GSoC 2021: Knife Tool Improvements: Feedback

Why does the knife tool have its own keymap for midpoint snapping instead of just using the global snapping options?

I have 2 FRs

  • Being able to snap to the underlying object vertices in the face’s local space. See the video below, the knife could snap to vertices of the torus that is underneath. This is very important for creating precise shapes and cutouts.

  • Bisect tool like cutting and fill ability with the Knife tool.

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Midpoint snapping for the knife tool is something that was added long before I started on this project so I’m not sure of the decision behind it. I am not the most familar with using global snapping options either, however I’ll take a look into them. Would you be able to clarify how you would expect to do midpoint snapping using global snapping options?

From my understanding of the knife tool I believe your first idea would be very complex to integrate with the current code. Currently, the knife tool is entirely reliant on the existence of a singular face which the mouse is currently hovering over. It uses this face for the majority of calculations and data it needs. This is also the reason it is not so easy to add the ability to create edges without a face using the tool (presuming this is what you mean by fill ability).

It may be possible to raycast and retrieve multiple faces specifically in the case of edge and vertex snapping and implement what you propose. If I do decide to take a look into this it will be not for a while.

As for bisect tool ability, for the time being I am going to focus on the project proposal and some feature requests. Perhaps further down the line a design proposal could be made for merging the knife and bisect tools.

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yes … almost 2022, but the knife in the blender still cannot snap to vertex and edges through polygons… very sad. Something Ton Roosendaal stopped paying attention to the development of modeling (

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I quote from your weekly report from above a video…
At the end of this particular clip the cut happened on the first object you hovered over, not the last didn’t it?

BTW I think it should cut through all objects which are in edit mode.
Just cut through everything if everything or none is selected and cut through specific objects if those are selected.
(same could be true if it’s multiple meshes in a single object - I’m not sure how you handle that currently)

This could be less confusing than your current “last hovered over” method which could potentially lead to annoying UX.

Keep up the awesome work, it’s soo good to see these and I can hardly wait for the edge removal option you plan for next week. (especially if it can deal with removing a plane’s diagonal edge without deleting the end vertices of that diagonal)

Hi.
I think we should resolve to leave the “D” key free to be used in the future as a shortcut to enter “Distance” values (or any other feature related to Distance), regardless of whether you have not implemented the feature. I think it is preferable to make the change before your project is included in Master, so that users do not get used to using “D” key for something that could later change (“S” key would be my choice for “[S] how Measurements ”as I had mentioned before)
Thanks.

Yes, I will move distance and angle meaurements to ‘S’. I had started working on distance snapping at the start of last week but discovered it would be more challenging than I thought and resolved to finish multi-object edit mode first to keep on schedule.

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As far as I can see it is functioning correctly in that clip. Each time I make a cut I hover over an object beforehand to select that object.

I realise this definitely makes for annoying UX and will spend some time this week trying to create a better working implementation. Preferrably, I would like it to cut the object closest to the mouse as the cut is being created but I was unable to find a way to do this last week.

I would prefer if it worked this way as well and am sad I was unable to make it do so. Please read this comment for my explanation as to why I couldn’t.

Thank you, I’m excited myself to see at least some of these changes in master in the future. As for edge removal mode, I think we may have different ideas about how it will work. Check out my original proposal for what I mean:

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it’s already in Blender, called “Dissolve Selection” or “Dissolve Edge” or “Limited Dissolve”

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Can the ring cut tool add an option to cut N-(more than 4 variable faces) like c4d

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It’s not related to the Knife tool.
Take a look on ARMORED Connect script it can handle N-gons in some cases

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Thank you, I just came from c4d Blender, the previous thinking is still affecting me

Hi @HobbesOS !

Just checked Knife Tool Branch and it is amazing!
Even undo and panning are working :exploding_head:
Would be also nice to still have ability for panning with [middle mouse + alt] to snap to views!

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Thanks!

I note that panning with snap to views didn’t work on the knife tool even before my changes. I will try fixing it.

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Do you mean something like polycross?

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I’ve read the Knife Tool Improvements thread each week and now I could finally try it out! :smiley:

After having done so I’ve got some feedback:

  1. Why doesn’t angle constraint work with existing edges? Makes it really hard to make 90° cuts
  1. Would be great with options to enable “Local Angle Constraint” and “Distance/Angle Measurements” by default as its how I’d use the tool 90% of the time and having to click “A” twice every single time I use the tool gets annoying

  2. Enable the user to change angle constraint more than once while in the tool (unless its already a thing that I missed). I really appreciate that I can just type in 22.5 if I need that snapping but then I have to cycle through snapping to be able to change that if I mistype or need a different number.

  3. Holding “Ctrl” to temporarily enable (or disable if the option to start with it enabled is implemented) angle constraint, this would match how similar tools work in other software (and seems more useful imho than the current “ignore snapping”).

  4. Use alternative edge for angle feature, in the provided picture I’d really like to be able to snap 90° from the “receiving edge” so that I can be parallel with the side. I know I can press “Z” in this specific instance but that’s not always an option.

  5. Better support for alternative navigation keybinds, I personally use “Alt+LMB” instead of MMB (as repeated MMB use hurts my hand) and I know “Emulate 3 button mouse” exists but unfortunately enabling that option messes with certain addons that have pie-menus with alt-click functionality.
    I see the option to rebind “Panning” in the “Knife Tool Modal Map” but I cant find rotation or zoom.

List turned out a bit longer than I had intended and I hope it doesnt sound negative, the new knife cut is a lot better than the current one but with a few tweaks I think it can be even better! :smiley:

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We are using RMB for pan viewport.
(This moves the whole viewport navigation to mouse and is compatible with pen tablet)

Yeah, something like that!

Well, technicaly it is possible to reach only edges section (precise face section will not be available anyway), but it will be similar to bisect tool with snaps.
Probably, it will be more reasonable to enhance bisect tool to snapping ability.