I’ve been getting comfortable with blender and wanted to make a video that highlighted features I felt could be better to make certain processes much faster. I’ll let them out as well:
Object Creation: Qblocker does a great job of doing what vanilla Blender should do, easily alter where and how objects are added to the scene. When primitives are added you should be able to alter the segments without tinkering in a menu.
Mirroring: Quickly mirror by world axis and the ability to mirror selected polygons using an edge selection in one click.
Loop cut: should have pinch factor and the ability to only cut selected edges. The subdivide workaround for this isn’t a true solution as it lacks any options.
Bevel Shader: If this could recreate the rounded edge shader in modo it would amazing. Needs to work with intersecting geo.
Maybe I’m still too new and these aren’t really issues. What do you miss from other software?
They tried to do interactive object creation, there was a cube active tool for some time but it was never finished and they deleted it now, because there is no time to finish it before release.
There is Symmetrize option in edit mode. But it works based of object origin and super annoying to use (at least for me). I don’t think you can mirror based of your selection in blender.
About loop cut. I usually insert 1 edge loop and then bevel it, but for uneven surfaces you would have to use “percent” width type and yeah it’s workaround again. There is a few more tools like this, where functionality is here but implementation is old and could be improved. I hope one day devs will add “edge flow” tool (as a separate tool) and add a checkbox to loop cut so we can create loops and get flow interpolation at the same time. Knife tool needs to be updated, right now if you want to undo 1 cut it will undo everything. To use grid fill on existing face you need to delete this face and then use grid fill.
Bevel node works with intersecting geo BUT all your geo need to be inside 1 object (Join them and you will see). Don’t know why, you can ask blender devs directly on the dev forum. Maybe they could make it work across multiple objects.
And i think blender is really trying to confuse people with mirroring options. We have mirror modifier (well this one works like you would expect), then we have interactive mirror and all it’s doing is scaling your object -1 (??? why is this even an option and why it’s called mirror), then we have symmetrize wich works exactly like mirror modifier but in edit mode (+ have super confusing “direction” menu and why it’s called symmetrize? When it works like mirror modifier). I don’t know, does interactive mirror have any uses? I never used it.
Into early versions of beta, there was an Add Cube active tool.
It was an attempt to add primitive through click&drag. If it was successful, the plan was to use same tool to add any kind of primitives. https://developer.blender.org/T57210
They did not have time to make it working smoothly and to use it for other primitives than a cube. So, it was removed. But it may be come up into future releases.
Ctrl M followed by axis letter allows you to mirror selection according to pivot point and active transform orientation.
So, if pivot point is set to Active Element, you can mirror a selection of polygons according to active edge.
To obtain what you showed, you just have to duplicate selection before.
Just create a macro or an addon and it will be as fast.
About loopcut, it can not be restricted to selected polygons. But as many tool in blender, it is restricted to visible polygons. So, just hide polygons that should not be cut.
It would be cool for multicut to have a pinch option.
Currently, you can also select Edge Ring between multiple cuts, set pivot point to Individual Origins and scale down selected edges.
Qblocker appears to do a good-enough job with interactive object creation that I’m happy with using it. All the mirroring tools are.
I didn’t know that about the active element mirroring, that’s a neat trick.
Like I said there are a lot of solutions for these things, but they’re multistep in a way that’s unappealing. It’s what keeps something that is great from being exceptional.
Regnas
(• I don't speak English "by default", so... )
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Agree they saved so much time and there is a paid version on the blender market that work pretty similar to 3ds max primitives.
You can create any of the primitives in any viewport just like in 3ds max and you can get the parameters with F9 or in the property panel under context. It is also pack with amazing tools.
When you have lots of simple tools doing simple things in one step, you can make lots of combinations.
So, when a tool or one step is buggy, you can workaround the problem easily.
When the unique step of tool is failing, what goes wrong is more obvious : it makes the tool easier to debug, to maintain.
At the end, it makes the whole modeling module maintain by few people, more reliable.
It is cool to have a tool able to make several steps for most common complex case. But it may become an headache for developer if it does not handle several less common simpler cases because of that.
I would expect from developer in charge of modeling module to fix a tool like bevel. You are pointing some improvements that are logical and stay basic for loopcut.
But generally, I would probably expect more combination of tools from community of addons writers than from official devs.
I am sure that if you find a guy that like scripting, he can write a satisfying mirroring addon.
My bevel shader position still stands from the Polycount thread , but your other suggestions make sense.
I use the same workarounds mentioned above, but one of my main gripes with Loop Cut/slide is that it’s too limited. I’m REALLY missing a tool like Max’s Swiftloop. So simple a concept, but sadly lacking in Blender. It also has built in Set Flow.
The other thing I miss is Max’s Bend modifier. Simple Deform Bend is fine, but annoying that you have to create an empty to bend around, instead of just using the 3D Cursor as the pivot.
As for Max’s primitive creation, I don’t miss it that much because I always create object in ‘view’ mode and just Shit+RC drag the 3D Cursor into position.
, but your other suggestions make sense.