How Blender works is you have your object selected…lets say a cube. I drop into Edit mode, and select an edge or two that I want to Bevel. Now…my mental block… how Blender handles it is as soon as I click and release the “Bevel” button with my mouse, i’m instantly “beveling”. This drives me absolutely nuts! It may be “faster”, but my ageing brain just can not come to grips with it.
Is there any way to change the “select and activate” methodology in Blender so that when, for example, I click the “Bevel” button nothing happens until I “click and drag” my mouse pointer in the 3D view? I want to select my edge, hit the Bevel button, move my mouse cursor over the selected edges, click down on/near them, and adjust the bevel from there…when I am happy, release the mouse button and the bevel is applied ‘permanently’. Y’know…like just about ever other 3D program out there.
I’m really trying to learn blender…have been off and on since…well, since it was still owned by NaN and only used for making game assets for the NeoGeo. Yeah…that’ long. I did say I was old!
Well at least you can click wherever and then click-drag on the “Amount” attribute on the left and release the mouse when you’re happy. Also holding shift will slow down the beveling as your mouse moves (right after you hit “Bevel”). Otherwise I don’t think there’s a feature or addon to make it more like Maya or whatever (maybe I’m wrong tho but I didn’t find anything either).
Personnally as long as it works, it’s easy to find, I have full control over it and it’s fast enough I don’t care much about the rest, no matter the software. I don’t get frustrated from this. My frustration comes when features start not to work, or don’t exist yet. Now that can drive me crazy frustrated.
heheh…yeah, I hear ya Caetano. I can generally deal with “missing” features (as long as they aren’t “core” to 3D concepts…like Lightwaves lack of deselecting by clicking in ‘open’ 3d space…nope, not in LW…you have to hotkey it or move your mouse way out of view into a potentially small ‘grey space between tools/buttons’ and click on it…crazy!..).
I’ve been doing 3d for a while now (my first program was trueSpace 2, which I didn’t actually order…I ordered tS 1, but Caligari sent me the latest version that just came out that week…tS 2…nice guys, Roman and crew…shame he sold out to Microsoft ). I tried blender waaaay back then and could never wrap my head around it. Over the decade(s?), I’ve tried to keep up on what Blender was doing and I give it a semi-serious go every year or two. The way some tools work are just beyond my old grey matter to get used to. I’m trying, but man is it hard! I want to select a tool, and then use it. I don’t want to select a tool/use it in one “go”.
Anyway…thanks for the reply.
PS: I just thought of another reason why I don’t like it…probably equal in annoyance factor, if not moreso. I use a Wacom tablet for pretty much all my 3D/2D. And left-clicking means taping the pen tip on the surface. So, selecting some edges, going to Bevel, clicking on Bevel by tapping pen tip to tablet…but now Bevel is “activated”…so I have to ‘hover’ the pen tip over the surface of the tablet without touching it in order to get the Bevel. Once I have the bevel size I want, I then have to actually tap the tablet surface to complete…and this invariably causes my bevel to suddenly not be the size I wanted because tapping the tip down on the surface is never in the exact same location above the “hovering tip” (hope that makes sense).
Is there a way to Hotkey “Enter” (or ‘accept’) to another, additional key? I’m right handed, so moving my left hand over to the right of my keyboard to hit Enter would be a p.i.t.a. Maybe hotkey “Enter” to ‘Shift-E’ or something.
You can assign hot keys to certain “modal map” actions. Modal map is all the stuff you can do when you are in some mode such as bevel, knife tool or grab. If you go to the preferences - input tab simply set the pop up menu that says “name” to “keybinding” and put the workd “enter” or “return” into the search box. Blender then lists all actions that are currently bound to the enter key. You can then simply create a new input and assign “apply” to the tab key or tha A key or something else on the left side of the keyboard.
Blender is more made for using a mouse since almost every click loops the active panel to allow you to indefinitely move your mouse until you click (or release).
Also some sliders make your cursor disappear and allow you again to move the mouse indefinitely.
If you use a tablet, these functions are disabled and your range becomes limited to the screen (wether your tablet is mapped to the screen or is set to “mouse” mode).
Personnally I like these Blender features that most other 3D programs don’t have, and I would recommend you to use your tablet for sculpting and painting only. Otherwise, use your mouse. I’m pretty sure that’s how professionnals work. This little thing came out in 1968 and is still there for a reason : it’s the best pointing device for most situations.
). I tried blender waaaay back then and could never wrap my head around it. Over the decade(s?), I’ve tried to keep up on what Blender was doing and I give it a semi-serious go every year or two. The way some tools work are just beyond my old grey matter to get used to. I’m trying, but man is it hard! I want to select a tool, and then use it. I don’t want to select a tool/use it in one “go”.