Unified Manipulation tool

Dude this looks awesome! Will try it out and report back

 

Now this is pretty cool and handy.
this would be increase workflow

 

Looks handy - I guess could we ask so that we could increase the line width/size of the widget if you're remaking it? The 1 pixel width line handles just aren't very easy to grab onto visually.

 

Looking great. Nice outline shader too.
When can we take a look at the new icons redesign?

 

Holy S*** Will, that looks _incredible_.
Any chance we could get a keypress-hold to change the scale part of the manipulator to the bounds for scaling on an axis only in one direction (akin to the gui transform scale we have now)?

 

(Tried only few minutes for now..)

The yellow box in middle is now for scaling..
i think would be more useful if its directly for object placement (without having to press ctrl+shift),
since placing objects is more common than scaling, or you would first place the object, then scale to match the location..


ps. Please fix F key also.. (to properly frame object, instead of zooming far very very far away..or at least allow overriding the F key so can make own frame-object keypress script..)

 

+1000. Please fix the focus. When I focus certain objects. .it zooms out way too much.

 

Can we please get a "snap to ground" feature? I was spoiled at uni using unreal and just being able to hit the end key to make sure objects were placed on the floor and not hovering slightly

 

Can you somehow add the behaviour for Scale of the 2D Transform Tool?

That's very handy for level design, since the usual scale tool, grows in both directions from the pivot... but the 2D tool allows you to adjust the height or width or depth independently of the negative direction and the pivot... and that's really awesome.

also the "V" short cut will still work the same right? that's also very handy and most people doesn't even know you can use V to snap to vertex.

Other than that, the tool looks good, specially the angles while rotating.

Speaking of rotation, sometimes when you rotate using the snap, you don't get exact values, sometimes you get things like 90.001 or things like that

 

Looks cool to me. As long as the old controls remain intact, this is a fine addition for some people. +1

 

This is great, but I think it would be even better if we could control+click to toggle which handles to use. Looks very neat!

 

Awesome! Unreal had something similar, and I was waiting FOREVER for Unity to also have it! You have made my day with this.

 

Looks great!!!

 

Using the shortcuts QWER wasn't much of a problem, but I'm curious to try it out.

 

Awesome tool. I'll ping my technical artist to look into it.

 

Could we have "Snap to surface" and "Snap to surface + normal" ?

 

This is awesome having to constantly switch between the different tools has always been annoying when it comes to trying to work out level design, looking forward to using this

 

Looks great.

Snapping to normal as well as surface would indeed be amazing @#17

 

Looks pretty useful!
I agree with some of the people here that's suggesting a Snap to surface and Snap to normal feature. That would add a lot to the functionality of this tool. Another thing that I would like to see in future updates of Unity is Multiple prefab creation. That way, I won't need to drag 75 cubes one by one into the Project browser to make a prefab out of it.

 

Seems useful! Especially the surface snap, would be even better if it also aligned to normals.

 

Awesome n Useful tool!

 

While you are at it, please improve the vertex snapping. It leaves gaps in between the objects and that's a problem for making modular level design.

 

You clearly didn't watch the video.
See 1:05

 

Hey ! Clearly this tool is very interesting but I have some troubles using it.
Since I've copied the files into Unity dir, the scripts from SVG Importer does not work anymore...
I have to similar compilation errors :
"error CS0117: `UnityEditor.EditorUtility' does not contain a definition for `SetSelectedWireframeHidden'"

Does somebody knows how to fix this ?
Thanks

[EDIT]
Well I fixed the problem with commentaries, but I keep having some not fatal errors with UnityEditor :
"MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'UnityEditor.PlayerSettings.InitializePropertyInt'.
UnityEditor.Modules.ModuleManager.InitializePlatformSupportModules () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Modules/ModuleManager.cs:199)"

So if someone have the solution... ^^

 

Actually I did watch the video, you clearly didn't read my comment properly.

I mentioned how in UE4 I can press end to snap an object to the object below it, what happened in the video at 1:05 looked no different to how the current tool works when it comes to moving objects around and definitely isn't snapping the object to the object below it by only adjusting its Y value...

 

I don't post here much but I wanted to say that this is an extremely welcome usability improvement that I've wished Unity had for years.

My other feedback is that I wish Unity would devote more focus than it has in the past to these sorts of basic usability and UI improvements. Hopefully this is the start of a new trend!

 

As long as this new tool is optional. I would much rather prefer the easy shortcut keys.

 

Gave it a go a few days ago, looks really promising . I'd say with a little bit of fine tuning it'll be a really useful tool

 

I didn't download the build and I'm just going by what I saw on the video, but is there a particular reason why for rotation, the snap increments are by 12 degrees?

The usual (and much more useful) is 15 degrees.

Looks great other than that.

 

zdepth please

 

I second using the center of the widget for placement along both the grid snap AND the normals (via modifier key shift/ctrl/etc) except have a CIRCLE area SURROUNDING the scale dot in the center of the widget and use THAT for placement.

Keep the scale dot in the center for uniform scale. Put arrows on the afforementioned circle to indicate at-a-glance that it's for placement, and change colors based on the modifier key held down.

 

hey bud, great work! got a few suggestions that I think the new manipulator should include - most of these are available in the form of "write it yourself" and "asset store" but I thought that some of these should be included out of the box.

