I agree! I have already implemented this, called Pivot Point, in my PDT Add-on, it can be used currently to Rotate and Scale geometry, given the myriad of ways to move geometry already, both in Blender and PDT. It also works in Object mode and a position for this Pivot Point can also be stored in each object’s data and recalled at any time, using the PP Write and PP Read buttons:
Cheers, Clock. 
Iby / clockmender What you guys are talking is something else entirely and not related to this topic.
The point of this thread is to be able to directly transform the pivot using the gizmo itself, as shown many times already, nothing more nothing less, no 3d cursor involved whatsoever. Just the same way it works in all 3D softwares out there.
Iby was who created the thread, probably knows the topic of the thread
it doesn’t matter. This is an entirely new topic he’s starting.
Then ask the moderator to separate the bit that offends you into another thread… I thought my comments were relevant to what @Iby had asked.
If you guys are going to make a 3d Cursor with Gizmos then what about Sculpt Mode? You have to enable it there too and even make it as an Active Tool the Problem here there is already Transform Tools with an operator to change the pivot and also Expand Mask that sets Pivot for Unmasked areas, this leads to a slow Workflow instead of just this.
As far as I can see, everything can be done with 3d cursor, although some improvements for precision positioning and speeding up 3d cursor usage would be welcomed.
For example, I want my 3d cursor to snap to a center of a face that is not parallel to any global or local axis, inheriting its rotation as well, and then I want to slide 3d cursor 1m along the face surface in the direction of one of its axes, and 0.5m along the other axis. And then I want to save resulting local offset of 3d cursor to apply it later with another initial align point.
I don’t think its the correct question to ask if the 3dcursor CAN do it, rather should it do it. This thread has been openened to talk about and ask for direct access to modify pivot points and how it could be implemented to be as fast as possible. Transforming parts of a mesh is an essential and important part of modeling. Frequent changing modes of a cursor increases the steps needed to complete a task. And the more the 3dcursor gets embedded in the workflow of tools, the more the workflow will slow down. Sure can the 3dcursor do all that. We could even use it for the knife tool and place the cursor at every step along the cut and then let the knife snap to the 3dcursor, but for good reason it has been implemented with a direct control and I really hope that will not change. I know that many people here like the concept of a 3dcursor and in several usecases I am one of them. But it’s per definition indirect. And so the overhead needed gets worse with the number of different tools that use it. And if the blender team would use it for everything, the complete workflow would be some kind of turtle graphics resemblence, where every command would be surrounded by 3dcursor modeswitch and positioning commands. The 3dcursor is no bad concept in general, it has some nifty aspects to it. It just doesn’t scale that well and it should be used just when its the better option. Perhaps it would even be better if it were divided in more than one cursor to ease its drawbacks.
Oh wow I’ll try your addon @clockmender, Thank you for taking the time to make the addon. I really appreciate it. Where can i download your Addon? Forgive me but I don’t think there is a link you provided in this thread or i probably missed seeing it.
@Regnas it is relevant. From what I understand from Bill’s comment earlier. The Pivot doesn’t really have a ‘point’ (Which is a bit silly, why is it called a Pivot ‘Point’). Think of the Gizmo/Pivot as a being that doesn’t know where to be, unless, you give it a point in space to go to like the active element or 3d cursor etc.
What I was suggesting earlier was an invisible, always following unless pressed abutton, adds in that ‘point’, A variable/point in space (which is what a 3D Cursor is) except without the involvement of a 3D Cursor. It’s giving you the illusion that you are directly transforming the gizmo like in Maya, Modo etc. Which, if you think about it (and correct me if I’m wrong), is what’s happening under the hood in Modo, Maya etc.
I almost forgot that we have the sculpt mode too, as pointed out by John1, and it has transform tools now, in 2.81.
So yeah, this is the only possible solution, and it will solve all those issues at once.
Yes I am with @Iby. Nothings wrong with other opinions, it’s part of a discussion that different views exist and get articulated. And yeah, why not make the feature set of the 3dcursor more advanced and compelling. Let people control the pivot point with it dynamically and make that it can evaluate formulas multiple times, give it handles, add storage slots for 3dcursor locations and orientations, many things could be done and make the 3dcursor a really cool workhorse.
