Bug ? - Fusion jumps from smooth into boxed mode

[TrippyLighting]

I am not sure this is a bug, but Ive seen the behavior several times when editing a surface.

This sceencast explains this better that I can in written words.

[deyop · Accepted solution]

There are vertices that are displayed for the control frame and for the smooth model.  You can see where these positions are when you are in smooth or box display mode or where both are if you use the control frame display mode.  When you begin to create a face we default to box display mode because the face controls have to snap to targets on the control frame not the smooth vertex locations.  When you complete your face creation we put the model back in the display mode you entered the command with.

Thanks

[TrippyLighting]

Thanks for the feedback. I was aware of the box comtrol mesh and actually usually use mostly the view mode that displays both. But it does eat a littel viewport performance and sometimes you just want to get to smooth mode to see how the model looks without obstructions and if a face needs to be patched in its quicky done.
Technically this makes sense. However, coming from amost 10 years of experience in Blender did not expect for this to happen. In Blender you can add faces in smooth mode without it switchin back into box mode.

Actually I'd venture to say if any of your developers is even a half experienced modeler in Blender you need to talk to that guy. Blender has some modeling tools and that make this form of modeling very efficient and some of them I sorely miss.

[deyop]

We would certainly be interested in hearing what improvements you miss in Blender.  I know cekunnen (Claas) has expressed similar frustration with the differences between Blender polygonal modeling and T-Splines.  Although they appear to be the same animal the big difference with T-Splines is that the smooth mode is not just an increased number of polygons it is actually a reflection of the underlying Bezier patches.  When the T-Splines are smooth mode there are two operations happening in the background. There is an extraction of the Bezier patch and then a tessellation of those patches.  The advantage is that the T-Splines can always be evaluated as a surface model and there are no approximations when the T-Spline is converted to NURBS surfaces. 

Please let us know where you are having difficulties.  Thanks for your participation on the forum.

[TrippyLighting]

Ohh that's a misunderstanding, I am not frustrated 🙂
Some of this may simply be that I have not spent enough time with the Sculpt mode and all the tools. Some of it will get better when certain ideas are implemented, such as user configurable keyboard shortcuts. One thing that makes Blender ann absolute speed beast are the Keyboard shortcuts with the most often used ones are located on a part of the keyboard to be quickly accessible with the left hand.
Another thing I noticed when modeling my own version of the Slingshot is that there is quite a lag in the operations in Fusion 360. My iMac is a mid 2010 (I believe) core i7 with 12 GB of memory. I should probably make a screencast to show how some of the tools in Blender work.
One thing that I remember is that when inserting an edge is that you can choose between proportional and constant mode. In constant mode the inserted ede has a constant distance from the selected edge, which is essential for technical modeling.. I believe I observed that inserting and edge in Fusion 360 is always proportional.
The modifier stack in Blender is also very powerful. You can model something flat, which is what I did with the back slats of this chair http://www.arroway-textures.com/en/gallery/rocking-chair-david-haig and then applied a modifier that does the bending. However you can go back into edit mode and edit the flat geometry. Class mentioned the same modifier in respect to bent laminate furniture IIRC.
Another thing are the retopology tools in Blender. This would really help getting models with perfect topology from scanned data.
It's really the more I think about the parallels between Blender as a subdivision modeler and Fusion that modeling wise feels like a subdivision modeler but creates NURBS quality surfaces the more I see the the Potential that Fusion really offers.

[deyop]

We have a backlog item to provide the insert edge at a specified distance.  Good to know that there is another person out there waiting for it.  I will add that to the dev task.  

I am sympathetic to the keyboard shortcuts issue.  You are aware of the shortcuts available when in Edit Form right?  Still, not configurable.  I got this listing from the introductory tutorial documents.

Thanks for your input.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'm weird but it's the ALT that kills the shortcuts for me. Also right side of the keyboard.

[Anonymous]

Also on Mac side most of these are two handed shortcuts. If I have to let go of my mouse it's not a shortcut. Control only exists on the left side of the keyboard on laptops.

[deyop]

I get your point.  The current conflict is that the default input focus is always the numerical input when in a command.  Any keyboard input heads to the numerical input.  Why not exclude alpha characters?  Alpha characters can be used for parameter inputs.  How about putting in a qualifier to utilize parameter inputs?  Which one?  It gets complicated.

Numerical inputs are probably not high priorities for anyone concentrating on sculpt workflows but we need to have some consisitency in the behaviors.  Although keyboard focus may not be desired here you could likely miss it in other locations.  We could probably provide a prefrences option to support keyboard shortcuts instead of numerical input.  

Just some background to let you know it is being considered.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

That makes a lot of sense!