2D manipulator in UV/Image editor

Hello,

I’m usually a Blender trainer and my pupils always find difficult and not usable not to have a 2D manipulator in the UV/Image editor similar to the 3D view one.

I’m evaluating to invest some of the courses earning on paying a coder to implement it into Blender.

If your are interested, please, send me a PM with your budget.

As a initial briefing it can be said:

  • the code should be “packed” as an addon that works with official Blender builds

  • it should work similar to the 3D manipulator:
    [LIST]

  • it should work for translations, rotations and scales

  • when picks the X/Y axis (well, they are U/V axis) the movement/rotation/scale should be restricted to this axis

  • if picking inside the white circle it moves/scales in both axes

  • the pivot point should work as the already implemented options (2D cursor, Median point and Bounding box center)

  • it should be buttons in the lower area to change between modes and an option to disable graphically the manipulator

  • it should also be compatible with snapping
    [/LIST]

I think I don’t forget anything… As a draft, you can check the following image:



Of course, you can also add more features or, well, suggest anything.
And remember it will be for the best of all our Blender newbies
=)

Thanks!

I really can’t understand the utility of a tool like this, when you only have to remember three shortcut keys that are G,R and S (and at least combine them with X,Y and Z)…

beawolf, thanks for your honest opinion, it’s valuable.

As I said, it is not a tool for pros but for newbies which find easier to work with the mouse and the “visual helpers” such as the manipulator.
Think how weird or hard it would be for learners to model without the 3D manipulator…
All 3D softwares have manipulators/gizmos into their UIs to improve the user experience. Blender have them but only in the 3D view, why not in the 2D view (UV/Image editor)?

I believe this is something Psy-fi is already coding and it’s called custom widgets. It should be general enough to be used in many situations not only in image editor, but also in compositor and even directly in the 3d viewport (setting camera target for DoF, spotlight cone etc.). So maybe you can try to get in touch with him…

yes small stuff like this improve the usebility.
and one other thing the empty toolbar waste of space.

cdog, I’ll try to contact him, thanks!

Anyway, if anyone is interested in coding it let me know
=)

Just going to chime in some encouragement. I UV map professionally for a living all the time. A manipulator tool is very handy and I do miss it in Blender. (I go back and forth between Blender and other apps daily) Good luck in finding someone to code it and I hope it gets into Blender as an option.

AFAIK, currently not possible as an addon to the master (trunk). Could be possible in future as an addon to the Custom Widget branch, but not at the current state.

Aha, well, if you really think it’s not possible to code we will have to wait to custom widgets…

Great to hear about you gregzaal, I’ll contact you by sure because we have no idea when the custom widgets will be available and if they will include a 2D manipulator. Anyway, if you have time, please build a little budget so that I can have an idea around how much it will cost.
Thanks!

hi this is good idea
my curreny workflow is that in 3D view i use Widget Gizmo but when i go to uv editor my workflow change because there is no gizmo

im using tablet and i find gizmo is more easy to handle for tablet user
than original Free Grab Rotate and Scale

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Good to read this! I hope it will be developed!

A function like this would be really useful! You should create a Kickstarter project or something similar so that we all can help. I would easy put in cash to see this happening and i would guess that most old Maya, max, 3D coat users would feel the same, Especially since you just can turn of the function if you don’t like it.

This is completely off topic but i thought i should mention this, I made this simple pie menu for the UV-editor, maybe it can help you a bit.

Pie menu download: http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.se/search/label/UV (I use this on my RMB)

The picture below is a mockup on the next Uv pie menu i will make, this one uses CTRL+RMB.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]378520[/ATTACH]

Kindly // Jimmy

As far as I see I’m the only one that thinks it’s a nice feature… “The problem” is that it is internally being developed by Blender Foundation but not as a important feature, it is called wiggly widgets and will add support for manipulators not only in the UV/Image editor but in all editors. The idea it’s so cool but, as some of you agree, we would like to speed up the development by funding it.
Maybe if any developer reads this lines and want to comment it in the official weekly developers meeting…

What I really miss besides ‘align’ (which is possible through an add-on) is the option to assign the cursor to a selected vertex/edge (like it works in 3d view).

Shift+S / Cursor to selected

Its interesting how different people work, I mostly do hand painted lowpoly stuff and I never use the 3d cursor I think its just in the way. But I could imagine if you do other types of work that it could be super handy. What I miss the most in the uv editor is some logic. I really feel like everything you touch always have some “special rules” instead of a consistent straight forward approach. but thats another tread i guess.

If you never have worked with something like this you probably don’t know what you are missing out. If you look at a uv- program like Headus uv, which has a really bad ui but the function are fantastic, really straight forward, good luck finding people that think it sucks. I think the difference is how much you actually spend doing uv:s. If you do a really high poly character Blender works probably works great with live unwrap, pinning etc. But if you make 20- 30 models a week and are spending hours in the uv editor like i do. you start to see what is missing pretty clear.