About:
This is a collection of intuitive, context sensitive tools to improve productivity that I did to improve my workflow as I transitioned into Blender.
They are designed to be used as hotkeys, removing the amount of interaction with the menus and allowing for a less interrupted modeling experience.
This is the first release, and as expected some bugs will be found, please make sure to report those so they can be fixed.
Future releases will improve functionality as well as stability.
Without much to say I hope you find these tools useful and they help improve your modeling experience.
Download:
https://gumroad.com/l/ynJmIV
Requirements:
These scripts were tested and work with blender 2.8 build 749d53effd58 (8 June 2019).
If this addon is not working please update to the latest version of blender 2.8 first.
Use:
To install the tools go into the Add-ons tab in the preferences panel and click install.
A new window will open, select the location of the addon and click install.
Now search for the plugin and enable it.
Once enabled the tools can be found in the “Maxivz Interactive Tools” on the right side menu in blender.
These tools work better when assigned to hotkeys.
Tools:
Super Smart Create
Connects verts that belong to the same face
If you select one vert or two verts that share the same edge and are on a border it will invoke f2(make sure you have f2 enabled)
If you select multiple verts that belong to the same face, they will all be connected to the last selected vert.
If you select an edge it will divide it in 2, putting a vert in the middle of the edge
Connects the selected edges if they are part of a ring.
There's still some problems with the selection when two edge rings meet in a corner.
Caps selected borders
Bridges selected edges if possible
When you select 2 adjacent edges it creates a face
Bridges selected polys
If a single face is selected it will try to make quads on it..
This last feature works pretty good if you select a border, run the script to make a face and then run the script again to make quads out of it:
Set Cylindrical Obj Sides
Select the loop in a cylindrical object and run the script to make a copy of the shape with customizable number of sides.
Select the created object again and run the script again to continue editing the number of sides.
Smart Extrude
Inspired by 3ds max shift+drag behavior.
If in object mode it will duplicate the object and move, trying to predict the axis based in the direction you drag from.
If in edge selection mode it will extend and move, trying to predict the axis based in the direction you drag from.
If in vert or face selection mode it will duplicate and move, trying to predict the axis based in the direction you drag from.
If you are in edit mode of a curve, it will extend the curve and move, trying to predict the axis based in the direction you drag from.
Setup a new hotkey for each 3D View tool like this, make sure to disable the default duplicate objects.
Future Updates:
-Improve the axis detection.
-Similar behaviour for rotate and scale.
-Add more modifier keys (snapping, freeform, 2 axis constraint)
Smart Translate
A tool to quickly move objects around, it tries to predict the axis of the movement based on mouse movement.
It's pretty simple for now and only works when assigned to the middle mouse button, a setting for this will be made in the next update.
Future Updates:
-Improve the axis detection.
-Similar behaviour for rotate and scale.
-Add more modifier keys (snapping, freeform, 2 axis constraint)
-Being able to bind it to more than the middle mouse button.
Smart Loop:
If two continuous edges or one edge is selected, the edge loop is going to be selected
If two edges are selected, it's going to get the edge loop between them.
If three edges are selected, and they have the same space between them a step selection will be made.
These modes work with multiple selections at the same time:
Support for vertex and face mode is limited, but some modes work.
Future Updates:
-Loop selection algorithm improvements.
-Performance improvements to reduce slowdowns.
-Better vertex and face mode support
Smart Ring:
If two continuous edges or one edge is selected, the edge ring is going to be selected.
If two edges are selected, it's going to get the edge ring between them
If three edges are selected, and they have the same space between them a step selection will be made.
These modes work with multiple selections at the same time:
Support for vertex and face mode is limited, but some modes work.
Future Updates:
Ring selection algorithm improvements.
-Performance improvements to reduce slowdowns.
-Better vertex and face mode support
Quick FFD/Lattice
Simple, quick lattice tool that works with one hotkey.
Make a selection and run the tool. A lattice will be created and try to fit the selection. Only the selected area is affected by the lattice.
If you select the object and a lattice already exists the existing lattice will be selected.
If you select the lattice and run the script the lattice will be applied and the object will be selected. The original selection is selected.
Future Improvements:
Change FFD presets (3x3x3 and 4x4x4).
