Update March 20th
We’ve rolled out the changes to 5% of Studio users by default. If you’re seeing the changes for the first time, let us know what you think!
Happy v600 everyone!
We couldn’t leave a release like that without something special so today we bring you a beta feature adding many long awaited dragger quality of life improvements.
Overview of the improvements
- Improved hotkeys with 1/2/3/4 selecting the draggers (no Ctrl needed).
- Dedicated settings section for dragger and selection related settings.
- Soft snapping to edges when Grid Snap is disabled.
- Grid snapping guides to show you how objects are being snapped.
- Distance measurements of how far you’ve moved, scaled, or rotated something.
- Temporary snapping / orientation toggles via key hold.
- Improved mesh compatibility including snapping to MeshPart / Union vertices.
- Drag by pivot for precise object placement, such as sinking tree roots into the ground.
- Refreshed appearance for draggers with a more minimal UX.
- Animated tilt / rotate for clarity on what’s happening.
- Hotkey help to educate new users about dragger functionality.
- …many small tweaks to colors, thresholds, and timings.
Enabling the beta
Enabling the Dragger QoL Improvements beta feature
Open the Beta Features dialogue (File menu → Beta Features) and check the Dragger QoL Improvements beta. You will have to restart Studio for the change to take effect.
Full list of changes
Dedicated “Selection” Studio Settings Section
A new “Selection” section has been added to the Studio settings dialog.
- Existing dragger and selection related settings have been moved to this section.
- New settings have been added to control many of the new behaviors we’re adding here
If you see a new behavior you don’t like, we’ve probably included a setting to tweak or disable it.
Distance measurements & Refreshed Dragger UX
The UI of the draggers has been refreshed with slightly less clutter. The Move and Scale draggers no longer show you additional handles while dragging, instead the draggers now show you distance measurements (can be disabled via the “Show Numeric Measurements” setting). The Move tool shows the distance moved and the Scale tool shows the current size on the dragged axis.
The Move tool will leave the measurement behind temporarily. You can copy the distance moved from the box or even type into the box to precisely adjust how far the part was moved along the axis.
Grid snapping ruler
When grid snapping is enabled…
- A ruler will be displayed as you hover, showing you what point you will pick up a part by, and passively giving you a feel for how large the hovered part is.
- The same ruler will be shown in a different color on the target surface during a drag, showing how the point you picked up the selection by will be snapped to the target surface.
- The ruler can be disabled via the “Show Hover Ruler” setting.
Temporary snapping / orientation toggles
Holding Shift will temporarily toggle whether snapping is enabled for all the tools, so that if you just need to do one quick edit in the other mode you don’t have to go back to the ribbon to switch snapping.
Holding Alt while follow-the-cursor dragging will return the selection back to the orientation it started the drag with rather than orientation of the target surface. This mostly replaces the awkward “Align Dragged Objects” toggle in the context menu.
Soft snapping to edges
Disabling grid / angle snapping no longer disables all snapping: Now you’ll get soft snapping to vertices / edge centers instead when you’re close enough to those surface features. The snapping margin depends on your zoom level so you can zoom in further to avoid unwanted snaps.
- The soft snapping sensitivity can be tweaked via the “Soft Snap Margin Multiplier” setting. A multiplier of zero will disable soft snapping.
- The color of snapping indicators can be changed via the “Active Dragger Color” setting.
- The color of grids can be changed via the “Passive Dragger Color” setting.
This applies to the Move and Scale tools as well as follow-the-cursor dragging. Note: This pairs well with the Shift snapping toggle, allowing you to quickly choose between grid snapping for layout and soft snapping for precise alignment. This can be especially powerful with modular building sections.
Animated tilt / rotate
Tilting / Rotating the selection with T/R while follow-the-cursor dragging will now animate the movement rather than immediately applying it so that it’s clearer what happened. You can control the animation length via the “Tilt/Rotate Animation Duration” setting. Enter zero for no animation.
Hotkey help
A hotkey help panel is shown at the bottom right corner of the screen while dragging explaining the available shortcuts. You can press H to toggle this off once you’ve learned them.
Improved mesh compatibility
The draggers now have more understanding of mesh geometry. They can snap to the vertices of arbitrary MeshParts and UnionOperations. Note that the snapping will be based off of the collision geometry, so if you want to snap to fine details you’ll want to set the CollisionFidelity of the part to precise.
Drag by pivot
If you click on the pivot, you’ll now follow-the-cursor drag the object by its pivot. This places the pivot onto the surface as though it were a zero-size object instead of placing the bounding on the surface. By setting up an appropriate pivot and combining drag-by-pivot with Ctrl+D to duplicate during a drag, you can derive fast object stamping behavior:
…and finally, small change lightning round
- “Bump keys” for the Move tool. Pressing the NumPad keys will move the selection by one grid increment in local space.
- Improved contrast for RGB colors used by handles. Oversaturation is used to produce similar contrast levels for each color rather than the same saturation level being used for all of them.
- Improved behavior when dragging onto Terrain.
- Restored previous follow-the-cursor dragging behavior for parts thinner than
0.05to avoid gaps. [also enabled outside beta] - Duplicating parts with Ctrl+D during a follow-the-cursor drag no longer ends the drag, enabling stamping behavior. [also enabled outside beta]
- Handle summoning while holding tab now more aggressively snaps to the edges of parts. You can control how aggressive the snap is via the “Summon Snap Margin Multiplier” setting.
- Minor tweaks to how the pivot is snapped to models when using the Pivot Editor.
Wrap-up
Some of the changes in this beta are on the more experimental end of the spectrum so we’re eagerly anticipating your feedback on this one. Let us know what works and what doesn’t… and what else you’re disappointed to not see in this beta as well.
Thanks to @tnavarts, @PrinceTybalt, and @jimjamjomj for this one!
