Yes, gizmos for modifiers would be very useful. I’ve thought of this too. However, the current UI and system doesn’t support this, at least yet.
There are also some UI problems to solve here, chiefly:
These kinds of things would need to be solved before we could add gizmos to modifiers.
Maybe it could work exactly like active tools, there could be a button on each modifier, when you click it turns on the Gizmo for this modifier, and if you click on another one, its gizmo appears, and if you click on an active tool from the tool bar, this one shows up ?
Right, switching between active modifiers makes sense. But currently, there’s always an active tool enabled. There’s no concept of no tool being active. So, if you have the Move tool active, for example, what happens when you enable a modifier gizmo?
Maybe it could be that the modifers are a kind of tool - i.e. if you enable a modifier gizmo, all active tools are disabled, and dragging in the viewport now affects the modifier.
Or it could also be that modifier gizmos always override whatever tool you have enabled. So, even if you have the Move tool active, if you then enable a gizmo for a modifier, the Move gizmo goes away and is replaced by the modifier gizmo, until you disable the modifier gizmo and you see the Move tool gizmo again.
Yes that was exactly what I thought about, it would be the cleanest way to do it IMO 
The only thing is then, what if you disable your modifier gizmo - what tool does it switch back to? Whichever one you had enabled before?
But in that case what would happen if you have a modifier tool active, and you click in the tool bar ? the modifier tool would be disabled ? But doesn’t do the same the other way around, maybe it is a bit confusing ?
Yes the last tool probably, or, it really works like a tool, and the only way to turn it off is to click on another tool.
Edit : Or maybe we could have a tool in the toolbar like “use modifier tool”, but maybe it’s a bit too much
Right, that’s probably the simplest, conceptually. Only one modifier can be enabled at a time, and it acts as a separate tool. To switch to a ‘normal’ tool, just enable it in the toolbar. Something like that.
Wouldn’t most operations you would perform on the gizmo be move, rotate, and scale? What downsides are there if when you enable the modifier gizmo, it appears in the viewport almost like an empty and then you use the existing active tools to modify it? It would be a temporary object that only appears when the gizmo is enabled.
I could see this working one of two ways in the interface:
If a temporary gizmo object appears in the viewport but not in the outliner when the gizmo is activated. It behaves like an empty that is a child of the modified object. A dashed line connects it to the modified object. This could maybe even allow multiple gozmos to be displayed at the same time, so for instance you can move the Origin gizmos for two Simple Deform modifiers at the same time.
The gizmo object is not temporary, but normally hidden (until enabled with a button in the modifer) and appears in the 3d view AND the outliner. It would appear as if it were a child of the modifier in the outliner.
It seems like this approach would work well for simple cases where all you are interested in changing with the gizmo are location, rotation and scale, but it may open up the ability to work with more complex gizmos like a lattice gizmo for the lattice modifier. It would be difficult if not impossible to control with a single active tool mode because there are operations that happen at the object and the edit level. On the object level you’re adjusting location, roatation, scale, interpolation method, and number of divisions. On the edit level, you’re adjusting individual lattice points. That would be a lot of functionality to make fit into a single active tool.
This could potentially be a more cumbersome approach if, for instance you need to hide all active gizmos, but it could be more powerful, too. I’m not sure.
Gizmos are not objects. They are part of a tool, or in this case a modifier. They do not appear in the Outliner.
I imagine that you would enable the gizmos per modifier, meaning that if a certain modifier needs you to manipulate two points, then those two points would be editable.
Right. I guess what I’m calling a gizmo is really a temporary control object that is generated when you need to change modifier parameters and goes away when you don’t need it. It is modified with active tools, but has no real tool functionality built into it.
I was just thinking of the various modifiers and what it would take to make gizmos that work for all of the parameters you have to change or all of the properties they use from their control objects. Normally the list is pretty short. Bevel could be a drag in the interface to set the bevel size just like the bevel tool or operator. SubDiv could be just a number field that’s adjusted. Screw modifier would mimic the spin modifier. These are all simple. Any modifier that allows you to select an outside object as an axis, origin, mapping source etc. could use something similar to the transform tool. UV Project would be great like the image empty and maybe even have a few other built in empty types with predefined UVs - things like boxes, cylinders, spheres. Lattice though? This is the one that doesn’t cleanly fit into the gizmo only approach.
No, I really don’t think we should be adding or removing temporary objects in the scene just to adjust modifiers. The Outliner is for viewing your data, not tools or UI items. That is also entirely pointless, when we have a gizmo system to solve that exact problem.
Gizmos already are, in essence, a handle in the viewport for modifying something spatially. It’s not an actual object in your scene.
The modifiers could have custom gizmos, yes, but not temporary objects.
No, I understand and mostly agree with you. My main point of the last message was that having to use outside objects at all could almost be eliminated altogether with a gizmo system. The only exception that I could come up with at the moment was Lattice. Now I’ll add another obvious one: Armature.
Hi,
I have two points to bring to the table:
1.
Couldn’t we get the verts, face, etc information found in the status bar to the viewport and add it to the Text Info Overlay?
That way, people who already know the commands can get more workarea, the information is more at eye level and the user doesn’t have to remove the eyes from the viewport.
2.
In my opinion, a user in the edit mode of Object_1 should be able to “shift + click” Object_2 in the Outliner (maybe even viewport if it doesn’t interfere with anything else), and add Object_2 to edit mode alongside Object_1.
The selected object would be the last selected with mouse click, and toggle the object edit mode with “shift + click” and give focus to the last focused object that is still in edit
This way, users won’t have to switch to object mode, select the intended objects and enter edit mode again. This could also work really well with grease pencil draw mode as you wouldn’t have to leave draw mode to draw on another object.
Also:
The buton (next to the shading options in the viewport), which acts as an x-ray toggle, could have better name/description for linking to the x-ray shading option. In my opinion, it should be described as “Toggle X-Ray” instead of “Show whole scene transparent”. It would avoid the immediate confusion of the difference between the button and x-ray option in the shading options.
In Grease pencil workspace on Blender 2.8, Viewport Navigation Icons are not visible in the default white background.
Known issue (at least already mentioned in the icons thread).
The new icons, they don’t have outlines, so stuff like this will always happen unfortunately.
But that’s not the only issue. I don’t know if you noticed but all the Viewport Navigation Gizmos don’t work when you are in Grease Pencil’s Draw mode.
Just wondering why it so? May be someone explain that i miss something…
If you try align 3d cursor when activated transform - cursor align only in “view” mode, while when in “cursor mode” all aligns mode works - i mean if i activate in “cursor mode” “align to geometry” i think blender must remember my choice and with “transform mode” must place 3d cursor aligned with selected mode “geometry” for example
Yes it’s a known issue. This will be fixed.
Is something like this planned for managing collection visibility and masking in Render Layers (at least as a placeholder)?
Right now is quite frustrating to manage this from the outliner, and it’s also impossible to see which collections are in holdout or indirect only mode without accessing the RBM menu for each one of them.
I would not mind if for collection were to develop a similar but evolved grid to the old style of the old layers … many historical users would be enthusiastic about it
Will be Wireframe on some shortcut? It’s pain to open dialog everytime.
