Auto-Masking Popover for the Header #101593

New Issue

Julien Kaspar · 2022-10-04T15:34:43+02:00

Julien Kaspar commented

2022-10-04 15:34:43 +02:00

For Blender 3.3 auto-masking was introduced to grease pencil sculpt mode. For 3.4 the mesh sculpt mode will also be feature complete with all planned auto-masking features.
The motivation behind this design is to update the UI for auto-masking to:

Make the feature more discoverable & accessible
Make the settings more structured and easier to understand
Set a standard for other modes to follow

Current Issues

Currently all auto-masking options can be found in the "Options" panel. Since this feature is meant to be toggled often and pivotal in some workflows, this makes the feature hard to find and access.
There is a pie menu shortcut on Alt A to access them quicker, but this is not discoverable without watching a tutorial or reading the manual.

Even worse, users are far more likely to discover the feature in the brush settings. While this is the same feature, the user case is very different:

The brush settings are only for defining the behavior of the current brush
The mode settings are for every brush or tool in sculpt mode

This means the mode settings in the options panel must be more discoverable and the logical place to access and use the feature.

Solution

This was discussed together with @pablovazquez.

The header is left unused in the sculpt and painting modes. Eventually the auto-masking feature will also be used in painting, and is already being implemented in grease pencil: #101167
We should use this space to add a panel popover for auto-masking toggles and settings.
Boxes could be utilized here to clearly separate the types of auto-masks and their settings.

This is how it would look like if every setting is visible:

The same layout changes apply to the brush settings panel.

Key changes from current UI

Propagation steps for Boundary auto-masking will only appear if the related auto-masking is toggled on
Settings are grouped together with the auto-masking toggles instead of listed below them
Cavity & Cavity (Inverted) will be listed here as a main and a sub-toggle instead of mutually exclusive auto-masking toggles. This is to keep consistency with the rest of the Blender UI
- The Pie Menu layout and functionality must stay unaffected by this change
Renaming of "Use Curve" to "Custom Curve". We don't use the word "Use" or "Toggle" for toggles
The Custom Curve UI will get a "Presets" dropdown to instead of navigational controls
The "Mask From Cavity" operator needs to be moved to a dropdown list, to avoid confusion with identical looking sliders and toggles
The "Occlusion" toggle should cause the "Limit" & "Falloff" sliders to disappear, since these settings are mutually exclusive
Less duplication in the naming to avoid issues with limited space

For Blender 3.3 auto-masking was introduced to grease pencil sculpt mode. For 3.4 the mesh sculpt mode will also be feature complete with all planned auto-masking features. The motivation behind this design is to update the UI for auto-masking to: - Make the feature more discoverable & accessible - Make the settings more structured and easier to understand - Set a standard for other modes to follow # Current Issues Currently all auto-masking options can be found in the "Options" panel. Since this feature is meant to be toggled often and pivotal in some workflows, this makes the feature hard to find and access. There is a pie menu shortcut on `Alt A` to access them quicker, but this is not discoverable without watching a tutorial or reading the manual. ![Screenshot_2022-10-04_15-23-30.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F13613785/Screenshot_2022-10-04_15-23-30.png) Even worse, users are far more likely to discover the feature in the brush settings. While this is the same feature, the user case is very different: - The brush settings are only for defining the behavior of the **current brush** - The mode settings are for **every brush or tool** in sculpt mode This means the mode settings in the options panel must be more discoverable and the logical place to access and use the feature. ![Screenshot_2022-10-04_15-12-54.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F13613757/Screenshot_2022-10-04_15-12-54.png) # Solution This was discussed together with @pablovazquez. The header is left unused in the sculpt and painting modes. Eventually the auto-masking feature will also be used in painting, and is already being implemented in grease pencil: #101167 We should use this space to add a panel popover for auto-masking toggles and settings. Boxes could be utilized here to clearly separate the types of auto-masks and their settings. ![automasking_panel2_default.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F13613738/automasking_panel2_default.png) This is how it would look like if every setting is visible: ![automasking_panel2.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F13613740/automasking_panel2.png) The same layout changes apply to the brush settings panel. ### Key changes from current UI - Propagation steps for Boundary auto-masking will only appear if the related auto-masking is toggled on - Settings are grouped together with the auto-masking toggles instead of listed below them - Cavity & Cavity (Inverted) will be listed here as a main and a sub-toggle instead of mutually exclusive auto-masking toggles. This is to keep consistency with the rest of the Blender UI - The Pie Menu layout and functionality must stay unaffected by this change - Renaming of "Use Curve" to "Custom Curve". We don't use the word "Use" or "Toggle" for toggles - The Custom Curve UI will get a "Presets" dropdown to instead of navigational controls - The "Mask From Cavity" operator needs to be moved to a dropdown list, to avoid confusion with identical looking sliders and toggles - The "Occlusion" toggle should cause the "Limit" & "Falloff" sliders to disappear, since these settings are mutually exclusive - Less duplication in the naming to avoid issues with limited space

Julien Kaspar commented

2022-10-04 15:34:43 +02:00

Changed status from 'Needs Triage' to: 'Confirmed'

Julien Kaspar commented

2022-10-04 15:34:43 +02:00

Added subscribers: @pablovazquez, @JulienKaspar, @JosephEagar

Antonio Vazquez commented

2022-10-05 10:20:34 +02:00

Added subscriber: @antoniov

Antonio Vazquez commented

2022-10-05 10:23:14 +02:00

@pablovazquez If you do the popover, could you make it in a way we can reuse for GPencil? I mean, we can use the same popover and just add a if for each mode or something like that, in this way we can us ethe same for Mesh Sculpt & Gpencil Sculpt instead to create the panel two times.

@pablovazquez If you do the popover, could you make it in a way we can reuse for GPencil? I mean, we can use the same popover and just add a `if` for each mode or something like that, in this way we can us ethe same for Mesh Sculpt & Gpencil Sculpt instead to create the panel two times.

Julien Kaspar added this to the Sculpt, Paint & Texture project 2023-02-08 10:20:48 +01:00

Philipp Oeser removed the

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Auto-Masking Popover for the Header #101593

Current Issues

Solution

Key changes from current UI