Bevel Improvements

[So3Datel]

HooglyBoogly said:
" I’ll explain the logic of how I organized the bevel UI, because I’m not convinced by all the changes you’re suggesting.

First, Offset Type is right below Offset Value (which is at the top of course) because that way it doesn’t need a title. It also makes sense to put the control for what a value means right next to the value itself.

Second, all of the check-boxes appear below that for a couple reasons.

1. A few important settings are there: Only Vertices , Harden Normals , Clamp Overlap . These are some of the options I see people using the most.
2. To break up the big block of gray that we get if we put all of the slider / number properties at the top. This is just a visual thing but I think it’s important.
3. All the check-boxes are together because I don’t think there are enough of them to justify moving them to two different sections. When you’re looking for “some check-box,” it’s useful to know they are all in the same place.

Third comes the other most commonly used options, except for maybe Limit Method , which comes later because it’s an expanded enum which needs a title.

Last are all of the other options, which aren’t used as much, and the order is a little arbitrary. I would venture to say Face Strength Mode is the least used option, so that could probably come at the bottom, but I put Custom Profile at the bottom because it expands the panel, and that’s weird if it happens in the middle.

In the future, with constant radius bevel, the Custom Profile check-box will turn into a Profile Type enum. When that happens Face Strength Mode should probably move to the bottom.

Limit Method could probably be moved above Miter Type , because it’s used quite a lot."

My original Proposal is here https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/Dpfbbc/

• You split the most commonly used settings into two parts. This Offset Value, Segments and Profile.
  This is obvious to those who often use this modifier.This is the most inconvenient place in this modifier.
  Profile is not a commonly used feature, but it makes sense to keep them all together.
• Harder Normals and Face Strenght Mode also splited, but must be together because they work together.
  By the way Harder Normals requires activation “Auto Smooth” checkbox in Object Data Properties.
  It might be nice to duplicate the Auto Smooth settings in this modifier when clicked Harder Normals? And make it possible to hide or show these settings?
  The same goes for other modifier who need Auto Smoothing activation. What do you think?
• The interface should provide quick access to frequently used functions, be convenient and understandable. But this one looks divided and not organized. I use this modifier every day and it is inconvenient.

I tried to analyze what steps would need to be done with the standard way of creating a bevel.

1. First:
   Offset value
   Segments
   Profile
   these three points are the embodiment of the bevel, they must be the very first and be together.
2. Second. Where bevel should be? On all geometry, on corners, on weight, on vertex groups?
3. Third, how it should work? Everything else here.

I suggested several options for the interface, I personally really like #3.

Here I was guided by 3 principles:

1. Lift all frequently used functions up and combine
2. Combine functions by similar types
3. Combine functions that do the same job.

But this is based only on my personal experience.

I will try to summarize

• Bevel Size
• Segments
• Profile
• Limit Method
  All this takes 90 percent of the interaction with this modifier, in most cases (imho).
  They should not be separated and scattered across the interface.

[So3Datel]

This part looks cool.

[So3Datel]

Howard_Trickey, what do you think about this?

Bevel Modifier. UI Fix. — Right-Click Select

[Howard_Trickey]

I agree that there are a lot of options for Bevel right now, and it can be overwhelming and confusing. I kept resisting adding new options to Bevel to avoid this happening, but user clamor eventually overcame that resistance in at least some cases.

I am not strongly attached to any particular UI. I am not a UI expert. Maybe @billrey has a stronger opinion on this. Or @HooglyBoogly who is the most recent one to try to bring some order to the Bevel UI.

I honestly have a hard time seeing a substantial improvement in any of your options, to be honest. I think it all depends on how often people change which options. For instance, you’ve moved the “Loop slide” toggle way down, and maybe some people use that all the time. And you didn’t move the Material Slot, which I suspect not many people use or even know what it means. I have more sympathy for the idea that some options might be better hidden behind an “Advanced” tab. The scientific way to do this would be to gather usage statistics, but we are not set up to do that.

[So3Datel]

With Advanced

[Howard_Trickey]

I agree that the things you put in Advanced seem “advanced”. But wonder about some other things like Face Strength Mode, Miter Type, and some of the checkboxes, like Mark Seams, Mark Sharp, and Harden Normals.

I guess there’s a question of whether “Advanced” means “harder to understand the meaning of” or “less likely to be used”. I’m not sure what users would want here. The former would be better if we were trying to make this more friendly to beginning users; the latter if we were trying to make it more efficient to use for frequent users of Blender.

[Hadriscus]

Offset type is literally the thing I use most often… also agree the UI of bevel is heavy but it’s a complex modifier, after all.

[So3Datel]

All that I will say now will sound very rude, please excuse me, but this is very funny from the point of view of the user (me personally).
Blender developers very easily change the interface for the worse, without asking anyone, and not caring about the pipeline and user experience. But when the time comes to fix the interface, they have insurmountable difficulties with this. They do not consider it necessary to make even small corrections, because this will not make the interface ideal, because the paradigm, because the API, because…fk!!!. Users deeply dont care about all this. Even small improvements mean VERY much to them, because they do business with this a hundred times a day. And these small improvements save users a HUGE amount of time and effort.
If you are reading this, please do not take it personally, this is not a hate and no offense at you, I’m just a very rude dude.
The developers are awesome guys, I really love them
But this situation is very funny.

I am not saying that my proposal is the only correct proposal, and there cannot be others. No, this proposal is only one person, with the experience of only one person.

