Serious feature request- willing to pay cash.

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi All, I have just got a full time job using blender for realtime low poly modelling.

There is a feature I need blender to have and I would like to pay a programmer to add it to blender.

I think it would be in the interest of the blender community to have this feature in blender.
So I hope I would be putting some good back into the community.

The feature I desire is numeric input for Grab, Scale, Rotate and Warp.

I have worked out a way this could be implimented in blender without too much overhead in code and ui.
I think this feature is good because it is much faster to type 0.065 then twiddle with the mouse until you hit the right number, or realised you are zoomed out too far.

This is how it would work- Scale for eg.

Press ‘S’ for scale,
type in ‘2.5’ and press ‘enter’

  • Viola, scaled buy 2.5 with no snapping, zooming in and out and fiddeling to get the mouse in the right position.

When the user starts typing in numbers the mouse position is ignored and the new scale appiers in the status bar.

Chars that would trigger this off are ‘0’ to ‘9’ “.” and “-”
Since these keys dont do anything when scaling there would be no conflict with key bindings.

Example 2: Moving an object

Press ‘G’ to grab
Start typing in a number - This number will affect the X axis only.

Now you would have the option to execute the change to the X axis by pressing Enter or press the Axis toggle key (I suggest Tab, it does not work when grabbing anyway.
Tab would cycle the imput from x y and z you could keep Tabbing and changing the values until you were happy and could then press enter.

This tabbing system would be used for scale, rotate, grab and warp.

The difference is that Scale would start off with all values active, the numeric imput would affect x y and z

The tab cycles woud be as follows.

Grab (X, Y, Z)
Scale (ALL, X Y Z)
Rotat (X, Y)
Warp (WarpValue)

Inactive axis text would be grayed out so the user knows which axis they are changing before they type in values.

If you are interested please email me with a quote in $USD and a timeframe for compleation - [email protected]
if you want part payments allong the way you will need to spesify milestones which I will make a payment for each.

If you have an improvement, or are concerned about a spasific aspect, tell me the changes you would make.

The quality of the code must be stable for possible inclusion in future releases of blender and I require Binary for Win32 or Linux as well as the source.

I have webspace that can be used to distribute the file.

Regards- Ideasman
[email protected]

2

I ought to quote some outrageous fee, send off the current executable and announce it’s almost done :wink:

If you select an object and hit the N-key, it will bring up a menu that allows you to specify exact values for the size, location, and rotation of the object in all three dimensions. It sounds like all you really need is a numeric entry for the Warp function.

Dave S.

3

Yes, I know about the N key, The N key is OK out of edit mode but I often need to perform numeric transformations on selected verts in edit mode. The N key can only adjust 1 active vertex position.

My solution would be a heap faster then the N key anyway Scale by exactly 2.27 or EG

'S' > 2.78 > Ente.

VS

N > Shift Click >Backspace old variable > 2.27 (for X)

N > Shift Click >Backspace old variable > 2.27  (for Y)

N > Shift Click >Backspace old variable > 2.27  (for Z)

Enter/OK

I just dont use the nkey for general scaling becayse its so clunky.

Also the N key does not preview the scale like the SKey does.

4

I just e-mailed you.

Martin

5

What a great idea. I hope this is possible. It would be so helpful to have a feature like this. :slight_smile:

6

It is possible, I’ve already coded it for translation in some hours.

Martin

7

Wow, thats fast. Good work. :slight_smile:

8

So…whens it gonna be released? Next official release?

dante

9

wow

sounds very neat ! :wink:

10

Teeth will hopefully be releasing it within a week, binaries + source (modified 2.28a), should be in proper release 2.29

11

g00die :smiley:

12

Actually, I have a binary ready with Grab, Scale and Rotate (except with middle mouse button) working, you should be recieving it soon. When I’m done with the rest of the transformations (wednesday probably), I’ll send a patch to bf-blender.

Martin

13

I don’t suppose with all your new found transform() knowledge, you’d know where to insert code to automatically constrain to an axis? :wink:

14

You bet I could.

It’s really easy actually, I don’t see why nobody thought about this earlier. Just add a second letter to the mode and add some code to parse it at the start of the function. For example, calling transform(“gX”) would constraint grab to the global X axis. Capital letters could be global axis, small letters local.

And when parsing, you’d just have to see the constraining variable correctly.

Martin

15

Teeth has sent me a binary that works for grab, rotate and scale- works well.

Mabe teeth will release it to the community sometime soon.

16

As soon as I can. I can’t submit a patch now, since the cvs servers are down like the whole blender.org site :frowning:

anyone that wants to try a windows binary can try this: http://www.clubinfo.bdeb.qc.ca/~theeth/Work/blender.zip

Little instructions:

It works with the transformations mode, it doesn’t replace them, so just enter grab, scale or rotate mode as usual and start typing. (use the numbers not on the numpad).

Tab switches between axis (the axis that is being modified has parenthesis)
Backspace clears the current axis. Twice clears all axis.
Minus (-) switches between positive and negative value.

The mouse is not disabled when you type, so moving the mouse adds to the value you typed. The control and shift key will also affect the values you type.

I debugged it a lot, but if you find any new glitch, be sure to mention them to me.

Martin

17

/me gets all excited! I don’t know why nobody thought about it earlier either. Seems strange to hide all that functionality away like that. If you ever get some free time, you’d be my hero if you could try and work it out! I really want to make something like this pic below (mockup only) - I think I could handle hacking the interface code, adding ability for hierarchical menus etc, but it’s the transform stuff that needs some leet dude treatment:

BTW, that binary works very very nicely. Hope to see it integrated soon!

18

seems nice. Ok, so all you want me to do is create the code that would parse the mode? Sounds fair enough. As soon as I finish on the numerical input code, I’ll do that.

BTW, that binary works very very nicely. Hope to see it integrated soon!

hope to see the cvs server back soon :expressionless:

Martin

19

On a side note, for the moving along normal part, it would basicly just be a copy/paste of the Shrink/Flatten code, but with no limit in both direction.

I talked with Pol earlier today (he was the one working on the axis constraint code for grab and scale), so if we all coordinate our crap together, it might end up pretty nice.

Martin

20

Works like a charm! Great great Job! :smiley:

What exactly are the shift and control doing?

Shift+X = 0.X

but if I keep adding values after that I’m not sure what’s happening. (I really should be sleeping at the moment so sorry if I’m missing something really obvious! :stuck_out_tongue: