Some minor bugs to fix, still planning on landing before 4.3
Will be removing “Set Pivot Position” operator in favor of “View 3D Cursor 3D”
There are plenty more improvements we can make for the 3D cursor in general, but we want to get this current implementation out for feedback, especially since the current state of the sculpt pivot has many issues.
Hans has seen some feedback indicating that gizmo control would be a nice idea, but that’s a general feature that we can add to be used in all the modes that use the 3D cursor.
Julien brought up the possibility of adding the 3D cursor into the toolbar for the options it provides (e.g. Orientation type).
There was some minor discussion about undo support for the 3D cursor, Julien plans on talking to other people at the studio about this.
Discussion on if Geodesic distances is something we want to explore at this point
While this is a nice to have, and would help both performance and accuracy issues across brushes and tools in Sculpt mode, it is less well defined than the above two issues & unlilkely to be prioritized right now.
Julien plans to look through the open issues & project board to see if there are any other things that could use attention.
Good First Issues
Inspired by the modeling Module, it’s probably a good idea for us to brainstorm some issues that could be tagged as such, since there haven’t been many new entries lately.
A general reminder to potentially tag items with the label, no other immediate actions for this topic.
Discussion shifted to the general concept of the “Front Faces Only” setting for the gesture tools and brushes.
View Normal automasking is sort of doing the same thing with additional options, we should investigate whether we want to replace the other settings with this feature.
There was a consensus on the naming for this and other automasking settings to be improved & made more obvious what the effect is.
The implementation of this has some technical hurdles to get over, but is feasible to achieve.
There was discussion about if we want to limit the automasking settings that interact with the gesture tools.
It was brought up that the filter tools already interact with the automasking settings and don’t limit options.
Julien mentioned that the automasking settings already have a convenient keybind as Alt-A to bring up the pie menu.
Why this readiness, when the feedback you have is that there are obvious issues with design ?
3D cursor is not a persistent position. It will be moved in other modes, for other objects.
3D cursor is moved the same way as previous sculpt pivot in this implementation.
3D Cursor being forced is also source of bugs to solve. There is no option to change pivot in Sculpt mode. It could be forced without visible changes in UI, without involving 3D Cursor ; user would just notice a resolution of bugs.
So, the 3 goals of design task are not reached. Why not trying to redefine it, instead of pushing this ?
In all other modes, 3D Cursor is a visual indicator, a position, an orientation (free of use), easy to define. That is the user who decides if he uses it or not, and how he uses it.
That is not a concept obvious to new users.
Here, you are forcing it to be just a pivot, in sculpt mode. That will not help them to dissipate that confusion, between those different concepts ; that are 3D Cursor and pivot.
If the issue is the storing of positions, we need tools to quckly and easily to store positions. That is not a problem limited to sculpt mode. That concerns manual modelling, animating process. Availability of same tools for Edit mode and Object mode and Pose mode will be welcomed.
If the issue is positioning of pivot, 3D Cursor could help because of its snapping options, its dragging. But that does not require to intertwine them. Sculpt pivot point may directly have same ways to be repositioned or temporarily updated at 3D Cursor position.
If the issue is visibility of sculpt pivot point ; it could have its own overlay, named as is, not confused with 3D Cursor.
Just a note here about the Pivot PR and next steps with it, there’s been a fair amount of discussion on the PR about the downsides of how it currently operates, so the changes will not be landing in 4.3. The rough plan right now is to add gizmo functionality to the 3D cursor before we pull this change in. One of the main areas of concern raised in the PR is the following line, brought up by @torrent
One of the big issues seems to be the fact that you lose the sculpt pivot position every time you use the 3d cursor in other modes. And I gotta say, this is pretty bad indeed.
What we’re looking for to help with moving further on this design is an answer to the following question: What part of your workflow when using transform tools & the pivot as it currently exist requires the separation of position between Sculpt mode and other modes? Feel free to respond either here or in the original design task.
yeah, you can read the stuff on BA, but the general outcome is pretty simple
The 3d cursor and the sculpt pivot should remain separate.
So whatever happens to the 3d cursor, if it gets a gizmo or not, it’s irrelevant to the sculpt pivot. This will just be a general 3d cursor improvement not related to sculpt mode.
The sculpt pivot will continue to work as always. What needs to be added is a way to transform the pivot in the same way we transform the origin in object mode. So it’s not tied to any tool.
Also while we are in “transform pivot mode”, the usual transformation shortcuts that used to be done with the 3d cursor, like shift right click to snap to a surface etc, should be possible to do with the pivot as well.
Additionally, there is the desire to have the sculpt pivot stored per object. That would be very beneficial as well.
Is there are target for the Paint and Texture aspect of the Sculpt, Paint, and Texture Module? I mean do we have a project that is on the horizon other than just the brush assets?
