Weld

I hope i haven`t overlooked something vital here. But it seems that Weld just works in Vertice mode and in a cumbersome way. For Target Weld I have to activate the tool, i have to mark the already selected vertices again. And have to weld them in a one by one basis. Group Weld seems to be buggy. I end in remaining vertices when i select more than two. Which means i have to repeat the performance at a two by two basis. And end in something that isn`t really at the centerpoint.

On top of that i get a message for the remaining vertices that lacks of the close button. May i renew my request for a status bar here? That`s an excellent place for such messages. Blender has it at the top for example.

Anyways. I think both weld methods are not really good.

What about a Weld command that works with one key, plus not only in Point mode, but in Face- and Edge mode too? A weld tool that welds the vertices of the selected Elements together. As weld methods i would provide the last selected vertice or by coincidence or in the center of the vertices. That`s easier to handle. And you even save one tool that way, the target weld.

For Target Weld I have to activate the tool, i have to mark the already selected vertices again. And have to weld them in a one by one basis

Target weld would be a one to one weld.
Are you using the streamline weld(S) tool?. Move your cursor over the the vertex you are going to weld to a target(do not select it, just highlight the vertex with the cursor), press "S" (possible targets will be highlighted) move your cursor to the target, you will see the cursor change shape, release the "S" key. Target weld made.

Group Weld seems to be buggy. I end in remaining vertices when i select more than two

Which tool/options are you using?

Tiles, there are million ways people want to do weld operations.

Check this, subobject modes > Geometry > Common Commands n Toools > Collapse, edge mode > Geometry > Collaps loop/ Collapse ring. Don't blame me about the naming. Not guilty.

On top of that i get a message for the remaining vertices that lacks of the close button. May i renew my request for a status bar here?

You don't need a close button. You can either click the message dlg or hit a key like Space to close it.
A status bar eats out your space and sits there most of the time for nothing.

Are you using the streamline weld(S) tool?.

I use the one that is in the Visual Tools toolbox for now. That`s the one i have found. The two modes of this tool could already be unioned into one mode without any loss. Select two vertices, use last selected vertice mode, and you have the Target weld method. Select two or more vertices, use weld at centerpoint method, and you have Group weld. That`s just one tool, not two.

Tiles, there are million ways people want to do weld operations.

But why use several tools for the very same thing? All your welding tools can be unioned into one tool. Without loosing anything, and still provide the million needed ways. You just need some settings then. The benefit is that everything is in one place now. And not spread across several modes and tools.

Collapse Edgeloop for example is nothing else than Group Weld, performed in Edge mode.

Don't blame me about the naming.

I still do, sorry. Nvil simply has some very uncommon tool names. And that is a big problem of Nvil. At least in my eyes.

Now, while the development, is the time to change that. When you have the gold version out, and the customers are using the software, then it`s too late. They will have a bigger hurdle to jump into the software with the current tool names. And that scares people away.

A status bar eats out your space and sits there most of the time for nothing.

What really eats up space is your monster big and space wasting toolboxes

The Blender Status bar is at the top, right besides the menu. This space is empty and unused anyways. The trueSpace status bar is at the bottom, eating exactly 23 pixels in height. I can live with that with my 1920 resolution. Another thought, Firefox blends in the status bar when it`s needed. But i hate the flickering of this popping up and hiding. So i´ve installed a plugin that keeps the status bar visible.

Have a look at the screenshots. They are made with a 1920 resolution.

The Blender UI provides everything necessary in reach, and leaves nevertheless enough space for modeling. It`s a full featured 3D app.
The trueSpace UI provides everything necessary in reach, and leaves nevertheless enough space for modeling. It`s a full featured 3D app.
The Nvil UI doesn`t leave enough space for modeling when i really put everything needed into space. And that`s just a modeler.

I wouldn`t say give up your toolbox UI. It`s a great concept. But the content of this standard toolboxes is very ugly placed and dimensioned. It wouldn`t hurt to learn from common software packages when it comes to the UI. They have a huge user base where they learned from.

Anyways. It`s of course your decision what you make out of my reports and suggestions. In the end all i can do is to tell you and point towards the problem zones.

