As part of a general code cleanup plan, the transformation tools were rewritten to allow a more easily expendable structure.
This allowed us to fix and enhance Blender's transformation system in ways that would have been impossible or very hard to do before.
At the start of the recoding phase, an interactive version of the To Sphere tool, working both in Edit Mode (on all data types) and in Object Mode, was adding as a new Transformation. While this is not terribly useful, it can most likely be used to get surprising artistic results.
It can be accessed through the menus or with the hotkey Ctrl-Shift-S.
Here's a demo of the tool in action (flash video)
Later, the Push/Pull transformation was added. What this transformation does is simple: it is a bit like scaling, except that every element is moved the same distance toward or away from the center. The distance they move is controlled by moving the mouse toward you (pull away from center) or away from you (push toward center).
It can be accessed through the menus or with the hotkey Shift-P.
Here's a demo of the tool in action (flash video)
The transformation constraints are back, but instead of just having single axis constraints (X,Y,Z), you can now use planar constraints (or, as I like to call them, Locking Constraints): Along the X.Y plane (locking the Z axis in place), along the X.Z plane (locking Y) and along the Y.Z plane (locking X).
Locking axis can be done by hitting Shift and the axis key (X,Y,Z).
Choosing axis interactively with the middle mouse button has been recoded too, using a screen based approach, meaning you always get the closer axis as it appear to you on screen. As before, you can just MMB click to choose and axis or use the new method by holding the button down to pop the axis and a helper line on screen, drag the mouse and release until you have selected the axis you want.
The Shift modifier can also be used to choose Locking constraints with MMB.
Smart projection code has been added to constraining behavior, so you always transform where you want it to go, without too much hassle.
As part of the rewrite, numerical input (typing values instead of using mouse input) was greatly improved in a lot of small yet useful ways:
- Works with all the transformations
- Better integration with constraints
- Cleaner and clearer output to the screen
- Input is much less error prone
This results in making numerical input more useful than it was before.
With the new improved modular approach, the proportional editing tool can now work correctly with all the different transformations and with transformation constraints.
It has also been optimised to make the transformations only work on elements which are in the area of effects, making PET much faster on bigger meshes.
Another nice addition is that falloff modes can now be changed on the fly, during the actual transformation.
The proportionnal editing code was fixed to correctly calculate distance to each element, instead of approximating it using a bounding box.
This makes it possible to create landscapes easily, to modify different parts of a mesh at once and to generally be more predictable.
Refactoring Transform also gave us the opportunity to add new falloff modes for the Proportionnal Editing Mode. They are: Sphere, Root, Linear and Constant (no falloff).
This video shows the new falloff modes, with tutorial-like instructions in french and english (written instructions).
We had very little time to push the boundaries of the new proportional editing code, but you can expect good surprises in future releases, geared even more toward total user control and flexibility.
Proportional Editing Mode now also supports geometry connection detection.
This means it only affects vertices which are in the are of effect and connected with the selected vertex.
This new option works on meshes and on 2D curves (althouth the 2D curves implementation doesn't take hidden CVs into account correctly).
Hotkey: ALT+O
Some of the transformations have had behavior changes to make them more userfriendly, that includes:
Trackball rotate: press Rkey twice. This was previously available as a MMB click switch, which now - more consistantly - provides constraint axes.
Creasing: Works like a clamped scaling now. Move toward center to reduce the creasing, move away to make it stronger.
Shrink/Fatten: Works like the new Push/Pull. Move the mouse toward you (fatten) or away from you (shrink). This means that the range is no longer limited negative, as it was before.
Todo
The pivot option "around individual objects" now defaults to "around median" in editmode. This will become "around individual centers" in edit mode later, detecting connected groups of faces/edges/vertices and transform each group with its own center.