Drag enhancement
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 From:  PaQ
3629.1 
Hi Michael,

Ok this one is quite hard to explain with my limited english.

I really love how easy is the selection + move object in MoI, it's so easy that I never really use the move tool in fact.

The only problem happends when there are lot of objects/elements (curves, surfaces, solids) in a scene ... I carrefully select the elements I want to move, but when I start to drag, I
accidently select an unwanted elements (often a construction curve) , the result is that I lost my selection, and I move something I don't want to move.

of course on solution is to swtich to the move tool ...

but what about some kind of click and don't release mouse detection, that will temporary look the selection even if the mouse is over an unselected element when you start to drag it.

... here's a little example :


Here's a couple of objets


And here my selection


Now if I touch any of this curves here when I start to click+drag, I will lost my selection and only drag one of this curve (and there are not many left place to make a safe drag and move).

But if the click 'and don't release' is take into account, it will move only the selection, without loosing it, whatever if the click is made over one this dangerous zone.

I don't know if it makes sence, and if it does, there are maybe tons of good reasons why it's not working like that actually.

++

EDITED: 3 Dec 2015 by PAQ

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 From:  3DKiwi
3629.2 In reply to 3629.1 
Must admit this happens to me as well. I'm getting into the habit of having the browser open and locking types and or styles that I don't want to select.

However I quite like the idea of a hotkey that when pressed stops other objects being selected but allows you to move. There's probably a simple script fix for this.

Nigel
Homepages: 3dkiwi.co.nz & C4D Cafe
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 From:  Michael Gibson
3629.3 In reply to 3629.1 
Hi PaQ - so what you are running into there is actually an intentional feature, where if you drag on an unselected object it becomes the isolated single selected object and the drag only applies to it.

The reason for that is to avoid the need to do an extra deselection step when you want to tweak objects.

Here I'll explain it in some detail - say you have a curve like this and you want to tweak some of its control points:



You can move your mouse to one of the control points like this:



And then press down and drag it to move it, like this:



Note that the control point became selected as part of that process.

Now say you want to tweak a different control point - you can now move the mouse over to this other one here:




And you can press down and drag it to move it as well, like this:




So note that when you dragged the second control point, the selection shifted - the previous control point was deselected and the unselected one that you dragged on became the only selection.


From what you were describing, it sounds like you would not want that second control point to become selected when you drag on it. But that would have the bad side effect of forcing you to do 2 additional clicks before the drag - first you would need to do 1 click to deselect everything, then an additional click to select that other control point, before you could then finally drag on that second point to adjust it.

Those additional clicks would really interfere with this kind of simple tweaking process.


I guess it could be possible to add in some kind of special setting in the moi.ini file that would make it behave like you are describing, but it would be a pretty bad system for control point editing or for editing just simple arrangements of objects as well, so I'm not sure that you would really want that.


Any other ideas on how to improve things without causing those bad side effects of so many more clicks required for the tweaking process as shown above?

- Michael

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 From:  Michael Gibson
3629.4 In reply to 3629.2 
Hi Nigel,

> However I quite like the idea of a hotkey that when
> pressed stops other objects being selected but allows
> you to move. There's probably a simple script fix for this.

You could set up a shortcut key for the Move command to do this.

Then when you push that key it will trigger the Move command - that command allows you to move objects by picking a base point and a target point, and when you click the base point it does not do any of the "tweak enabling" selection processing that dragging does as described above.

- Michael
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 From:  Frenchy Pilou (PILOU)
3629.5 
@PaQ
Put your "lines" + "objects" in a special color ;) (even temporary)
Then use browser" (by color) for select it ;)
You can now move any all the lines + objects without problem
(first click on lines or objects ;)

Or name it temporary before the move ;)

EDITED: 21 Jun 2010 by PILOU

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 From:  PaQ
3629.6 In reply to 3629.5 
Hi Pilou,

Sure there are many workaround or method to actually manage the 'problem', it's just me and my laziness :)

Hi Michael,

That's indeed a good point, I didn't think about this curve point edition.
But my suggestion was to 'keep safe' the selection if the click + drag appends anywhere over the actual object selection.

If I click+drag over a element oustide my selection, the actual behaviour is just fine, so point curve edition is not a problem at all ... well ... at first sight.
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 From:  Michael Gibson
3629.7 In reply to 3629.6 
Hi PaQ,

> But my suggestion was to 'keep safe' the selection if the
> click + drag appends anywhere over the actual object
> selection.

It actually does do that mostly - for example draw 2 circles apart from one another. Now select them both, then after they are both selected drag on one of them - notice that your selection is not modified because you dragged on an already selected object.

But I say "mostly" because there is an exception and maybe that is what is causing the problem for you.

When determining which object to target with the mouse, there is a scan done first to see if there are any unselected curves within a tighter radius (half of the regular selection radius) of the mouse. If there are, then the closest one of those unselected curves is targeted which creates a kind of preference for targeting unselected curves in denser areas.

That helps in some situations to kind of screen out curves that you have already selected, because if you click on an already selected curve it will deselect it, so it is possible for already selected curves to kind of get in your way when you are trying to build up a selection.


That mechanism is something I could disable, it could make some kinds of "click to select" things a bit harder but probably help with your dragging problem.