Sorry for being a pain

With the UI examples your really just building a Strawman argument. Since open every thing up in blender l, and there is even less UI space, and you purposely opened up things in nvil that are redundant. Such as scene info and the HUD, or the manipulation window and the nurmical input.

I have access to everything I would need with this layout, which is very space saving.

"use the one that is in the Visual Tools toolbox for now. That`s the one i have found. The two modes of this tool could already be unioned into one mode without any loss. Select two vertices, use last selected vertice mode, and you have the Target weld method. Select two or more vertices, use weld at centerpoint method, and you have Group weld. That`s just one tool, not two."

I can't see the advantage it can bring in. You have to select two vertices before you can weld them. Right now, you just click one vertex then click the other, done.
Why you see it as two tools? If you want to do target weld, just click two vertices. If you want to do group weld, just marquee select them then click the button. You don't need to select a mode first.

Strawman? Are you sure? As told, this was a shot from a 1920 resolution. How should one work at a even smaller resolution? It`s already hard to work with Nvil at my notebook with its 1600 resolution. Let alone at a notebook with 1333 pixels resolution, which is still very commmon.

I made a quick manipulation using the trueSpace Info box to show what i mean with wasted space. Because that`s a nice example how to save lots of space. And i haven`t even resized or fitted here anything like you can do in Blender. There you can scale every UI element to your needs, seamless.

It uses the same font size, but the element is after this manipulation nevertheless just half as big as the one from within Nvil before the manipulation. With some time and patience you could reduce the other panels in an equal way.

Hm, maybe we should split the UI improvement discussion into another thread. It mixes up with the weld stuff here. What do you think?

I can't see the advantage it can bring in. You have to select two vertices before you can weld them. Right now, you just click one vertex then click the other, done.

I have to activate the tool, and to click at the two vertices anyways. So where`s the benefit from your method? I do the same with my method. I select two vertices, hit weld, done. I may need to change the method, that`s true. But then the benefit is still to have just one tool where formerly were four. Which reduces the time to find the tools and frees space. In trueSpace i have one button for weld, target weld, collapse edgeloop and collapse edgering. The tool works in all modes and does what your four tools does. That`s the advantage, less cluttered

"I have to activate the tool, and to click at the two vertices anyways. So where`s the benefit from your method? I do the same with my method. I select two vertices, hit weld, done. I may need to change the method, that`s true. But then the benefit is still to have just one tool where formerly were four. Which reduces the time to find the tools and frees space. In trueSpace i have one button for weld, target weld, collapse edgeloop and collapse edgering. The tool works in all modes and does what your four tools does. That`s the advantage, less cluttered"

How does TS handle threshold welding? What is collapse edgering? How can you weld two vertices to middle position or to last vertex position with just one button? I guess it may depends on your click at the left part or right part of the button, or maybe a modify key, or maybe in vertex mode or edge mode it acts differently? Does TS have edge ring collapsing?

The input fields you suggested seems too short for me. It may cause trouble if some one have to deal with larger precise numbers. How about the xyz lable click/drag functions?

How does TS handle threshold welding?

In tS there is no threshold welding. That`s why i talked about settings.

What is collapse edgering?

My fault, sorry. I meant Collaps loop/ Collapse ring.

How can you weld two vertices to middle position or to last vertex position with just one button?

By settings.

To my shame i have to tell you that the weld tool has no settings in trueSpace as i have thought. I mixed that with the Heal tool, wich is called Remove doubles in Blender. But the Heal tool has four settings for that: by coincidence, first vertice, last vertice, and center point.

I guess it may depends on your click at the left part or right part of the button, or maybe a modify key, or maybe in vertex mode or edge mode it acts differently?

Settings for the tool again. That`s what you already have anyways. I would suggest to make a dropdown box for the mode in which the weld tool should work. That`s space saving and clear.

Does TS have edge ring collapsing?

No. It collapses the edge ring by a click at the weld tool. tS collapses everything, in all modes. and welds the affected vertices of the selection together.

The input fields you suggested seems too short for me. It may cause trouble if some one have to deal with larger precise numbers.

Works perfect for me since years. The precision that gets displayed is limited to three digits after the point. But you can of course enter very large numbers here too. The good thing is, the size of the input edit boxes is not fixed. It scales with dragging the toolbar wider or smaller.