[Howard_Trickey]

I do take feedback from Users seriously. I am happy to change the interface if users feel it would be an improvement. The problem here is “users” is plural. You want this change, two other people want this change. What about the hundreds of thousands of other Blender users? How do I know that if I change this, I won’t find ten times as many users hate it as love it? The response just now from Hadriscus is a perfect example: you and I might feel that “Offset Type” is rarely changed and therefore should be moved down or hidden by default. And then we may have found that the majority of users are like Hadriscus and hate the change. So we would go flopping back and forth from change to change, based on the usage pattern of only a few users voting.

Again, this is not to say I don’t care about what users want, or care about how easy or hard the UI is to use. It is just to say that finding the right UI is an art and a science, and I feel I need more of a consensus before changing things. An argument against changing things is that muscle memory sets in after a while and users maybe don’t care where a particular option is so much as it just staying in the place that their muscles remember.

[So3Datel]

You’re absolutely right. Absolutely.
That’s why I tried to analyze what steps would need to be done with the standard way of creating a bevel.

1. First:
   Offset value
   Segments
   Profile
   these three points are the embodiment of the bevel, they must be the very first and be together.

2. Second. Where bevel should be? On all geometry, on corners, on weight, on vertex groups?

3. Third, how it should work? Everything else here.

It seems to me this is the most common procedure for creating a bevel. Of course, there are other tasks, a different sequence of actions. But this, it seems to me, should be the most common, or not, this is just an proposal.

[lsscpp]

@So3Datel & @Howard_Trickey
I think you both are right. Personally I find myself very comfortable with last comment way of thinking

@So3Datel

• First:
  Offset value
  Segments
  Profile
  these three points are the embodiment of the bevel, they must be the very first and be together.
• Second. Where bevel should be? On all geometry, on corners, on weight, on vertex groups?
• Third, how it should work? Everything else here.

[HooglyBoogly]

This conversation really should be in the Bevel Improvements thread, not the 2018 GSoC thread, but oh well.

I’ll explain the logic of how I organized the bevel UI, because I’m not convinced by all the changes you’re suggesting.

First, Offset Type is right below Offset Value (which is at the top of course) because that way it doesn’t need a title. It also makes sense to put the control for what a value means right next to the value itself.

Second, all of the check-boxes appear below that for a couple reasons.

1. A few important settings are there: Only Vertices, Harden Normals, Clamp Overlap. These are some of the options I see people using the most.
2. To break up the big block of gray that we get if we put all of the slider / number properties at the top. This is just a visual thing but I think it’s important.
3. All the check-boxes are together because I don’t think there are enough of them to justify moving them to two different sections. When you’re looking for “some check-box,” it’s useful to know they are all in the same place.

Third comes the other most commonly used options, except for maybe Limit Method, which comes later because it’s an expanded enum which needs a title.

Last are all of the other options, which aren’t used as much, and the order is a little arbitrary. I would venture to say Face Strength Mode is the least used option, so that could probably come at the bottom, but I put Custom Profile at the bottom because it expands the panel, and that’s weird if it happens in the middle.

In the future, with constant radius bevel, the Custom Profile check-box will turn into a Profile Type enum. When that happens Face Strength Mode should probably move to the bottom.

Limit Method could probably be moved above Miter Type, because it’s used quite a lot.

[So3Datel]

I tried to find the best thread for this, and chose the wrong one
I will continue the dialogue here Bevel Improvements

[MetinSeven]

Moved part of the GSoC 2018 Bevel Improvements thread to this one, by request of @HooglyBoogly.

Hi @Howard_Trickey! Have a nice weekend everyone.

[Zuorion]

I wanna also point out that:
-Limit/facestreng/interseection/offset are expanded and mitter type is selectable list - why?
-custom profile is linked to profile (when custom profile i checked regular profile should be disabled
same thing with grid/cutoff type and miter types
-responsive design is a thing in blender now

and plan ahead: if there will be bevel modifier UI redesign, planned/considered features could be also included in planning
like @HooglyBoogly is planning with method dropdown eg. decoupling limit offset from limit method / global offset/end mitter/inset/merge etc.

–

@Howard_Trickey

I kept resisting adding new options to Bevel to avoid this happening

new options, ergo new features? Yes please do. UI can be panelized if there will be too many options
if have option to chose 1) new user had to for 5 min read bevel options or 2) user had to spend 5min on fixing issues every-time he uses bevel. I would definitely chose second option.

BTW why is bevel modal blocking viewport navigation?

[HooglyBoogly]

@Zuorion

Limit/facestreng/interseection/offset are expanded and mitter type is selectable list - why?

Because it would lead to an overload of expanded enums, and I think takes up more space:

@Zuorion

custom profile is linked to profile (when custom profile i checked regular profile should be disabled
same thing with grid/cutoff type and miter types

The profile slider still influences the profile of the miters when custom profile is on, so I didn’t get rid of it, but that might not be worth it. Feedback would be helpful there.

@Zuorion

if there will be bevel modifier UI redesign, planned/considered features could be also included in planning

Yep! Exactly what I’m planning with the constant radius mode when I finally figure out how to fix it.

[Way]

Better / most used default settings would be nice too. Default limit method to angle, miter type - arc , turn off “loop slide”. No one is gonna use modifier to bevel the whole object, sharp miter is pretty much useless now.

[Kranos]

is there any chance we get something like the Inset function of new 3ds Max Bevel (chamfer) modifier.

[So3Datel]

I made a new concept

[Alberto]

I like the use of menus to reduce the number of actual buttons in the modifiwe. And put all the main controls in first place.