Better support for rotations.
Quick Radial Symmetry
Select an object and run the script a radial symmetry will be created using the object's pivot point as the center point.
Move the mouse to the left and the right the amount of iterations will increase and decrease.
Control + mouse movement to change the symmetry axis.
Select an object that already had radial symmetry to continue editing it.
Unhide the Symmetry Pivot and move it around to further modify the radial symmetry.
Quick Pivot
Centers the pivot on selection for vert, edge and face mode.
Works as well for object mode, centering the pivot on the object.
Quick Edit Pivot
Select an object and run the script, a helper will be made, you can move this helper to your desired pivot position.
If you select the object and run the script, but a helper already existed in the scene the helper will be selected.
Run the script again with the helper selected to move the pivot point of the object to the position of the helper. The helper will be deleted.
Quick Delete
If you select a vert the vert will be deleted with all the connected faces.
If you select an edge the edge will be dissolved.
If you select a border the border and the connected faces will be deleted.
If you select a face the face will be deleted.
If you select an object, the object will be deleted.
Quick Vert Mode
If you are in object mode it will switch to vert selection mode.
If you are in face or edge mode it will switch to vert mode.
If you are in vertex selection mode it will switch to object mode.
If the selected object is a curve, and you are in object mode it will switch to edit mode
If you are in the curve edit mode it will switch to object mode
Quick Edge Mode
If you are in object mode it will switch to edge selection mode.
If you are in vert or face mode it will switch to edge mode.
If you are in edge selection mode it will switch to object mode.
If the selected object is a curve, and you are in object mode it will switch to edit mode.
If you are in the curve edit mode it will switch to object mode.
Quick Face Mode
If you are in object mode it will switch to face selection mode.
If you are in vert or edge mode it will switch to face mode.
If you are in face selection mode it will switch to object mode.
If the selected object is a curve, and you are in object mode it will switch to edit mode.
If you are in the curve edit mode it will switch to object mode.
CS Bevel
If vert mode is selected it will execute the vertex chamfering tool.
If the edge mode it selected it will execute the edge bevel tool.
If the face mode is selected it will execute the extrude faces tool. This replicates 3ds Max face bevel behaviour.
CS Slide
Simple context sensitive slide:
- If you are in vert mode it will execute vert slide.
- If you are in edge mode it will execute edge slide.
Toggles on and off all the modifiers of the selected object.
Wireframe Toggle
Toggles the wireframe rendering on and off.
Wire Shaded Toggle
Toggles between the shaded and the wireframe mode.
Target Weld Toggle
Toggles between vert snap and auto merge on and off.
Recreates 3ds max target weld behaviour by activating the tool and moving the verts you want to merge to the vert you want to merge to.
UV Rotate 90 pos
Rotates the UV selection 90 degrees.
UV Rotate 90 neg
Rotates the UV selection -90 degrees
Replies
Is quad cap able to handle odd branching/winding shapes? I've seen a bunch of quad cap scripts before but they all only seemed to be very limited in the shapes they could handle.
Btw, big congrats on the release! From all the positive reviews on Gumroad seems its been quite successful too. I've been told before that Gumroad users almost never donate money for anything listed at $0 , but hopefully people aren't quite as stingy on there as I've been led to believe (since all your scripts are $0). You definitely deserve some nice side income for all these great tools you release.
Would be nice if quick pivot worked in object mode where if you had multiple objects selected, the tool would center the pivot to active selection.
also, what's a good key bind for the quick selections? I've been trying to use 1,2,3, but there are a lot of other things that use those binds and prevent me from going into the edit mode from object mode.
I'd also note, because it'd be intuitive for some, that you have to set keybinds for both edit and object mode, like for the quick selection tools. It may be helpful to have the keybinds be managed from the add-on window like MACHIN3 tools does, which would set both.
Trivia inservible: Justo habia bajado blender la semana pasada para empezar a aprender la app. Your scripts will be hella useful! Gracias Maxi.
Trivia mas inservible: Recuerdas cuando te hablaba desde Mexico? Ahora te hablo desde Polonia
Lots of cool stuff in there, thanks for creating this addon. I am testing out some of these features now. There are a few of these however, which I think are in Blender by default?
