Model side control vertex (CV) handles, bugs?

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borgcone
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Model side control vertex (CV) handles, bugs?

Post by borgcone »

Related topics:
Links, Tips, and Hints - "Unofficial Update Documentation" by clintonman
Thank you for the great work, Clinton. :bananathumb: I am considering to start translating your revised document to my mother-language if allowed, and am verifying tS7's basic behaviors described in the Quick Guide (Caligari original and your tS761_UU_Artists_Guide05.pdf Sep.2021).

My question to all is:
Model side NURBS control vertex (CV) handles seem to have many problems (below). Are they well-known bugs? or due to my wrong operation/setting (e.g. bridge, undo setting or such a thing)?

----
Steps to reproduce the problems:
(tS7.6 or tS7.61)

- Enter in "Model" side, Set one of views into Solid Render Display (Open GL or Direct 3D) so that we can recognize colors.
- Create a NURBS cube. (Before/after that, we can R-click the icon to select "one patch" on/off in NURBS cube panel.) Right click the created NURBS cube object to start editing.
- Right click a corner. CV handles (3D arrows and a small sphere) appear. In case of non-one-patch, it has 2 green horizontal arrows and 1 blue vertical arrow. In case of one-patch, it has one more blue diagonal horizontal arrow. In both cases, green arrows are initially separated (unlocked) each other.

(Bug-1 ?) Undoing
Hover over one of green arrows shaft to have it be highlighted in yellow and click it. Another green arrow is locked (connected) to it immediately, but "undo" don't work at all, the shape of the cube is lost, and it's hard to recover accurately by hand. (Fig. 1)
(Similarly, instead of clicking, dragging the highlighted shaft/arrowhead and doing "undo" causes the same problem.)
CVctrl_1a.png
(Bug-2 ?) Rotation axis
By dragging the green arrow shaft of a "non-one-patch" cube, it seems to rotate about blue arrow's direction rightly, However, in case of "one-patch", the rotation axis seems points a direction bit above (it's < 45, about 40 degree. Fig. 2)
CVctrl_2a.png
(Bug-3 ?) Grabbing inner arrow
After dragged and released an arrow to inside of the object (the cube in this example), we cannot highlight it again. Dragging it moves not the arrow but the vertex with all arrows.

Btw, What is the "LR-X axis" of the CV Handles in the Quick Guide? Left-Right-X axis, i.e. a pair of arrows in the different color from the dragging arrow?
borgcone ... or 3DfromNULL at https://biglode.com/ptsxpy
stan
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Re: Model side control vertex (CV) handles, bugs?

Post by stan »

undo might not work in nurbs as you expect, but you can make the cube square again.
nurbs1.jpg
get the corner actiuve but not the widget.
nurbs2.jpg
the toolbar changes and you can select the sharp corner icon to make it square again.
nurbs3.jpg
Btw, What is the "LR-X axis" of the CV Handles in the Quick Guide? Left-Right-X axis
using the left mouse moves in one axis plane and right mouse moves in the other on X or the green arrow.
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Re: Model side control vertex (CV) handles, bugs?

Post by spacekdet »

Holding Shift or Control key while manipulating handles gives you different/finer control.
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borgcone
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Re: Model side control vertex (CV) handles, bugs?

Post by borgcone »

Thank you for your replies and efforts.
stan wrote: 12 Jan 2022, 15:19 ... but not the widget. ... the sharp corner icon ...
Sure, Non-widget tool! It completely slipped my mind. After your reply, I checked NURBS objects with sharp cornered vertex (i.e. one-patch cube, one-patch cone, one-patch cylinder) and understand they are completely recoverable via the non-widget tool as you wrote.

Incidentally tS5.1 (released in about 2001) behaves as same as this tS7 Model side's widget and non-widget controls. It is easily imaginable that this noticeable bug(?) of undoing was not able to be fixed for 6-7 years till tS7 is released for some reasons.

To fix (override) the "widget undo" problem, probably it might be needed to know the timing (window message?) of "undo" event and to trigger custom widget callback functions registered in advance from a model side (tSxAPI) plug-in.

About the term "widget":
The term "widget" itself and difference between "widget control" and "non-widget control" seem not to be documented precisely. I can understand a widget sample C++ program in SDK but cannot answer if a trueSpace newbie ask me where an official explanation of widget and widget control is.
Related topics by me:
Repositorium - Re: Primitive tsxPython (ptsxpy)... - Widget sample emulation (2021)

spacekdet wrote: 12 Jan 2022, 22:11 Holding Shift or Control key while manipulating handles gives you different/finer control.
It took me hours to understand the operation you wrote because in case of non-NURBS I always do SHIFT+Ctrl+Click to toggle vertex selection. After your reply, I understood SHIFT+Click (that subtract from selection) is different from SHIFT+Ctrl+Click (that does not do anything) in case of NURBS, and tried ALL combinations about mouse/key x NURBS types (one-patch/non-one-patch) x control types (widget/non-widget-normal/non-widget-curve).

I (and potential users who take interest in tS) would have been happier if ALL such operations are described in Quick Guide, "Chapter 4 Modeling -Model View" - "4.8 NURBS Editing", or other appropriate places.

One more reason why I always spend time is that there are many IMPLICIT ASSUMPTIONS in documents. For example, 4.8.2 says "There are two modes of operation, Normal and Curve mode". I was not able to determine both modes are of non-widget control till I tried.

Returning back to my translation and verification story I wrote in the beginning of this topic, I think it would be nice if there is a place to verify/check/fix/revise such (Caligari original) deficiency/insufficiency of the manual/guide/documents comprehensively/intensively.
(For example, I notice at least two inconsistencies/mistakes in the "noses" tutorial in "Chapter 4 Modeling -Model View" - "4.8 NURBS Editing"; "Left-click the Object icon" must be necessary before Right-click. The rotation "30 for Z" must be unnecessary)

But it might be better that I write in another topic separately about such problems of documents.
borgcone ... or 3DfromNULL at https://biglode.com/ptsxpy
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borgcone
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Re: Model side control vertex (CV) handles, bugs?

Post by borgcone »

Sorry, I have not read the topic below at all. :shock: Please ignore my sentences above about "problem of documents".
"Repositorium" - "Unofficial Update Documentation Manual" by clintonman
borgcone ... or 3DfromNULL at https://biglode.com/ptsxpy
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