But don’t make it mandatory to use. It’s a versatile helper like a ruler is for a pencil.
Especially in character modeling, organic approaches, assetmodeling for gamdev and film/animation, for work that also makes intense use of other blender parts like sculpting, texturing, rigging and animation, the direct way to control the pivot is faster. It’s not about cloning other tools, nothing’s wrong with including some common controls. This could be supported with a clever optional 3dcursor implementation that can be activated on demand. But the 3dcursor should NOT be the only tool at hand for things like that.
@Iby. Just for clarification. What @billrey wanted to describe is that the there is no other custom tweakable pivot point gizmo right now. That’s to date all done with the 3dcursor and no other gizmo exists to control it. But every transformation representation has implicitly a pivot, even if it falls together with the origin of the vertices being transformed. Then that just means the values have to be transformed first to make the pivot and the origin the same. But in fact that’s not important at all, its just part of the transforming operation then.
Important is for blender and for any other major 3d software out there, the concept of a pivot point that can be different from the origin exists.
His argumentation was just there to eliminate misunderstandings about a potential misinterpretation that another thing than the 3dcursor will set that right now and if I get him right he personally prefers to keep it like that. But in short, for sure a separate dedicated gizmo for that could be added. ( Edit: i mean a separate gizmo for the pivot point, not just one for the 3dcursor, but thats on the way too)
Yes. The ability to transform the 3D Cursor using gizmos is very important. It’s in the list of high priority items related to gizmos:
I really don’t know what you want.
The solution for the direct pivot transformation was already showed here several times on this topic with gifs and whatnot. I don’t understand why you keep talking about the 3d cursor.
Doing stuff with the 3d cursor is not what people want. It doesn’t matter if gizmos are added to the 3d cursor, it will never be the direct transform we are requesting. The 3d cursor is good for certain things but not for this.
We should focus on the proper implementation of this feature and stop talking about the 3d cursor, really.
@ThinkingPolygons: I’d wish you’ve read more carefully, your post is needless as you simply got it completely wrong. Yes my impression is too that most of us including me tend to prefer a direct control. But as some continously disagree and as it doesn’t really matter to have an additional control type in form of the 3dcursor. I wanted to show that both controls can coexist. And so I wrote down some lines how this could look and how and when the 3dcursor could be used in the future as its related the change we are asking for.
The truth is both solutions don’t interfere. If there is a direct manipulation via a gizmo lock or a modifier key etc, there is no problem if those people that are used to or prefer to use a 3dcursor to have an option to tweak it with the 3dcursor that way too. You would not do that, I would not do that. We’d use the direct option. I haven’t changed my opinion and am still asking for the same thing you want. I talked about a “non mandatory” usage of the 3dcursor for this case and other similar things like that in the future. To make the 3dcursor a “tool” or a helper and nothing else. That progress has started already as the 3dcursor is in fact an activateable tool. But I’m still asking for that direct solution. There isn’t more to it. I’m not familiar with blenders code and I am sure the 2.8 changes are keeping them still quite busy, but I can hardly believe that such a direct option would be that much work to implement. Especially not since it’s already there for origin manipulation. But I think Blender is sticking to the 3dcursor as it has been a main feature in the past.
It says:
Transform gizmos for 3D Cursor tool should be visible by default
What does that mean, always visible even when we use Object’s Gizmos or only when u switch snapping mode to 3D Cursor?
william, have been the old grease pencil behavior dropped? That a tool is only active when the user press a key. Give to the user the option to use in the tools that he wants could be a good feature for this. Or this is only something that must be implemented in each tool?
Hi @billrey. Yes that change is highly appreciated. But do you get our point on this? I asked @ideasman42 some days ago the same question. I think it’s not that a big thing to allow direct control on the pivot. Now is there a chance for that? Many good statements have been brought up and I am sure we’d all would be there to help flesh it out. You have a very engaged community here, that most times argues based on valuable experience. I think this deserves to think about what has been proposed and give us some valid official feedback on it, otherwise this discussion won’t really make any more nameable progress I think.
