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Some things, when discovered makes you think how genius C4Ds UX design is...


Guest Igor

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So guys, after cca 10y of using C4D I just discovered when you enable Lights shadows, icon slightly changes...

 

OFF:image.png ON: image.png 

 

I wonder how many of you noticed this and how many times you went WOW by most simple feature? 🙂

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35 minutes ago, Igor said:

So guys, after cca 10y of using C4D I just discovered when you enable Lights shadows, icon slightly changes...

 

OFF:image.png ON: image.png 

 

I wonder how many of you noticed this and how many times you went WOW by most simple feature? 🙂

 

There are more icons that adapt their image to the current state. Try the dynamics tags for example. (The light icon also comes in the light's color...)

Programmatically, C4D asks your plugin for the icon, and you can return one of any number of icons depending on what major status you want to convey to the user.

 

I'm more astonished about the icons that can arbitrarily change color, because there you need to mask the actually colored area and modify the bitmap on the fly.

 

On the other hand, the vertical tag concept could be better. You cannot use it for single objects, causing huge waste of vertical space; and you cannot group tags in folders (except the one that is automated). Well, gotta work with what you have.

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8 hours ago, Cairyn said:

Well, gotta work with what you have.

 

Yeah, but it's bloody helpful for UVing ! The new R23 default folder does kind of alleviate the problem of not being able to control it on a per-object basis, so not too unhappy with that...

 

CBR

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22 hours ago, Cairyn said:

On the other hand, the vertical tag concept could be better.

What do you mean by that? 

 

And I agree, some things shows that UI in general is a bit outdated but I am sure at some point Maxon will tackle this too. 🙂 

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41 minutes ago, Igor said:

What do you mean by that? 

 

And I agree, some things shows that UI in general is a bit outdated but I am sure at some point MAXON will tackle this too. 🙂 

 

The vertical tag concept has two issues: first, it changes the way you select. Normally, the object side and the tag side of the object manager window work "independently" when it comes to clicks and selections. When vertical tags are activated, tags become a part of the object list on the left side - clicking a tag means deactivating an object that may be selected. (etc, I don't want to describe the full behavior). This could have been avoided if the tag list would still appear on the right side, but vertical and with names. Maybe the current design has been chosen so a vertical-tag object manager could be extra narrow, but personally that's not what I need.

Second, the design wastes vertical space. Yes, you can close the branch of an object so you don't see the tag folder, but if you're working with deep hierarchies, then you want the branch to be open, which means that you always have a tag folder as child visible. One object with one tag becomes three lines in the window (object, tag folder, tag). The tag folder itself serves only the purpose of hiding the tags when they are not needed; it has almost no functionality of its own (well okay, you can use it as Root for the manager and select all tags by one click on the folder, but I have never practically used that).

You do not have the option to expand the tags of a single object to vertical, either; you can only open or close the tag folder as needed, with the tag folder itself always visible as child.

 

For me, the most important usecase for vertical tags is when I'm working with tons of tags on one object which all have the same icon (e.g. selection tags). I do not need all other objects to show their tag names, especially since the majority of objects come with different tags that can be distinguished by their icon easily enough. I do not need an extra narrow window either.

 

My current workaround is to have a second object manager always in vertical tag mode, and "root" it to the object I want to focus on. But it's kind of wasted space in a lot of work situations, and on the other paw not important enough to make it its own layout...

 

If I had designed the vertical tag option, each tag row would start with a right/down arrow symbol that allows to show the tags vertical and with names. This would toggle the tag display for only this tag list. Icons and names would appear on the right side which would avoid the selection issues. (The objects on the left side would adapt their vertical position.) The first tag would appear on the same line as the object itself, saving vertical space. You could determine which objects should display their tags vertically depending on your current work situation.

 

Anyway, I generally like the GUI of C4D, esp. the attribute manager. Just the object manager is starting to get watered down with additions that don't quite fit into the concept - vertical tags are one example, hiding objects (with no trace that there are objects hidden) is another, and the child branches where you add certain elements in the attribute manager in a different display of the same child list (like in the volume builder) is a third. You get accustomed to it, but I have the feeling that you could do it more consistently. Perhaps a change will come when the Nodes are ripe to use.

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15 hours ago, Cerbera said:

Yeah, but it's bloody helpful for UVing ! The new R23 default folder does kind of alleviate the problem of not being able to control it on a per-object basis, so not too unhappy with that...

Default folder? I may have missed that as a new feature, and I can't find it in the help, could you point me at the functionality?

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3 minutes ago, Cairyn said:

Default folder? I may have missed that as a new feature, and I can't find it in the help, could you point me at the functionality?

 

No, you mentioned it - this one...

image.png.a5bd33a4fe7a82d51bec9115b1721ba1.png

 

As that appears closed when you first do Vertical tags, you can open just the one you're working on, which mitigates the massively long OM you'd get were this not the case...

 

CBR

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4 hours ago, Cerbera said:

 

No, you mentioned it - this one...

image.png.a5bd33a4fe7a82d51bec9115b1721ba1.png

 

As that appears closed when you first do Vertical tags, you can open just the one you're working on, which mitigates the massively long OM you'd get were this not the case...

 

CBR

 

Oh, I thought you meant a feature of the R23 release. This folder existed back in the R19 already (probably since the vertical tags were introduced, but I wouldn't swear on it...)

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