Several general questions

Hello.
The more I use Nvil, the more I like it, though I have several more, general questions:

• Is it possible to increase scale tool precision? Sometimes, when I'm working with components of small object, the scale jumps too much.
• I'm working in Nvil in Silo navigation mode. Is it possible to disable ASD toggling between various component modes? What I mean is that when I am, say in vertex mode and press D for face mode, it switches me to it and it's fine. But when I press D again, it goes back to previously selected component mode (vertex mode in this particular example). If I press D one more time, it changes to faces again (and so on). This is very confusing and is driving me bananas. I'd like to have no toggling at all. So Nvil stays in a specific component mode even if I press its corresponding key hundreds of times.
• Is it possible to display current Manipulator Orientation mode, Manipulator Positioning mode and snapping info (on/off, snap type) on the HUD (useful when working in full screen mode)?
• Let's say we've got a level 2 ico geosphere. If I want to create an inner loop in the pentagon built out of triangles, then in Silo it was all about selecting those edges coming out from a single point, pressing and holding SHIFT+X and sliding the newly created loop to a place. In Nvil it doesn't seem to work in this particular case, though it does for a cylinder cap formed out of triangles. It looks like if the vertices, that are on the outside of the area within which the loop is to be created, have more that five edges connected to them, the loop cannot be created in the described way.
  Any remedy for that? Apart of creating loop in manual mode that is?

Hi rubberDuck,

1: You could try:- set the (In the manipulator window bottom of screen) "Steppings -> Scale factor to, for example 1.001. Then when scaling, press(hold down) ctrl or shift while scaling. That does slow the scaling down.

To Add. Sorry I forgot. The default scaling is made by stepping, so when scaling, press(hold down) the ctrl or shift (to disable stepping). That will probably give you what you want.
My setting have the option "Enabled by ctrl or shift key down", which is not the default.

2: "Edit-> Preference->" -> "General" -> Disable the "Allow subobject type hotkey toggle between previous types"
3: Not sure. I will have a look.
4: Select the vertex and use "Chamfer-> Refine" (in the visual tools)

.

Hi rubberDuck,

I do not see a way to show the manipulators orientation/position mode while in full screen mode. There is no way I can find to bring up the manipulator window(which is the only place I know that shows that info).
Rather then going into full screen mode, you may be best to toggle on/off the windows you do not need.

For showing the snapping info. By default that info is only available from the drop down snap list. You can create a "user tool bar" with icons/text for the snapping options, which can then be left on screen

Thanks Steve.
What you wrote is very, very helpful.
Yeah, I didn't think about pinning all of the windows. This is even better, because in fullscreen mode I wasn't able to invoke them at all.
But, I really wish I wouldn't have to open Manipulation dock whenever I want to check in which manipulator mode I'm currently in. Same with snap info. HUD has always been something I loved, ever since I first saw it in Maya many years ago as it can squeeze a great amount of important information in a non-intrusive manner.
Could perhaps placing mentioned information on HUD be made into a feature request? I suspect quite a lot of people like to work with only viewport visible and would enjoy it.

Could perhaps placing mentioned information on HUD be made into a feature request? I suspect quite a lot of people like to work with only viewport visible and would enjoy it.

Just make a post in the "Feature Request" section. See what IStonia thinks.

5. How do I numerically scale all axes of a given selection (at once)?

Answers
4: You can also try the edge visual tool 'Loop Insert'. It is a quite complicated tool.
5: I used to have a hidden trick, press down 'Ctrl' key before applying the value. But it is not available in the last two lastest updates. Any good suggestion?

Answers
4: You can also try the edge visual tool 'Loop Insert'. It is a quite complicated tool.
5: I used to have a hidden trick, press down 'Ctrl' key before applying the value. But it is not available in the last two lastest updates. Any good suggestion?

Ad.4. Loop Insert->Manually Select can do that, but it's slow. You have to enter the tool, select this and that, etc. I'd like it to work like a streamline tool. You know, select edges through which you want the loop to go through, hold a hotkey combination and drag the new loop to correct position. This would be perfect.
Ad.5. Yup, it happens that I have a suggestion. A fourth column in "Manipulator Input" called "ALL". Or/And CTRL+LMB drag (left/right) on Scale label in "Manipulator Input".

