GSoC 2021: Curve Improvements: Feedback

Both features sound great! I was just wondering if there are any plans to make the bevel feature as both a destructive editing tool and a modifier (similar to the bevel modifier for meshes)? If you are planning a modifier/node option it would be useful if you could include something similar to the bevel weights for meshes.

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like this?

Doesn’t help, but, I usually use Adobe Illustrator, to clean up/covert images to a vector image, mostly automatically, then I export as SVG into Blender and works really well.

If something like that was more built into blender / automated, besides the grease pencil thing, that would be awesome.

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Oh, I didn’t know that grease pencil feature, thanks for sharing. I’d rather do the tracing manually anyway, I don’t rely much on automatic bitmap to vector conversion.

So I was simply referring to an intuitive, simpler and less tedious way to manually draw/trace curves (Silhouettes/contours with reference images for example).

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Thanks!
Not at the moment. The thing is, I believe something like bevel weights would require a change in the underlying implementation of curves. It’s something that’s being worked on at the moment so this might be something to consider. But eventually, I don’t see why not :-). Thanks for the comment!

Do you consider to implement adaptive resolution on curves? There’s nothing worse than deleting all those unecessary loops on straight spline after convertng curve to mesh.

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We looked into it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem computationally practical to implement it with the current implementation of curves (at least as far as I understand it). The curves data structures are currently undergoing an overhaul and it’s quite likely that features like this would be possible when it’s done.

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Hello,
Will there be a way to box select each point instead of clicking the point itself?

Hi. Yes, the usual shortcut of B to box select and C to circle select should work.

ohh great good to know!

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What’s the latest idea on removing a control point? I hope the standard Alt+Click will go forward.

And for this feature, here’s one very important topic. Right now removing a point does it the dumb way. It keeps the handles of the surrounding points unchanged and doesn’t try to get the same curvature as it had with the now removed point.

So there’s a dire need for smart delete - the reverse method of how you now add points. (I mean the reverse of the one you just made)
It needs to change the length of the inner handles of the surrounding control points - trying to match the curvature it had before as good as possible.

I bought a pricey Illustrator plugin which can do this just because Illustrator doesn’t have this feature natively. It’s that important.

Do you think that’s doable?

It could be an extra feature reachable by Alt+Shift+Click for example.
Or it could be the default too.

I believe Alt+click is not used within Blender because Alt is used for “Emulate 3 button mouse”. Delete point is currently set to Ctrl+click.

The main problem with smart delete for bezier curves is that it would be impossible to get a perfect representation because we’re losing data. Even if we try to get a representation as close as possible, it could very easily look nothing like what it initially was.

The other problem is that it would be a change in the underlying way in which Blender handles the deletion of curve vertices so I feel like it would be out of scope for this GSoC project.

Don’t get me wrong, I could see how useful it could be, at least for Bezier curves that aren’t too complicated and can be represented with fewer vertices. But I feel like it doesn’t work on enough cases for it to be default behavior. Maybe as an extra feature like you suggested. Either way, I think it’s something that could use some discussion. Thanks for the suggestion!

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Sorry if I’ve missed it being mentioned but will this allow for bevelling curve points (like this)?

Yes, the curve fillet node would work similarly :slight_smile: . However, as a start (and possibly, for the summer), I would be focusing on producing a circular arc (the handle moving part in the video). Once that’s ready, I’ll be looking into making the superellipse like shape (the Numpad +/- part in the video; Not sure if it’ll be exactly the same but something similar :slight_smile: ).

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That’s great to hear! I often want to quickly bevel a few curve points and being able to do it directly from edit mode is awesome :smiley:

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Sorry if it’s a bit too late to change this, and I don’t know if this is possible to have with Blender’s
keymap, but I have a few suggestions for the keybinds so they are more like vector drawing software.

Ctrl + Click selects a point.
The Delete key deletes selected points.
Clicking on a point other than the end point, or the start point deletes it.
Clicking anywhere along the path creates a new point.
Clicking the start point closes the path.

(Usually Shift + clicking would create a new path, and Alt + clicking would edit the points symmetrically, but I know the latter wouldn’t fit Blender’s keymap)

Anyhow, I think the work you’ve done so far is amazing, and I’m very happy to be able to have it in Blender soon!

I wouldn’t say it’s too late but the current key binds were decided after a fair bit of discussion and since it was agreed upon, it wouldn’t make much sense to change it. Not unless the majority prefers what you mentioned. Besides, I think some of these would conflict with other functionalities of the same tool like the ability to click and drag to move a point. I do feel that the current key binds are fairly intuitive (I might be biased, of course :slight_smile: ) so hopefully it wouldn’t be too difficult to get used to it.

Either way, thanks for the comment and the kind words! Glad you like it :slight_smile:

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Amazing…

Is snapping supported?

Knot sliding (like mesh vertex slide - gg shortcut) with snap would be really useful.

Great enhancement for curve editing. Thank you.

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Thank you!

Not at the moment, unfortunately. Might be a good improvement to make to the tool at some point.

Right. I doubt I’ll have time after within the GSoC period but might be something to look into afterwards.
Thanks for the comment!

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Hi Dilith,
I am so happy that you tackle this topic :slight_smile:
wonderful to see the Curves getting some love in Blender !

I totally agree with wilBr, that a major thing missing for curves is snapping!
-and in addition, making the shrinkwrap Modifier also accept Curves as targets!

I cannot stress enough how important that actually is, to make the Curves inside Blender an
actual usefull tool for the future !!!

Hi Jimmy. Thanks!

I see. There was a suggestion to implement snapping onto the curve edges instead of just the vertices, earlier in the thread but that improvement didn’t really fit into the tool. I do feel that the existing snapping implementation for curves should be included in this tool at some point (which I’m assuming is what @wilBr suggested).

I haven’t used the Shrinkwrap modifier but the Blender (2.93) manual says that it works for curves. Is that what you had in mind?