Default for Posing Pane Editor - Should it be Translation rather than Rotation?
jpetersen1
Posts: 148
Whether this is a suggestion depends on how other people do things, but here is how I do things...
90% of the time I position items with Translate. I usually only have to use Rotate 2 or 3 times to get it right (especially with big items like cliffs or buildings—once they are in place, I rarely have to rotate them again), but I probably use Translate 20 to 40 times for each item before it is positioned correctly relative to the others.
But... the Posing Pane defaults to showing Rotate sliders (and hiding the Translate sliders) every time you select an item in the Scene Pane.
This adds up to thousands of extra clicks to get the Posing Pane into the mode where you can access the Translate sliders.
So my question (and suggestion) is:
Shouldn't DS default to showing the Translate sliders rather than the Rotate sliders if the translation activity occurs far more often?
Do other users find themselves using Translate much more often than Rotate?
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Comments
I do basically all my posing through PowerPose, so it's all rotation. Occasionally I'll grab something in the viewport using the universal tool, but it's been a long time since I even opened the posing pane.
The primary use of the program is posing and rendering human character figures, and rotating joints is a large part of that. Environment positioning is secondary, since many artist use premade scenes and HDRI for the background. They may not even move the character from the origin load position. Hence the reason Rotate is the default.
If you are rotating and posing in the Viewport, then this isn't really relevant. This question is for people who are using the sliders. The sliders default to Rotation. When I am using them, I use Translation about 85% of the time (sometimes more).
It isn't all about human figures. There are obviously sets, backgrounds, props. Like the boat and the rocks and water in the above scene.
If you never use the sliders, then you wouldn't really care what they default to, but if you are, then it's quite important. Defaulting to Rotation involves extra clicks to get to the Translation tools and they should be at the fingertips (or why not show both Translation and Rotation rather than hiding the Translation sliders as the default?).
As for rotating human (or animal) joints, that is not done with Rotation sliders. That is done with the Twist, Bend, and Side-to-Side sliders. So showing the Rotation sliders by default is useless for beinding and rotating limbs. The Twist and Bend sliders are also hidden by default when you select an item in the Scene List. It's extra clicks to get to those as well, so if moving joints is the primary purpose (I'm not sure I agree with this when talking about sliders, some things are better done in the Viewport and some things are better done with sliders.) then having Rotation as the default isn't useful for this either.
If people want to use the default sets without moving anything around that's fine. That's their choice. But I'm a bit surprised to hear that they don't change anything. Do you know from talking to people that that is actually true?
I want my renderings to look original, not like everyone else's, and that means moving things around, changing their scale, etc., not using premade anything (I morph all my human figures too). DS defaults to the less used item, which is Rotation (which is not used for limbs) and I would like to make a Product Suggestion that the default be changed to showing both Rotation and Translation, or at least to show Translation. Those of us who use the sliders would be saved hundreds of clicks per hours.
As FirstBastion says, the perceived core functions are figure posing - for which rotations are used. That said, I would think it would be a reasonable feature request to have the ability to designate the default property group for an item - if it isn't already possible. However, if you select one item, switch to its translation group, and then switch the selection to another item the open property group should not change - if it's present on the newly selected item.
No, that's not correct. This post is about the slider settings in the Posing Pane and Rotation is not used for posing the limbs. It's used if you want to spin the whole body, but not for the limbs.
If you want to pose the head, foot, arms or any other part of the body, you have to use Twist, Bend, and Side-to-Side [see pics, the left pic is posing sliders, the right pic is default sliders for most items and these Rotation sliders are not for posing limbs].
The posing sliders are separate from the Rotation sliders, it's a completely different set of sliders and most items that you select in the Scene Pane will default to the XYX Rotate Sliders when most of the time you need the Translate sliders.
Twist, Bend, Side-to-Side are the rotation sliders - just with different labels. They are (usually) given the axis labels only on the root item, rather than on bones, but that doesn't change what they are.
