new system is implemented…
Currently the empty object has vertex and face instancing option which is not working because empty objects doesn’t have vertex. But the collection instancing is removed for mesh objects which was working just fine.
I used to use mesh objects as instancer because that way i could create custom shapes with mesh.
This is off topic here, i will post a new topic and explain with images.
Yes, the adding snap points is awesome but it can not replace the start and end thing. Having both would be great.
Imagine the object in your image, except that one of the selected edges is missing. It would not be possible to easily place the 3d curser where you placed it because placing it the way you did relies on getting the center of the two selected edges.
Yes, the viewport flickering can be a bit annoying but all in all I find the 3ds Max snapping vastly superior to Blenders. Mainly because it has the start-end thing.
Ah, we have consensus.
Absolutely. The 3d cursor is a great tool and it could be even better with great snapping.
Here is an image which might make it clearer:
In the image I deleted the edge on the right side and the top. This means that you would no longer be able to easily place the the 3d cursor.
In other programs such as 3ds Max you couldn now:
Snap to the center at point X
Snap the object which is now at point X from A to B
Now the object would be where the 3d cursor is in the image
I just use an addon the snap the pivot with a hotkey: works on object/multiple objects, vertex, edge, face, loops, borders. Just make your selection, hit the key, and origin snaps to the centre of the selection.
There is a bug right now that prevents this but it should be possible. The bug is : if you start transforming the 3D cursor (with 3D cursor tool) and hit X, Y or Z to constrain it to an axis it doesn’t behave like regular objects do : it constrains to one axis but still keeps the transformation that was initiated before hitting X Y or Z which means that if you move your mouse just a little bit it’ll be off. Hence the importance of a transform gizmo dedicated to the 3D cursor, and/or fixing this bug. 3D cursor obeys snap settings now which theoretically makes this possible (snap to edge center).
I’m not sure why they don’t add a gizmo for the 3D cursor. The only downside I can think of is trying to reposition it and accidentally clicking on the gizmo instead, but apart from that… being able to manipulate it like any other object would make things so much simpler.
Well that hits at the original problem, why even have a 3D cursor in the first place then? If you make it look and act just like regular gizmo cursor then logically, they should not be separate to begin with. This is why something like the 3d Cursor does not exist in Modo, it doesn’t need to as the functionality is already combined with the normal gizmo cursor that we use already. It shouldn’t have to be separate.
We always go back to, “why does this have to exist in the first place?”