When the input field is too short for you then make it larger. And shorten the words at the front part to a contraction. I think everybody understands that Loc Rot Scl is meant for Location Rotation and Scale. And it could also be a good idea to make the edit boxes scale with the panel. That way you can scale it bigger when you work with big numbers.

How about the xyz lable click/drag functions?

That`s indeed a bit of a problem. The size to place a button to do so could indeed become a bit small here. I don`t see a reason why you shouldn`t be able to do that with just the edit boxes though. I think Blender has such input boxes that has slider functionality too. A single click and drag slides, a double click enters the edit mode.

But that`s a detail solution which i keep in your hands. This surely needs a bit thinking and tinkering around with it. The main point that i wanted to show is that the current graphical Ui could benefit a lot from a cleanup. This panel was just a good example to make it more clear

How can you do loop/ring collapsing in one button? If There are two adjacent loop edges selected, both loop and ring collapsing are valid.

I use the one that is in the Visual Tools toolbox for now. That`s the one i have found.

You should probably spend some time looking at the tools/functions more, rather than restricting yourself to the first tool you find.

The two modes of this tool could already be unioned into one mode without any loss.

Not quite sure what you mean by "2 modes"?
If you are referring to the "Weld" and "Weld to nearest" then, for basic functions, I would describe:- "Weld" is for target weld/average center weld, and "Weld to nearest" is for "Heal vertex". But with the added options, they are more powerful.
 

Select two vertices, use last selected vertice mode, and you have the Target weld method.

[With no selection made] Enable [visual tools]"Weld" click first vertex, click target vertex.

Select two or more vertices, use weld at centerpoint method, and you have Group weld.

Select 2 or more vertex, enable weld > ignore threshold > weld
 

That`s just one tool, not two.

There is only 1 weld tool in the visual tools, it just as multiple options.

Collapse Edgeloop for example is nothing else than Group Weld, performed in Edge mode.

No it is not.

Collapse edgeloops would collapse each separate edgeloop. Group Weld would weld all the edgeloops together.

I give up. At least i have tried. Thanks for listening.

yes making things use less space is good, but my comment about the strawman was do to you making a extreme case by having every possible thing open at once, which is almost never needed, and than not using any of the organization tools available like tabbing windows, or auto hide.

than comparing to blender, without every absolutely everything open.

If I have any need for a window it is 1 click away, and i always have between 1676x844 and 1422x844 for my viewport size, and my monitor is only 1680x1050 so nothing huge

making a extreme case by having every possible thing open at once.

I showed the extreme case where everything needed is open at once. Without the need to dig too deep.

Just for the sake to lead this part of the discussion to an end, even when it wasn`t really my point:

Earlier versions of trueSpace had an equal UI concept to Nvil. All tools opened in its own toolbar. Which leaded to an equal problem like shown in the Nvil shot. No space left for modeling when everyting needed is open. But latest trueSpace displays all settings in the stack, and not longer in its own panels. I have really nearly everything possible opened here. The modeling tools at the left, and the settings and hierarchy overview at the right. There is no way to clutter the UI with even more tool panels. Besides to open new 3D Windows, and alternatively to make them to timeline or Link Editor Windows. Both things that Nvil doesn`t have.

Blender has a somehow equal concept to the trueSpace stack. Just that in Blender you have to dig a bit more in subtabs and menus. Here i don`t have the way to place my tools at the left. But also here there is no real way to cover the workspace with subpanels. All needed stuff is in the Properties Panel.

Nvil doesn`t have such a stack. The Visual Tools panel is what comes closest to the stack concept of trueSpace and Blender. You have to do by hand what works somehow automatically in trueSpace and Blender. To open the panel with the settings that you need. Which makes it harder to save space by concept. Because that way you tend to open as much panels as possible at once so that you don`t have to dig all the time. That`s why it is this important to make the panels as space saving as possible. So that you can place everything needed in reach without the need to scroll too much.

You see, there is not a single grain of strawman to find here. Even when we look from this angle.

Anyways, this wasn`t my initial point. I know that you will not redo your whole UI concept at this point anymore. That would indeed be crazy. I talked about saving space, not killing the panels and redo the UI completely. Sorry when i explained it wrong, and you got the wrong impression here.

making things use less space is good

And that was my point. Seems that my way to show the need was a bit irritating though.