While not a blender expert, I have been using blender for a little bit. I heavily rely upon using the little 3d arrow manipulator to make lots of quick adjustments while constraining my actions to the x, y, or z axis.

Just today when I opened Blender, I found that the 3D manipulator was visible, but completely unresponsive to my actions.

So far, I've tried to get it to work by:

-- Toggling between local, global, gimble, view, and normal options (to no effect)

-- Trying the scale and rotate options for the 3D manipulator, in addition to the translate option (to no effect)

-- Upgrading from Blender 2.61 to Blender 2.63

-- A complete uninstall then reinstall of Blender (to no effect)

-- Remapping the input for the 3D manipulator in the user preferences to different combinations of keys or mouse clicks (that didn't work either)

-- Messing with new blend files (that didn't work either)

-- lowering the graphics settings for Blender


None of these things has allowed me to interact with the 3D manipulator, which I can see, but I can't interact with. I'm very frustrated at this point.

Prior to this point, I haven't messed with any of the settings in blender, other than reducing the number of redo steps several months ago.

The most recent change to my computer in the last couple of days was installing three Windows security update for Windows 7 64-bit professional. The updates are Security Update KB2718523, KB2719985, and KB2691442. I also upgraded AMD Catalyst Control Center to version 12.6. That's it.

Can someone please help me please? I don't have the steadiest of hands, and using the little 3D manipulator arrows is so much easier and cleaner than hitting the grab key, then very carefully trying not to wiggle the mouse as you hit either x, y, or z, and then clicking to set it before you do it on the next axis. I would really love my manipulator back.

Hi,

my first guess is that new graphics dirivers you have installed broke 3d graphics manipulator. Tray reinstalling old drivers.

I don't know how blender internaly work but if it is using "color picking" for selecting 3d manipulator it is likely that opengl glReadPixels returns wrong color for matching picked object under mouse.
If blender detects 3d manipulator with ray-tracing then i have no clue.
Did you notice any other similar problem after graphics driver update?

No other problems so far. I'll try to see if there is yet another update that fixes this for Catalyst before trying to roll back the drivers. I'm a little nervous about trying to roll back Catalyst due to the bug where an improper Catalyst uninstall leaves future installs crippled and unable to finish.

Hi,

I've the same problem with the 3D manipulator. I've reinstall old drivers but the manipulator is still broken. Can someone please help us solve this problem please?

Thanks

Graphics driver is the first thing to suspect. Do you have Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) turned on?

stiv wrote:

Graphics driver is the first thing to suspect. Do you have Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) turned on?

Should I?


I've also updated my drivers again to no avail. Still have issues.


I'll try to change the anti-aliasing settings next time I go into Blender and post if there are any changes.

At least it's a suggestion that I haven't thought of.

Having FSAA turned on messes up the Z buffer which affects picking and selections. Off is usually better.

stiv wrote:

Having FSAA turned on messes up the Z buffer which affects picking and selections. Off is usually better.

I will most definitely try that and post if it helps. Thank you so much for the suggestion!

Hi all!

I did have also the same problem to the manipulator. This problem is appeard with the new final release 2.64a of Blender (r51232).
I changed my driver settings and the problem is solved. My system: Win7 Ultimate 64bit, AMD Radeon HD 5700 Series graphics card (1GB) with CCC v12.8.

These Catalyst Control Center Settings are working:
#1 Smoothvision HD is set to program control (in german it's called "Anwendungseinstellungen verwenden")
#2 Anti-Aliasing-Mode is set to multi-sampling-AA
Be sure to restart Blender after changing the settings!

That's all. I do not have this problem anymore.

I tested the newest built (r52304) which also failed.

So, this was my first post to the blender forum. Hopefully with useful information (in the case of understanding a German like me... of course)

cu