Pressing the J key does the same thing using the default keymap.
Pressing the F key does the same thing using the default keymap.
The same thing can be achieved in a single step using the built-in Grid Fill tool. By default I don't think it has a key binding though.
My intention is not to judge but perhaps save you time where features already exist so you don't need to maintain them yourself
Also : a huge thank you for releasing these as regular menu items in the side panel rather than forcing in a pie menu or built-in shortcuts. I certainly wish more Addon devs were doing the same !
Looking forward to trying all these.
joebount Thank you! I am looking into how to make an options pannel for the tools so theres some options on how some of the tools behave. I am planning to update the smart translate tool with a snap and a slow translation mode. A smart scale and rotate are coming as stated in the documentation.
musashidan Thanks man, I really appreciate the support and I hope you enjoy the tools!
Nominous Thanks a lot for the suggestions, I will look into posting in blenderartists, I have been checking out the site latelly and it seems like theres a really good community.
When it comes to the documentation I think you are totally right, for the next release I will update the documentation and maybe move it somewhere else as some people have been having issues accessing the google document. You also made very good points about tool names, the more intuitive tools can be to use the better!
When it comes to new tools vs built-in tools I think there might be a slight misunderstanding on whats the point of super smart create, the main idea behind the tool is to be able to lunch a lot of comonlly used tools based in the context the user is, so while there is a couple of new functions its mostlly about lunching already existing tools in an intuitive way using only one hotkey.
PolyHertz Thanks a lot! The quad cap I am using is the quad cap from blender, In future updates I will see what I can do to improove its behaivour as Its super interesting to learn how a tool like that would work.
Im actually very happy people are finding the plugins usefull as I developed them for myself and my workflow and decided to release them so other people could also take advantage of them in case they also found them usefull. So far the donations have been quite generous and Im pretty happy people decided to go off their way to donate, it makes me feel like the tools are being found usefull.
Deforges Thank you! I really like the suggestion to make the pivot work with multiple objects, its a very good idea! When it comes to key binds It really depends in your current setup. I use 1,2 and 3 myself but that depends in what you want to do, I have been thinking about making a radial menu for people who want to assign it to a single hotkey. One of the reasons why I didnt assign any hotkeys by default is so people can decide for themselves and to avoid conflict with other addons.
I am planning to make a menu to make assigning keys to the script more straigthforward, machin3 tools is a big inspiration.
Justo Jaja, thanks a lot man, I hope you find these usefull, blender has been incredible to work with so far and Im super happy I made the switch from Max to it. And big congrats on the new job! Im super happy to hear that
ant1fact Hey! Thanks a lot for letting me know about them, and please feel free to make any suggestion or critique that you want to, thats why I posed them here, so people can express their oppinions and give feedback so at the end of the day we all benefit from better tools
I am using a lot of tools included in blender so I dont have to reimplement things from scratch and I can focus on making intuitive tools to call them based in context and selections, reducing the number of hotkeys by packing a lot of tools into one key.
pior Im glad you find these usefull! As this is the first iteration of the tool Im using the default Grid Fill, but In the future I might be able to update it so it works better, or In the case the user has a plugin installed that handles grid fill in a better way than the default function that one can be called instead.
I wanted the user to be able to customize how they use the tools by himself, hotkeys and pie menus are very personal and depend a lot on the setup you have, so it felt more natural to have a pannel for them. In the future once I plan to have a menu in the preferences so the user can configure the tools from there so they are easier to setup.
thomasp Im glad you are finding them usefull!
Sticky selections in Max are a feature that I really miss and I have been looking into some solutions for it like storing the selections on vertex groups, Im not sure how much slower it will be on object with a lot of geo, but I think I might be able to do it that way. I have also been looking into a way to handle selection conversion similar to how Max does.
I think you will find super smart create very usefull, as it currently has this behivour implemented.
Constrain to Edge/Face can be somehow replaced by edge slide, I really mixx being able to scale and rotate while using constraints tho. Maybe in the future I can implement something similar, but right now I have no idea how to do it sadly.
Justo I will totally do!
I hope I didnt miss any message or question, but in case I did please let me know.
