Several general questions

Hello.
11. I need to rotate a selection of multiple faces, but I also need each face to use its own orientation space while rotating (instead of common - averaged). Is it possible?

12. Radial Menu. In order to apply a wire frame display mode to selected object I can use the "Wire Mesh Selected/All#" command. But there's no command I could put into radial menu in order to revert back to shaded+wire frame. I have to dig through the "Scene Explorer" to accomplish that.

13. How to enable subdivision cage visibility?

11. I can't see how it is possible. If you rotate two joining polygons at their own axis, how can you expect the result positions of vertices they are sharing.

12. You can use this trick to bring up a tool in the hotkey editor. Press down 'End' key, select 'View > Object Shading > Object Individaul Shading > Solid'.

13. It is not available.

11. Not with neighbouring faces or edges no. Not exactly. In this mode, let's call it "Use individual component pivots" for the time being, if a user selects neighbouring faces or edges, then NVil would treat them as a group and average their rotation axes. So, if no other components are selected then it would simply act like it acts now. But, if some other - non-neighbouring components are selected as well, it would treat the rotation axis of the above group separately.
Example:
User makes a selection consisting of:
- four neighbouring faces -> uses averaged rotation axis of those four selected faces,
- one single face -> uses it's own rotation axis,
- two neighbouring faces -> uses averaged rotation axis of those two selected faces.
All three are treated as separate groups with their own rotation axes. User starts to rotate around the X axis and each one of those groups rotate around their own X axis.

Of course this should apply to:
- faces and edges,
- translation, rotation and scaling.

Silo doesn't have it, vanilla Maya too (dunno about 2013 though). There was a very cool 3rd party script for Maya that enabled this, but I lost it some time ago and I can't find it ever since.
Blender has the option called "Individual Origins", but I find it working not quite as expected.
I've heard on Polycount that 3D Studio is capable of doing it. Can't confirm it though, because it's been like over 10 years since I last used Max. 

12. Nice trick. Thank you.

13. Any chances of future implementation?

11. StreamLine Basic Tools > Subobject Tools > Local Move/Rotate/Scale/Transform Selection. You can use the 'Tool Search' window to find and test them. The Transform tool is a general tool which has options to let you do all the Move/Rotate/Scale.

13. I will keep that in mind.

Hey IStonia. First of all I have to say that I really appreciate your answers.

Second of all... man, how many aces you have hidden in your sleeve? The commands you mentioned in 11) seem to be exactly what I was looking for.

But...

Those commands, being StreamLine tools, won't allow me to use all manipulator axes to rotate... er, manipulate the components. Mouse movement is two dimensional, so there's the third axis left that I can't access. Also, it seems I'm only able to rotate components around Y axis only: http://youtu.be/2mt0K7BH32Q

I'm sure it's just me doing something wrong.

In local transform operation, there is no certain way to define the x/z axis of each selection group.

........it seems I'm only able to rotate components around Y axis only: http://youtu.be/2mt0K7BH32Q

Local rotation is limited to local normal direction.

In local transform operation, there is no certain way to define the x/z axis of each selection group.

I see it based on world axis in wing3d. It works quite well, even for unconstrained local rotation.

Guys...

In local transform operation, there is no certain way to define the x/z axis of each selection group.

Could you please elaborate? Why there's no way to define those axes?

Local rotation is limited to local normal direction.

Steve, okay normal direction is Y, from what I've seen, so the faces rotate around this axis. But why the limit? Why the user is disallowed to rotate around any of the three axes?

Guys...

In local transform operation, there is no certain way to define the x/z axis of each selection group.

Could you please elaborate? Why there's no way to define those axes?

Well, my answer is another question. How can you define them? If you have a square quad, the normal direction defines Y. Two opposite edges define X and the other two edges define Z. But which two edes should be used to define X first? They are all equal. If the polygon has irregular shape... if the selection is a group of joint polygons... if two selection groups' facing the opposite direction...

Well, my answer is another question. How can you define them?

You would not define them with new axis.
For current local rotation, you calculate average normal for each selection group, and rotate around the calculated normal axis.
For local rotation, could you also have an option which uses the calculated normal position that rotates around specified (X/Y/Z/All) world/work_plane axis?

It shouldn't be a problem for arbitrary axis(x/y/x). But the All or Free option can be a little bit tricky.

I am still thinking a way to perform the rotation rubberduck wants. I think a spline can be drawn accross the selections and the spline tangents can be used to define the x axis. It seems it could be quite usefull for organic models. Not an easy thing to do though.

Well, my answer is another question. How can you define them? If you have a square quad, the normal direction defines Y. Two opposite edges define X and the other two edges define Z. But which two edes should be used to define X first? They are all equal. If the polygon has irregular shape... if the selection is a group of joint polygons... if two selection groups' facing the opposite direction...

I'm sorry IStonia, but I still don't follow you. You're possibly right, but I'm not convinced for the time being. Take a look at the attached image. Those axes are all already defined. So if a user rotates, scales or translates along +Z axis, all faces would follow along their own local +Z axes. The implementation is already there, though with rotation possible only around Y axis. If users could use the actual manipulator axes to rotate/scale/transform selected components, this would be the highest point in superman awesomeness.

And what if two selection groups are facing opposite directions? Well, nothing. It would still work.

Maybe we simply misunderstand each other. English is not my primary language, so I might be talking some crazy gibberish here.

I don't think it's a language problem. We may just think in different directions.

In the picture, you have three polygons selected. I guess when you select the polygon you use Selection pivot orientation style. Right? It seems a possible solution. But it may not work properly in all cases. The X/Z direction can be unpredictable. When you move from one polygon to another polgon, the X/Z direction may be swapped by 90 degrees and out of your expectation. Also, if you have selection group that contains more than one polygon, it is more unpredictable.

Okay, I've inspected a basic sphere primitive and indeed, in some cases X/Z direction is unpredictable. Especially near the equator and on poles.
Though on the teeth model from the screenshot, they seem to be consistent. No deviations at all.

14. I've noticed that viewport doesn't remember its position after I change the camera to other view, manipulate it a bit and switch back afterwards.

To reproduce (in one-view mode):
1. Switch to perspective mode and navigate the scene a bit.
2. Switch to other view (top, left, etc.)
3. Navigate through the scene.
4. Switch back to perspective - the position and rotation of perspective camera has changed.