- Michael
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 From:  FiL (FILIPPOL)
3629.8 In reply to 3629.7 
Hi Michael,
I've a similar problem.
Sometime I need to create one or more clones of a object. I copy the base object and then paste it in the new place. After I've created it, I need to move it, rotate it....but it's on or between other objects that I can't hide or lock. So, I need a tool where, after the clonig operation, the selection shifts from the base object to the clone. Does exist it? Or it will be possible?

kind regards

FiL
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 From:  Michael Gibson
3629.9 In reply to 3629.8 
Hi Fil, if you use Copy and paste (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V), to make your duplicate object, the selection is actually set to the newly pasted in stuff. So you can for example run the Move or rotate commands after pasting and they will work on that newly pasted in object.

It's also possible to set up a keyboard shortcut that will select the objects that were created by the last command that was run. To do that, go to Options > Shortcut keys, and add in a new entry. For the key put whatever you want to trigger it, and for the command part, paste in the follow script:

script:var a = moi.command.lastCommandRevisionStart; var b = moi.command.lastCommandRevisionEnd; var objects = moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects(); for ( var i = 0; i < objects.length; ++i ) { var obj = objects.item(i); if ( obj.databaseRevision> a && obj.databaseRevision <= b ) obj.selected = true; }

- Michael
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 From:  FiL (FILIPPOL)
3629.10 In reply to 3629.9 
Thank Michael

so fast...

FiL
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 From:  Marc (TELLIER)
3629.11 In reply to 3629.10 
Hi,

I don't use the drag feature often for the reason paq mentioned, a profile curve or something else gets selected.
Only when it's certain there's nothing else in the way, otherwise I nudge or move.

Maybe this selection shift could work for the control points only?

Marc
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 From:  vodkamartini
3629.12 
I definitely recommend using a move transform hotkey. My workflow seems to be the exact opposite of yours, in that I rarely use the "tweaking" method except when moving around CVs like Michael showed. I simply bind all the transform commands to the W, E, R hotkeys typically found in most poly modelling applications. I find it's just as fast to do things this way, plus you get the benefit of construction lines, etc.
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 From:  FiL (FILIPPOL)
3629.13 In reply to 3629.11 
Hi, Marc

>Maybe this selection shift could work for the control points only?

So do I. I use this way only for points, but for moving the lines and the objects I lock the selection with the tool Move (more help-points and precision).

FiL
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 From:  Michael Gibson
3629.14 In reply to 3629.13 
That selection shift when dragging on unselected objects can be pretty useful for arranging simple objects other than control points.

For example here it comes into play when just dragging these lines to snap them together:




That's just doing 2 drags, no other keystrokes or clicks are needed. That's what is enabled by shifting the selection when dragging on an unselected object.

If that was removed, then this simple sequence above of just dragging some lines to snap on to other things would require an additional click in between in order to clear the selection.

- Michael
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 From:  FiL (FILIPPOL)
3629.15 In reply to 3629.14 
Yes, but I normally use 70-100 objects in a drawing ... all in 15-20 sq. mm ...
Only the early steps of work I use your method that is truly good. I recognize it.

FiL
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 From:  Michael Gibson
3629.16 In reply to 3629.15 
Hi FiL, well with a complex model with 70-100 objects you can still temporarily simplify that by hiding other objects so that you only have a few visible on the screen to work with. Then the simple mechanisms can still be applied.

One quick way to hide other objects it to select the few that you are interested in, and then right-click on the Edit > Hide button. That will do an "Isolate" of those selected objects and make them the only ones showing. When you are done working on them right-click again on the Hide button to restore back to the pre-Isolate state.

It's pretty important to try and hide things that are getting in your way earlier in your workflow rather than wasting too much time struggling with a cluttered screen.

Of course in some situations you may be trying to work on a bunch of things at once, but the more that you can break things down into simple things at a time really helps.

- Michael
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 From:  FiL (FILIPPOL)
3629.17 In reply to 3629.16 
Hi Michael, I' m agree with you in this concept. Even if the necessity to place 3 or 4 selected objects on all the other objects is very fondamental.
It's not only a calculated placement according with tecnical parametres, but there is the design also. The job is to develop beautiful objects (overview) and in the same time it's to be bounded from hard tecnical parametres ( sometime with a tollerance of 0,05 mm). Often I'm forced to draw between a web of costruction lines because this way is faster than a continous hide-show-hide-show...
Now with the tool "Lock" all is simpler than before. Better would be a lock that keeps the chosen color ... maybe less intense.

I use a lot of the groupment of objects in order to obtain a clean work.

> but the more that you can break things down into simple things at a time really helps

Is not possible insert a object in more groups now? I could simplify even further my drawing.
Remove whole sections work from the screen. Sections far from where I'm working.

I hope you understand my not very good English.

FiL
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 From:  Michael Gibson
3629.18 In reply to 3629.17 
Hi FiL,

> Better would be a lock that keeps the chosen color ... maybe less intense.

You can set it up like that if you want, the option for it is here:



Uncheck that to make locked objects keep their regular colors.



> Is not possible insert a object in more groups now? I could
> simplify even further my drawing.
> Remove whole sections work from the screen. Sections far
> from where I'm working.

You can assign objects a name, and then use the Scene browser to turn them on or off as a set.

Please see this previous post:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3607.2

- Michael

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 From:  FiL (FILIPPOL)
3629.19 In reply to 3629.18 
Hi Michael,

>You can assign objects a name, and then use the Scene browser to turn them on or off as a set.

Ok. I can insert a object inside a group by the name and the same object inside another group by the color...
Thank

FiL
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 From:  Marc (TELLIER)
3629.20 In reply to 3629.14 
Hi Vodkamartini, Yes I use keyboard shortcut for transform all the time. :-)

Hi Michael, it makes much sense the way you describe it.

Maybe pressing shift while dragging could preserve the existing selection?

Marc
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