[Plugin][$] Vertex Tools

pbacot

Lock would be similar to Artisan crease (I often wonder why "crease both vertices and edges" is not the default choice) because the perimeter of the shape is often defined and doesn't want to be moved while you adjust the rest. Only VT would have to remember the locked vertices as you work. I often have difficulty closing two terrain shapes smoothly. I might use the edges of one to begin a new one, however it is often good to prevent change along that shared edge.

thomthom

@optimaforever said:

@thomthom said:

Yea, it would be doable to create a mode where two vertices define the gizmo orientation. Could infer orientation from the surface normal as well.

But what would you do with only two vertices selected?

move the vertices along the axis, scale their relative position, etc.
I've been doing a lot of terrains recently, and I needed this feature OFTEN, mainly to adjust vertices after creating them.

But you modify more than two vertices, right?
I'm just wondering how you determine what two vertices (edge) to orient to when there's more selected.

optimaforever

that’why I said to use the last two selected vertices when selecting more than two.

thomthom

So you are picking vertices one by one? Not by selection drags?

optimaforever

@thomthom said:

So you are picking vertices one by one? Not by selection drags?

it depends in my needs of course.
when I draw a turning road, I usually start with 2 vertices matching the road’s width, ctrl-move them with vertextools (or extrude them along a vector), and then rotate/scale the copied vertices with vertextool’s gizmo, ctrl-move them again, etc. until I end up sketching the whole curb, and them come back to some segments to adjust them more precisely. I usually work in top view, no perspective (cad way) to make the vertices match the dwg blueprint underneath.

so, yes, sometimes I select vertices with a marquee, sometimes I use QFT’s loop and parallel edges selections, it depends on what I need. but it’s mainly when I need to make small adjustments that the gizmo orientation issue is tricky.

By the way, is it possible to move the vertice freely in a xy plane instead of just along x or y axis (of the gizmo)?
In 3dsmax UI, if you click on the small square formed by the gizmo xy axis, you can freely move the vertice in the xy plane. (ditto for the xz and yz planes btw). I guess this could be a solution to simplify the workflow with vertextools.
Of course I know that you can move the vertices freely with the move mode but it annoys me to always have to switch between select and move mode to be able to move the vertice freely. I think eventually move and rotate mode should disappear if the gizmo of the select mode was more practical, because I feel they’re redundant.

I like the move mode when no vertices are preselected (with the small white circle when you hover over a vertice). Yet I dunno why, but after several moves, I can’t get rid of a selection (after the move, the vertices remain selected), and need to switch back to select mode to deselect everything before switching to move mode again to continue fast select and move of vertices. is there a workaround to avoid this? perhaps a shortcut to deselect all vertices...?

thanks for you reply

thomthom

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Btw, any change you can provide a couple of screenshot of what type of mesh you work with? And some example of what desired result would be? (Helps me when filing features - as weeks down the line visual reminders helps a lot.)

As got 2D scale - yes! Absolutely. I have that working in the dev build of V2 already.

Regarding your last question. You experience that vertices get selected with you do a quick-move?

optimaforever

Here's an example of terrain mesh I made with VT and QFT.
mesh example

Here's the default align to world axis gizmo behaviour.
by default align to word axis gizmo

Here's how I would like the gizmo to behave.
what it could be when 2 vertices are selected (red axis aligned to the 2 vertices and the green axis along an adjacent plane

And for the last question, yes, sometimes in the move mode, some vertices end selected after moving.
It happens when I select a vertice (after the white circle to be visible), move it and then move it again but this time without the white circle to be visible. the vertice remains red (selected) and I need to go to the select mode to deselect all to get rid of the selection. The simplest way to resolve the issue could be to be able to deselect all vertices by clicking in the empty space just like all tools in Sketchup.

thomthom

Thank you for posting these follow ups. Visuals like that helps me greatly to put it into context.

optimaforever

you're welcome;
it's the least I can do for my favourite dev

thomthom

That's mighty kind of you to say.

I've logged both the feature request for the gizmo alignment and the quick-select issue.

Emily75

Hello, I've just bought Vertex Tools. Everything seems to work fine, i'm on Sketchup PRO 2018 on Mac OSX, except one point :

I'm unable to precisely control the distance or proportion using the vertex Gizmo. I can't access to the VCB to control that. (actually I just can control the soft selection radius).

How can I do ? Thanks

optimaforever

So far I don't think you can do it that way.
With Select Mode and the gizmo you can move freely some vertices but it can be precise if you use Sketchup's own length snapping (1mm, 1cm, 1m and so on; just choose a value that is pertinent in your model).
With Move mode, choose a vertex, a direction (vector),and type the desired length in the VCB.

thomthom

There appear to have been a regression in V1.2. I have it logged. But no fix as of yet.

optimaforever

Thomas, you mean it was possible earlier?

thomthom

You know what, I'm a little unsure to be honest. I might be confusing it with the non-gizmo Move tool...

Hieru

I'm fairly certain it was a feature a while back, but was then lost in an update.

I've mentioned it before and seem to recall you saying that it was on your to-do list for Version 2, but I could be wrong.

thomthom

Yea - that sounds familiar. The work on SUbD made me forget some of the details of existing Vertex Tools issues. Seeing how VT2 is taking longer to complete, I may have to do a bug patch to v1.2.

numerobis

As i said earlier i would prefer a simple edge constraint toggle like in max instead of having to align the gizmo first every time i want to move a vertex along an edge...

https://youtu.be/iTnd4aETtQI?t=91