Also please keep the suggestions coming, if we keep sharing knoledge and feedback we will all end up with better tools in the end.
Have a great weekend!
Maxi's scripts that function in different modes, like for example QuickSelectionFace, upon being assigned a shortcut will normally be automatically visible in Preferences>Keymap under all the categories in which they have a function (in the case of QuickSelectionFace, the Object Mode and Mesh categories). However, for some reason this Smart Delete only is assigned under Mesh, and there is no mention of it in Object Mode, which means it has no use there.
So to solve this, simply create the shortcut yourself
For SmartDel I also advice doing the same for the Outliner category (which must be done manually for now anyways. I checked the code and if I'm interpreting correctly, there is no mention of the Outliner context mode, meaning it will not be added there by default).
I don't get the floating menu problem though Danny - you might have missed turning something off in the shortcut editor there. Just search by Key Binding and start disabling everything you see under X.
Also, +1 to the Make X/Y/Z Planar ideas haha, though I haven't explored Blender enough yet to see for myself if this can be done through other means just as easily. Cycling through subobject modes? Disgusting heretic!
I'm actually tempted to try it sometime I guess. For a few years now I've copied this old perna setup, but I suppose I could just press my subobjectKey twice instead of moving fingers to Alt/Ctrl/Alt each time...
Nominous The scaling to 0 sounds like a good idea!
Quast Thanks! Maybe at some point I will, but I agree with @Justo on this one, I personally think text and gifs is faster to read/ quicker to understand if the documentation is clear. So maybe I should rethink the documentation if its not clear enough.
I have been playing a bit with selection storing on the quick selection modes, I still need to polish some things and I would like to reorganize the code base/ implement the properties pannel before the next release, but heres a preview of the tool with sticky selections.
If anyone is interested, I copied Maxi's template and made a collapse script too, since I always had this feature in Alt+X in my other 3D apps.
It's not really a Context Sensitive like it says it is since it does the same thing for all 3 subobject modes, but the layout is there for anyone to change it for different modes and needs if they wish to.
I also do not dig how the Smart Delete script dissolves edges - I would rather have it delete the faces connected to that edge instead (it's called Delete, right?), so if anyone also had this gripe, you only need to change mvztools.py's line 429 from "bpy.ops.mesh.dissolve_edges()" to "bpy.ops.mesh.delete(type='EDGE')"
I'm absolutely in love with these scripts - they are easy to understand and to modify for every user's needs and preferences. Thanks again Maxi.
EDIT: The Smart Extrude is love. Now if only there was a way to extend its functionality so that it also worked with the Scale tool maybe...
@MACHIN3 Yes! The point of this tool is to implement a lot of the tools I used in Max like Pedros Super Smart Create and other context sensitive tools that I used to use to speed up my workflow
@Poly_Nut glad you enjoy them! I
@musashidan Thanks for letting me know! I am currently in the process of updating the tools and adding features as well as fixing some bugs. It might take quite some time as the restructuring is prooving to take more time than I expected, but it should make it way easier for me to add new things and fix things in the future. Let me know if you run into any more issues!
After the next version is released I will also put a link to the github for the project, so people can always try the new features inbetween stable releases.
I will post an update in here whenever I do the update.
Right now the plan is to seriouslly expand super smart create capabilities so you can even use it to create primitives and call more functions, so it turns into an operator to do most of the creation operations.
The Bsmax addon make wonder for the primitives objects just like in 3ds max and you can even move the parameters window.
I will do my best to fix any issues as soon as possible, but I wont be able to spend a lot of time on them until after vacations.
Highlights:
New menu
The menu was reorganized to provide a better user experience
Super Smart Create
If no object is selected, you will get the object creation pie.
If an object is selected and you are in object mode it will show the duplication pie, which allows you to duplicate or duplicate linked.
If in edge mode and no edges are selected it will call the loop cut tool
If in vert mode and no verts are selected it will call the cut tool
If in curve mode and two points are selected it will make a new point between them.
Selection:
New selection mode cycle modes that support sticky selections. There's also a version of selection mode cycle without sticky selection.
Uvs From Sharps:
-Applies seams from sharp edges and unwraps everything.
General:
-Updated to work with the 2.8 Release Candidate
-Code structure was reorganized.