Hi IStonia,

Answers
4: You can also try the edge visual tool 'Loop Insert'. It is a quite complicated tool.

Loop Insert will not function on those types of edge rings (such, as example, on the icosa as shown above as the example). Please try it.

5: I used to have a hidden trick, press down 'Ctrl' key before applying the value. But it is not available in the last two lastest updates. Any good suggestion?

Which builds did that work in?
IMHO, the size/scale could be implemented better. As example, currently there is still no realtime feedback of size change (unless you open the Manipulation feedback window and scale proportionally)

You know, select edges through which you want the loop to go through, hold a hotkey combination and drag the new loop to correct position. This would be perfect.

The Loop Insert (visual tools or streamline tools) do work like that in a lot of cases, however, the loop insert like a number of other tools appear to rely of edge/polygon flow outside the perimeter, which makes some tools limited at times.
Maybe IStonia is not aware of the limitations? I can post simple examples if needed. (the example of the loop insert on an icosa is one)

4: The loop Insert can produce the loop cut you want. But you can't adjust position during operation though. For example, check 'Manual Select', move cursor over an edge, press down and hold LMB, draw the cursor one by one over each edges, when you come back to the first edge, it's done. After that you can use the edge streamline 'loop Select/Slide' tool to adjust position.

5: It worked on 'NVil Feb 05' update and also versions before that date.

You know, select edges through which you want the loop to go through, hold a hotkey combination and drag the new loop to correct position. This would be perfect.

The Loop Insert (visual tools or streamline tools) do work like that in a lot of cases, however, the loop insert like a number of other tools appear to rely of edge/polygon flow outside the perimeter, which makes some tools limited at times.
Maybe IStonia is not aware of the limitations? I can post simple examples if needed. (the example of the loop insert on an icosa is one)

Tell me more about it.

You know, select edges through which you want the loop to go through, hold a hotkey combination and drag the new loop to correct position. This would be perfect.

The Loop Insert (visual tools or streamline tools) do work like that in a lot of cases, however, the loop insert like a number of other tools appear to rely of edge/polygon flow outside the perimeter, which makes some tools limited at times.
Maybe IStonia is not aware of the limitations? I can post simple examples if needed. (the example of the loop insert on an icosa is one)

Tell me more about it.

Sorry for audio quality. Night+crappy mike and English not being my first language...
This video shows how it works in Silo and Nvil. You can see that the ring of outer vertices and the number of edges they're connected with is something that affects the success of streamlined insert edge loop operation.
http://youtu.be/ijUraA_l4M0

Hi rubberDuck,,

This video shows how it works in Silo and Nvil. You can see that the ring of outer vertices and the number of edges they're connected with is something that affects the success of streamlined insert edge loop operation.

That is showing the limitation due to the edge flow I mentioned earlier.

You show pre-selecting the edges before the loop_insert, so you could create a streamline tool that may work as you want.

Go into "Edit-> Customize-> Streamline Tools" Create a new tool:- Add the functions as shown in pic and set a custom hotkey.

What happens, is you first select the edges(as you show in the vid for silo)-> press(hold down) the hotkey which creates the edge_loop, left click on one of the new edges of the edge_loop created and drag to position.

rubberDuck, thanks for the video! I know how to improve the tool, shouldn't be difficult.

Edit: In the video, I saw you click the edges one by one. That's slow. You can click and hold the mouse button down, then just drag across the other edges. Anyway, the 'Loop Insert' tool is slow, but it is versatile.

@IStonia, I'm glad I could help. And thanks for the tip on dragging. Is implementation of no. 5 (scale all axes numerically?) possible any time soon?

@Steve, thanks this works pretty nicely, although it's a little bit slower than not having to LMB-click at all. What's important though, is that this technique works even when outer vertices have more than four edges.

6. Is it possible to subdivide the object without smoothing it?