Richard, I appreciate that you are always quick to help people, but the limb-posing sliders are called Twist, Bend, Side-to-Side and there is another set called Rotation—two different sets of sliders. Calling them both by the same name only leads to confusion.
I'm sure you know there is a difference between a general concept (rotation) and a slider label (Rotation). These two sets of sliders (Twist/Bend/Side versus Rotation) do different things.
The only way we can communicate about the defaults in the Posing Pane is if we use the same names as DS uses for the labels and the sliders default to XYZ Rotation (which is not used for limb rotation), which is not a useful default because these sliders are used less often than the Translation or posing sliders.
The Posing Pane is not specifically for posing figures, it's for everything.
DAZ should consider changing the default.
No, they are the same things under the hood - try using the Rotation tool on items and see that it will affect the Bend etc. sliders on bones and the X Rotation etc. on figures and props.
No, they are not the same.
1) If I select Pelvis in the Posing Pane, the Rotation sliders are not visible. You can't access them. You can only access the limb-posers which are Bend/Twist/Side-Side.
2) If I select a prop, I get the Rotation sliders by default (it would be more useful to get the translation sliders, or both, by default). The Bend/Twist/Side-Side sliders are not accessible or relevant.
They do different things (you can't use Rotation sliders to bend or twist as you can with the limb sliders). Here is a screen snap.
My Product Suggestion is specifically about the second set of sliders (the Rotation sliders, which are NOT used for limbs). It would be more useful if they defaulted to Translate sliders. It takes extra clicks to make the Translate sliders visible, the ones that are used more often.
Here, maybe I can explain this better with a comparison picture. On the right is the default. You can only see the Rotate sliders (these are not used for posing limbs, they are used for positioning props). The others are not visible by default. You have to click the prop name to make them visible—it takes extra steps and wastes precious time (anyone who does a lot of 3D modeling or rendering should understand how precious time is).
On the left is what we ideally need to see (the part in yellow is the part that is seen by default, which is only a subset of the sliders), but if DAZ wants to keep the list of sliders short, then Translate would be better than Rotate as the default (see pic), it would at least cut down on the number of clicks (which is extra thousands per day):
They are both translation tools, the naming doesn't matter IMO. I have been working with Daz Studio for years and never even noticed the naming and I always use the sliders to pose. One is relevent for props the other for figures. Props don't usually have rigging, hence why the bend, side to side and twist are not there, only the rotation tools.
I can see this bothers you, but this topic rarely ever comes up, so the majority of users don't have an issue with it, so there isn't a need to change anything.
This is not just about naming.
The limb-posing sliders (Twist/Bend/Side-Side) are NOT THE SAME as the Rotate sliders.
They DO DIFFERENT THINGS.
You cannot bend or twist with the Rotation sliders and they are used mainly with non-rigged props (or large-scale moves of rigged props/figures). You CAN bend and twist with the Twist/Bend/Side-Side sliders and they are used mainly to pose the limbs of rigged figures. These are significant differences.
In order to COMMUNICATE about them, we need to use the names that DAZ is using, either you and I might be talking about different things.
I have worked in the software and media industries all my life and I can tell you from experience that the majority of users do NOT report their problems for two reasons:
1) They are not sure if the problem is them or the software.
2) Most of them are not programmers so they don't know how to describe things and they don't have the background to know what is difficult and what is hard in terms of getting something fixed.
I am software designer, computer programmer, and also a 3D artist and have successfully earned a living at all three so I figure I have a responsibility to speak for those who don't know how to articulate (or recognize) these problems themselves.
DAZ should not overlook opportunities to make things better regardless of whether it has "come up" or not. If they do, someone else will forge ahead of them.
The sliders on the boesn of a fgure deform the item because of the weight maps, which modulate their effect. if you filled the weight map with 100% for the seelction group of each bone then you would see the resemblance more clearly.