-New menu structure
Super Smart Create:
-Some minor bug fixes
-Make an edge on a spline
-Add pie menu to create objects if nothing is selected
-If at least an object is selected the duplicate pie menu will be called
-If in vert mode and nothing selected execute the knife tool
-If in edge mode and no edge selected it will execute the loop cut tool
Quick Align:
-Now detects the object that is under the cursor
-Added option to copy rotation and scale, per axis
-Has a menu to edit the operation after it has been done
Smart Loop and Ring:
-Performance optimization, no longer stalls.
Quick Origin:
-Renamed from Quick Pivot to Quick Origin in the menu
Edit Origin:
-Renamed from Edit Pivot to Edit Origin in the menu
Quick Lattice:
-Quick FFD renamed to Quick Lattice in the menu
-Fixed bug that prevented lattice to be moved when used on a flat plane
Rebase Cylinder:
-Renamed from set cylindrical sides.
Sticky Selection Vert/Edge/Face:
-Has been implemented
-If in object mode it will toggle to edit mode and restore the last selection
-If in edit mode it will cycle through Vert/Edge/Face modes
Select mode cycle:
-Has been implemented
-If in object mode it will toggle to edit mode
-If in edit mode it will cycle through Vert/Edge/Face modes
Smart Delete
- If selected verts are only connected to 2 edges it will dissolve them
Transform mode cycle:
-Has been implemented
-It will cycle between Move/Rotate/Scale modes.
Must be in selection mode for it to work, I will do another version for active tools later.
Modifiers On/Off:
-Has been renamed from modifier toggle
-Now works from edit mode as well
Seams From Sharps:
-Applies seams from sharp edges.
Uvs From Sharps:
-Applies seams from sharp edges and unwraps everything.
Download link:
Since this is an experimental release, it will be available through github. The github link is where you will be able to get experimental features in the future as well.
I will update the gumroad link once I have more time to test everything and I make sure this version is stable.
https://github.com/maxivz/interactivetoolsblender
Sticky selections!! Modifier toggles! UVs from sharp edges! The man has delivered again! I actually had started modifying your scripts (invoking the cut and the bisect tool in the supersmartcreate tool for ex), but I suppose I will replace them and change anything I want. I take it that tools that are not mentioned in your log, specially smart extrude & smart translate, have seen no updates?
Also, if I install this add-on through Blender>Preferences>Addons>Install, will it automatically replace your old tools, or only certain files? If anyone could explain what happens in these scenarios technical-wise, I'd appreciate tremendously. I have modified these tools quite heavily and would like to know what should I expect to be replaced or not after the install.
Felices vacaciones
Edit: So on a fresh install, it seems to be working fine so far, I'll log its behaviour here...The one downside is that it seems to always display an error the first time any of the three sticky modes are executed:
This happens on every newly created object. I get it if it's because there are no previous selections, and it's a first-time-only error, but it'd be nice if this could be solved somehow.
@Justo thanks a lot for the reports! And absolutely continue to modify the tools to your liking. I'm trying to comment more and make them easier to customize to the users liking.
I will make sure to fix the bug, shouldn't be happening. Ill try to sneak in some time to fix it next week.
Thanks a lot for testing them guys! And please keep the feedback and ideas coming 😀
Using SuperSmartCreate with a group of vertices that belong to a loop (without any Ngons or anything that would trigger the tool to connect points) seems to do nothing, and with a group of edges that belong to a loop straight out throws an error (pic above). I think that in these cases, a useful thing would be to execute the LoopTools>GStretch function, or anything that would straighten the string of verts/edges. If verts turns out to be a bit complicated to do this behaviour, just doing this for edge mode would be good enough! I would code this in myself, but I have no idea how to write this conditional statement to look for edges belonging to a loop...
edit: comparing old and new versions, I see you've been working on the smart extrude & translate operators, though afaik, I cannot notice any differences in behavior. I'm curious - what has changed, if anything?
Hope that helps
Any suggestions for such tool are more than welcome
This is fast becoming my favourite Blender addon.
That said, now I have a few ideas for scripts of my own, so I'll probably be competing with you pretty soon (need to see how the API has changed since I last messed with it a few years ago). Look out for that