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.
Brilliant. I was just about to make a request for this -
So is an upcoming new feature to be able to place or snap the object origin to a selected element while in object edit mode?
I for one hope so, I have added an option in my Precision Drawing Tools (PDT) to set the object origin to the Cursor location in Edit Mode, the cursor can be positioned in all manner of ways already, like to a selected vertex, or select geometry beforehand, using either Blender or PDT tools:
The Tool Origin to Cursor does this, but does not move the geometry relative to World Space.
Cheers, Clock.
The Problem you’ll have many different systems, in Object Mode you can move the origin with just a hotkey while other modes you’ll have to use the 3D cursor with Gizmos to pivot. and the Sculpt mode will probably need a new temp Pivot Point with Gizmos to change it so you’ll end up with inconsistent system that users have to learn to use each differently, when it can just be one click button for the 3D gizmos and works in all modes.
@John1, Hi John, I’m not sure, if you think I might disagree, then you got me wrong. I fully agree with you, these cases should have a control scheme that works in a in a similar way. And I am fully with you that the direct control proposal fits everywhere and is in all 3 cases straightforward to implement. It’s the best solution for that and implementing it is a must for me. It’s faster in its workflow and it is in a row with almost every other complex 3d app out there.
I have to think of one of brechts arguments in the “workshopping middle mouse emulation” thread.
He wrote here: Workshopping Middle Mouse Emulation
It’s a different topic and to be clear with that, his statement was not meant to relate to this discussion at all and I don’t know what he thinks about this. But that direct control is a defacto standard in so many apps out there. And beside the fact that I think that it’s in this case also the superior solution, its last but not least the expected way to do this. I find that argument very fitting here as well.
Even more, it serves the goal to make blender more mainstream in how its used. That’s benefitial, the more people adopt it, the brighter blenders future is.
But if someone wants to setup the 3dcursor to setup pivot points in edit mode, why not. The 3dcursor is a helper tool, and with a good new gizmo not a bad one, it could do that too, not as fast, but it could. Some people out there will think of that like William and Alberto, and will want to do that with the 3dcursor.
So why not, it just should no longer be mandatory for such usecases.
It could very well be an optional alternative if someone insists on using the 3dcursor for that, or thinks its the better solution in a special usecase.
I don’t see the 3dcursor fit well into the sculpting workflow, so I’d restrict it as it is now edit mode and object mode.
I said it before, the 3dcursor is like what a ruler is for drawing, its a helpful tool. But noone would want to be forced to use it all the time while drawing.
But we all are just repeating ourselves. It’s time to hear what the devs think about this, I still fear we will just get an update with a 3dcursor gizmo and thats it. So please could someone gives us feedback on how its seen by the devs. Otherwise this discussion will endlessly go in circles.
Hello, this is the best thing since ever, finally moving the origin. I used a script for years until 2.79, now finally coming into blender 2.81. Please see my concept and i would be very pleased if you make an Origin-mode , like inside normal or edit mode, see the gif attached. My old Pivot Mode works very well, please transform this into 2.8. Why not putting the button inline with the horizontal or vertical ones? Why should i open ->Options->Affects only ->Origin. Just please make one button for the origin/pivot mode(press -> start origin-mode than G ->move , than press again ->apply) and we are done. They put so much stuff in Blender now, but you cannot move the origin, that is not ok.
The pivot-mode addon should work like: PivotMode
Here is the add-on for 2.79 so you can see how it works: PivotMode Add-on
My reply was this:
Yes some people did not agree. But my impression is most people prefer a direct control method and a certain constant minority would like to be able to get it done with a new mode for the 3dcursor.
What would be the most work to implement, would for sure be to add both methods . With just a single option to control it, i guess it would be more work to embed such functionality it with the 3dcursor, but anyow it’s possible, the direct and the 3dcursor method wouldn’t really interfere. I’ve suggested that as a compromise and it seems that has not been criticized any more.
To be clear here most if not all agree that the direct control is the faster one and many of us think about it as being a must. It could be kept very similar to the edit origin only mode.
A direct control would be a modifier key that’s been hold to affect the pivot itself by the gizmo and not let the pivot/gizmo affect the geometry. ( can be seen here )
and or a bool toggle included within the gizmo itself as can be seen here:
I wrote some lines about a solution including both methods:
For completeness 3dcursor proposals can be found here: ( Some more changes would be neccessary to the gizmo to clamp pivot and cursor together)
and some early thoughts by me:
I listed some of the inherent drawbacks of a 3dcursor solution here:
John1 mentioned correctly that the direct control ist the only one that really fits object mode, edit mode, and sculpt mode, so this should be the favored option, that most of us think of that implementing it is a must