Soft Selection in Affinity Design

[Affinitus]

Hi,

I'm a user of Blender 3d and found this feature very helpful when creating shapes and objects. Its called Soft Selection

and I think for editing curves in Design it would be a great feature. I have attached a picture to best describe what I mean.

Thanks for a great software.

[GarryP]

Your image doesn’t give me any explanation of what this functionality might do – it’s just some differently-shaded rectangles joined by lines.
Why not explain what you think this functionality might do, how it could be useful as an addition to the Affinity applications, and how the user would use it and enable/disable it?

[Alfred]

13 hours ago, Affinitus said:

I'm a user of Blender 3d and found this feature very helpful when creating shapes and objects. Its called Soft Selection

It’s called ‘Soft Selection’ in other software but in Blender it’s actually called ‘Proportional Editing’.

https://www.versluis.com/2015/04/how-to-use-soft-selections-in-blender/

 

[Affinitus]

Hi GarryP,

This feature will enable the user to select a node and it's neighbors according to a selection radius. This will happen in a gradient, weakly effecting the furthest node from selection. So the user can move the node and selections proportionally.

This video is a good example of the feature. 

 

[Affinitus]

10 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It’s called ‘Soft Selection’ in other software but in Blender it’s actually called ‘Proportional Editing’.

https://www.versluis.com/2015/04/how-to-use-soft-selections-in-blender/

 

Yes that's correct Alfred. I blame Autodesk lol I was a user of 3d max for some time before blender. 

[GarryP]

Thanks for the extra information.
That looks nice but I’m wondering where it would be useful in the Affinity applications.
Can you give an example of where it would be useful?
Also, how would the user specify the different parameters?
Also, how would it be switched on/off?

[Affinitus]

Apologies for the late reply. How I envision the feature is as follows. the user double right click or using a hot key + double click the shape. 

a new set of node handles appear on the shape. the user then has control of the radius by typing in a value or by mouse middle scroll.

the user then moves a node or node group and the closes surrounding nodes move proportionally. my example shows the nodes on the outside of the radius area being weakly effected by the operation. the strength of the edit is demonstrated by the gradient colour.

I did my best to demonstrate this visually. I hope it helps

[GarryP]

Thanks for supplying more information.
In my experience, most people, when asked for details of how their request would work, simply don’t bother. (I don’t know how they think that their request could be implemented by the developers if the person making the request doesn’t supply any details.)

I like the idea, it’s a bit like part of the Photo Liquify functionality, but I have some reservations about your implementation suggestions.

1. Double-right-click would override the current right-click functionality (context menu) so that might not be good for people who expect the current functionality. Also that doesn’t really work for people with iPads – the application functionality needs to be usable in iPad and Desktop – or those with single-button mice (who will probably be having an awkward time of things anyway).
2. Using a keyboard modifier with a double-click might work but we already have so many of these things it might get very messy. This needs looking into more to say if it’s viable.
3. Typing a value for the radius while the functionality is being used would override the existing ‘Set Opacity’ functionality which some people may rely on and not want overridden.
4. Middle-mouse-scroll would not be usable by people with no middle-mouse wheel, or people not using a mouse (e.g. drawing tablets, iPads).
5. Some users may want to ‘soft select’ only the nodes along the curve nearest the mouse pointer rather than those surrounding the mouse pointer; how could this be achieved?

As I said above, I like the idea but the devil is in the detail and if it’s not implemented nicely then people aren’t going to use it, and that would be a waste of time and effort.
I think the idea could be ‘massaged’ into a working idea but it needs more thought put into how it might work in practice.
(Extra controls on the Context Bar may be the way to go, I don’t know.)
Maybe other people will see this and come up with their own suggestions.

[Alfred]

6 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I like the idea, it’s a bit like part of the Photo Liquify functionality

I like the idea, too. It’s a bit like the vector mesh warp functionality that has been on the AD feature request list for a very long time.

[GarryP]

I think they are different, but related, things.
That’s perhaps why we have both Mesh Warp and Liquify in Photo and not just one function which does both.
As I see it, Mesh Warp affects each part of the image according to an overall ‘envelope’ (with some parts not being affected, depending on the result) while Liquify affects only a part of the image (depending on relative image/tool size) – one is ‘top down’ and the other is ‘bottom up’, so to speak.

One thing I wouldn’t want to happen is for the discussion about this functionality to get mixed into the discussion about vector Mesh Warp as I think they do different, but complementary, things. I see this as more of an extension to the Node Tool rather than anything else; just a slightly different way of selecting nodes and moving them together (which does sound a bit like vector Mesh Warp but different). Or maybe we could have a Vector Liquify Persona?

Anyway, there are plenty of other things which probably need to happen to the software before this sort of thing is even considered so there’ll be lots of time for discussion. Maybe something for version 3.0, perhaps?

[Alfred]

16 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I think they are different, but related, things.

I think so, too, Garry, which is why I parroted the phrase “a bit like” from your post.

[GarryP]

Yeah. I just wanted to make myself “a bit” clearer for others reading this.
I didn’t want people ‘latching on’ to this discussion as another ‘vote’ for vector Mesh Warp (which possibly has enough 'votes' already).

[Affinitus]

I'm glad you see the usefulness of the idea guys. I understand the request for more information Garry. Modern application development requires thorough thinking to ensure nothing breaks current code and to ensure it integrates into the application elegantly. The points you mentioned makes me think this feature should be included into the current node selection system as a check box selection. This way it integrates into the system without extra tool buttons or keyboard modifiers. This way it's available on all platforms and shouldn't interfere with other features. When enabled maybe it will display a text field and/or a slider for the radius control.

[GarryP]

Thank you for understanding that I wasn’t just being awkward in asking the extra questions.

While we are waiting for anything to happen in this area, if it does at all, do you know about the Transform Mode functionality which already exists for the Node Tool? See attached video for some basic examples.

I think there may be a possibility to enhance the Transform Mode to include a pop-up selector containing ‘profiles’ which the user can choose from to say how the nodes are manipulated, e.g. move equal distances from centre; move proportional to distance from centre; move inversely proportional to distance from centre; etc.

[Affinitus]

No problem Garry. 

Thanks for the video. Yes this function is very useful, I use it a lot when working.