Interface suggestion

[e.m.hobo]

I think it would be nice if you could select points and edges with the right mouse button that stay fixed and with the left mouse button the ones that you want to manipulate. The way it is now I seem to have to pull forward first and pull others back in place? Maybe I’m missing something, I don't know.

In terms of the interface, I think it would be easier if in the main screen you have a button on the top right that opens the menu that you get when you now right click. When you’ve selected an object or points or edges, if you have a button in the bottom right for properties, that might be interesting also. If you have a menu and properties button, that opens up the range of your mouse buttons for manipulations.

I don't know whether this is already possible, but it might be interesting:

Say you start with a sphere with few polygons… Can you imagine you manipulate that and then based on continuous differentials you through the properties-menu can raise the number of polygons? That way you can draw at a low polygon resolution first and raise the number of polygons for the final product? If it’s about large surface areas that greatly reduces your processing time during initial image manipulation.

And how about a split button? It could allow you to split edges, polygons, maybe even duplicate them when you split a point?

[micheus]

I think it would be nice if you could select points and edges with the right mouse button that stay fixed and with the left mouse button the ones that you want to manipulate. The way it is now I seem to have to pull forward first and pull others back in place? Maybe I’m missing something, I don't know.

For the long time I've follow Wings3D, I think I can say this mouse button behaviour will never change.

It's not clear your difficulty here. You can select the vertices you want by clicking on them, using the marquee selection | remove from selection by clicking back on it or using CTRL + marquee selection. If a vertex is behind other element you have the option to move the camera to access it.

The actions like move/scale/rotate are all made via context menus (Right Mouse Button - RMB).
But, if you want more flexibility and less precision you can enable the Tweak mode which you can select elements and bind operations like move/move normal/slide/scale/scale normal/relax to any mouse button or to a combo of key modifiers + mouse button.

For everything you can do at a moment on Wings3D you should pay attention to the Information line - it will guide you.


Different of some other 3D apps, you cannot create a vertex alone or create two and connect them to create a edge. An edge also doesn't exists alone.

Say you start with a sphere with few polygons… Can you imagine you manipulate that and then based on continuous differentials you through the properties-menu can raise the number of polygons? That way you can draw at a low polygon resolution first and raise the number of polygons for the final product? If it’s about large surface areas that greatly reduces your processing time during initial image manipulation.

This is ok for parametric modelling, when the primitives information are kept intact and everything else is done with the use of modifiers on top of it. (non-destructive modelling)
That's not how Wings3D works. We start from primitives we can set parameters to create it, but after we click on OK it becomes a mesh. (destructive modelling)

And how about a split button? It could allow you to split edges, polygons, maybe even duplicate them when you split a point?

As I said before, vertices and edges don't exist alone.
For polygons it's possible to "split" them - after you select them just use the Extract command.


I believe mostly of your doubts and suggestions are going to coming from you to be learning Wings3D from Blender tutorials. That may not work well.

[e.m.hobo]

Okay. Thank you for your replies. These comments don’t come from Blender tutorials. I was merely suggesting it as to me it would greatly benefit the efficiency of the design process.

What I mean is that if I have a sphere and select and pull on a node, I also pull all nodes behind it on the same side of the sphere, stretching their vertices to variable degrees. I’m not just pulling on that one node.

If I select multiple nodes I pull them all forward in one go with the same amount retaining the shape, which I feel is really nice. All the vertices and nodes behind it do stretch.

I would like for me to be able to select which nodes do stretch behind the ones I’m pulling, and which ones stay fixed in place.

Essentially I want to be able to pull on the nose without pulling the rest of the face forward also.

[micheus]

It gets confuse when you mix vertices and nodes. Sometimes nodes seems to mean vertex, but maybe not. Anyway, we only have Vertex, Edges, Faces and Body in Wings3D.

If I select multiple nodes I pull them all forward in one go with the same amount retaining the shape, which I feel is really nice. All the vertices and nodes behind it do stretch.

I think you still didn't take a look at Tweak that I suggested as option to be used in previous post. Its a tool that offers a lot of advantage. You can lock vertices for instance.

This is a ten years old post I did and I think you could take a look on it to check two videos that show how you flexible these extra tools (Tweak and Sculpt) can be. Maybe they are something that can help you.

In this old video you can see Konrado3D modelling Jabba by using Tweak with Magnet mode activated (the blue sphere). He also uses hotkeys intensely, so we don't menus popping up all the time on screen:


The use of hotkeys as I mentioned before can also speed up the process once you are used to. In the help menu there is information about how to set them. For the ones in Tweak mode, it's slight different because it's more dynamic - check the information line when you are in that mode.