1. Add snap to ground (eg. press "end" key and it snaps to ground)

2. Add simulate to ground (eg. press "pageDown" key and the selected object falls down to ground with physics, using the rigidbody-like feature to place itself on the ground) - this feature, which I use in all my level editing session, is really convenient and produces a level that makes visual sense.

3. Rework the "f" camera focus - often it zooms too far out to be useful.

4. Add a new function for isolating selected object (with the option of visuals only or interaction only)

5. Add a new function for locking objects out of the scene view (eg. canvas and terrain) so that they are either visible but not interactable. I hate trying to click an object near terrain and the terrain gets selected, or the canvas object blocking my scene view.

5. Add spline and bending - this one is long overdue.

 

Totally agree about the "F" command -- I would prefer it to go into a rotation mode around the object as well though. (Imagine Z-targeting from 3D Zelda games, but sort of an auto-look mode at the press of a key to toggle on/off)

In that mode you could use the mouse-wheel to zoom to your liking and arrow keys (OR mouse too, depending on preferences) to rotate/zoom around/into your gameobject. Additionaly it would preserve the current vertical tilt of the camera while in this mode too until you change it with ALT or pan the camera. I often have to HOLD the F key and swap with ALT to do this to get a better view of what a gameobject is looking at in my levels, so to have Unity let me do this auto-look without funked-up controls would be a lifesaver!!

 

I would say, for level editing anything is an improvement over the current snap tools. I come from Unreal where the snap tool isn't anything special but has all the grid snap features I need. The fact Unity requires extra plugins to make level design possible or at least a nice workflow is beyond me.

I have been searching for a decent snap tool, something for easy prototyping so trying ProTools and SabreCSG and a way to export meshes from Unity to a 3D package. I am not sure why this is beyond them as stable, integrated tools?

 

I totally agree -- Unity is finally implementing a 2D tileset system so people can create 2D levels easier, but the 3D world manipulation tools are even more subpar -- and fiddly at best.

Sure, even 3D modeling packages struggle with navigation and manipulation issues, but with as few tools as Unity supplies natively, a universal manipulator tool to move/scale/rotate shouldn't take so d*** long to design and integrate. There are plenty of great examples out there in modeling packages, and ANYTHING is better than what we currently have.


Some ideas:

A single key shortcut to toggle between various manipulation types/styles could work, or an icon around the tool itself to toggle these modes/styles that you can click would be great (Look into Zbrush's new universal manipulation tool). If you look at Akeytsu, too, it's got some great ideas on visual manipulation that could be borrowed and tweaked.

Also, look at my earlier post -- using the F key to focus on an object and zoom/rotate/manipulate the camera while in this 'focus-mode' would rock supremely.



Feedback for the current experimental manipulator tool -- when rotating or manipulating in screen space, allow the user to also press a key to snap the camera flat on a plane relative to the object's nearest axis.

-- In other words, if I'm near the front of the object (view-wise) and I want to move that object up/down, snap the camera's view to the front view of that object where the object's local Z is facing the screen and Y is up, then let me move the object up/down from that position (much more helpful than direct screen-space manipulation!!)

 

This seems pretty slick.

 

Why put it as experimental instead of just putting in release builds? It's solid and it works, what bugs could it be there? Just release it already!

 

I agree - why wait? At least put it in the 2017 beta.

 

Why haven't they released this yet? It's great!

 

Looks sweet!

 

Definitely trying and will report back. Looks very interesting.

 

Looks efficient except for one thing missing: these new gizmos still have no z-depth

 

Love it!

 

Movement along plane is kind of broken: If 2 planes overlap, the further one gets the mouse focus:

 

I think that's how it should work... actually, using this gif as an example, the blue plane should be hidden and only get visible if you rotate the camera a little bit more making the green plane perpendicular to the camera. IIRC, that's how it works in Maya.

 

Really liking the new tool. One observation - The axis scaling handles are missing in the 2017.3 B5, is this expected? The center scaling handle is there and works, though.

 

Why though? In this particular case I expect to be able to use all 3 planes. Isn't it more intuitive that the objects closer to camera get the mouse focus first?

 

From a UI design standpoint, since the view is from overhead (the view, which was placed by the user himself), the tool should favor the plane most visible to him (which is the X/Z plane in this case), therefore the X/Y plane control should be hidden.


HOWEVER -- I do think you're on to something -- the tool has messed up the planes from an intuitive standpoint.

At the very least, Unity should draw the square with a separate red/green line for the plane XY plane manipulator (to signify a red/green axis) and color its fill grey -- OR, even better, color the inside of the box/plane manipulator yellow or brown or something (some color mix BETWEEN the two axis~!) -- because right now, the manipulator is saying to the user (me/you): "Hey, this is the "Z" axis you're moving around on!" and that's when my brain tells me "wait, what? What axis am I actually ON??" -- and then I have to actually *think* about it.

Even though I can clearly see the green/red axis nearby, when I'm manipulating, I shouldn't have to THINK about what axis I'm on -- I should be able to rely on color -- which is what this whole system of red/green/blue was designed for. We just need a brown / purple / aqua to complement it (some hint at a mix of the two axis colors) so that we can know at a glance which plane (two axis) we're working on.

 

Why didn't they integrate this into Unity build yet??