Curve Builder Suggestion
@rosso135, First, thanks for this fantastic mod. I like this better than the Perfect Curves in terms of control. I do have a few suggestions, if you don't mind.
Questions/comments: 1) When returning to Curve mode after having built elsewhere, I've noticed that it retains the prior degree radius. I imagine this is by design to enable you to quickly build a similar curve at the same radius. Is there a reset to zero hotkey I'm missing, rather than having to scroll back to 0? If not, that would be a really helpful addition. 2) I've noticed that when I manually scroll MMB to return to 0°, the 0° foundation tends to be at a 45° angle to the reference. not in line. Am I doing something wrong? 3) When working between two existing foundations, I've noticed it is very finicky about which one it "attaches" to as the reference point. Even if I'm pointing to one side, if they're reasonably close the mod will sometimes choose the other even if I'm not only pointing but facing the side I want to build off of. 4) This is a bit of a trigonometric story problem to solve and not easy to explain in words, but it would amazing if it could also calculate the correct radius to mate two existing foundations together on their tangents. Not saying to perfectly fit against two that exist because that may not be solvable. Instead, to determine the tangents of each and build a curve that matches the right angles and alignment on each end, but not necessarily the edge of those foundations. This would allow us to build mating curves to existing structure. The Curve Builder foundations might clip through the existing lines of foundations to solve for this curve. Then we'd simply remove the straight foundations, have a tangential curve from your mod, and fill in any sub-foundation sized gaps with clipping. Does that make sense? I realize this also requires the ability to select two references, so I imagine not easy to code or to explain how to use.
Questions/comments: 1) When returning to Curve mode after having built elsewhere, I've noticed that it retains the prior degree radius. I imagine this is by design to enable you to quickly build a similar curve at the same radius. Is there a reset to zero hotkey I'm missing, rather than having to scroll back to 0? If not, that would be a really helpful addition. 2) I've noticed that when I manually scroll MMB to return to 0°, the 0° foundation tends to be at a 45° angle to the reference. not in line. Am I doing something wrong? 3) When working between two existing foundations, I've noticed it is very finicky about which one it "attaches" to as the reference point. Even if I'm pointing to one side, if they're reasonably close the mod will sometimes choose the other even if I'm not only pointing but facing the side I want to build off of. 4) This is a bit of a trigonometric story problem to solve and not easy to explain in words, but it would amazing if it could also calculate the correct radius to mate two existing foundations together on their tangents. Not saying to perfectly fit against two that exist because that may not be solvable. Instead, to determine the tangents of each and build a curve that matches the right angles and alignment on each end, but not necessarily the edge of those foundations. This would allow us to build mating curves to existing structure. The Curve Builder foundations might clip through the existing lines of foundations to solve for this curve. Then we'd simply remove the straight foundations, have a tangential curve from your mod, and fill in any sub-foundation sized gaps with clipping. Does that make sense? I realize this also requires the ability to select two references, so I imagine not easy to code or to explain how to use.
2 Replies
These are all great suggestions - thanks. There is an annoying issue where sometimes snapping in curved mode doesn't align it properly, you can get around this by just vanilla rotating the foundation to the correct orientation, but modifying the snapping logic was a bit messy and could definitely use some improvement
I'll see what I can do to help figure out from the client-side what may be going on for #3 as I use it. #4 is the kind of recreational math problem I enjoy. I presume you have world coordinates and object coordinates to work with. Without the constraint of having to build the curve off the ends of existing foundations, any radius can be made tangential that has a center on the bisect of the two foundation vectors. It comes down to finding what radius is at or just above the minimum radius that "looks ok" (e.g. somewhat smooth). That probably means minimizing the area that clips within some limits.