Simultaneously Uniformly-Scale and Rotate CutBrush

[Svengali]

I've been playing with an idea to simultaneously, uniformly-scale and rotate a Cutbrush or Animbrush... why not?

simultaneous scale and rotate.png (50.25 KiB) Viewed 18162 times

Sven

[Sewie]

Yes, this looks very interesting.
Workflow-wise it would be an excellent addition!
+1.

[Svengali]

After recent tests I think this might be a better configuration for a Scale AND Rotate gadget: The center for rotation and scaling placed at the middle-top of the bounding box and the cursor handle for stretching and setting the angle, extended from the bottom center of the bounding box. I think it would be quite useful for precisely defining stamped cutbrushes.

scale and rotate.png (16.66 KiB) Viewed 18131 times

Sven

[Paul Fierlinger]

I like this idea very much too, particularly after having been using your CutBrush FreeRotate almost daily. But what is your reason for placing the pivot point at the top? The convention seems to be having it in the middle. This way it would also be easier to target, wouldn't it?

[Sewie]

For me, having that handle away from the middle of the cutbrush would be a big improvement. Because on a Cintiq your hand gets in the way and you can hardly see the cutbrush when the handle is right in the middle of it.

I like you last suggestion, Sven!

[Elodie]

Interesting

[Paul Fierlinger]

Sewie, I don't know if your post is a reference to mine, but in case it was, I was talking about the pivot point, not the placement of the handle.

[Sewie]

It was a reaction to Sven's suggestion. Sorry for the confusion..

[Svengali]

For me, having the pivot point at the top of the bounding box makes it possible to more precisely size and rotate the cutbrush especially in context with (and superimposed over) the contents of the frame. For instance placing a figure or a prop within a space. If, on each occasion, the scaling and rotation was initiated by placing the top center point and then dragging away from there to indicate size and angle, it would work like a tape measure, start point to end point.
On the other hand, it might be more versatile to have the scaling and rotation happen from wherever the user has previously positioned the rotation point of the Cutbrush (and for my purposes, I could simply choose to locate the rotation point at the top center of the bounding box).

A different operation, how a circle or oval is placed, asks the same question: Is it better to generate a circle by first placing the center radius point, then growing the circumference to the desired size... or to place one tangent edge of the circle and then grow the circle towards another tangent edge (leaving the radius point to fall where it may).

Another significant issue: what happens after the Cutbrush has been scaled and rotated? Does it remain as a Cutbrush waiting to be stamped? Optionally, once the LMB is released the Cutbrush might immediately stamp in place, making it easy to multi-stamp the same image, each time with a different size, rotation and place in the frame (a forest of trees for example), or over sequential frames using the LT. Perhaps the user could choose between the two depending on the situation.

However it might be implemented, the most helpful thing for me would be to view the current Cutbrush dynamically scaling and rotating and then placing it in real time.

Sven

edit: One final comment: the original suggestion (illustration one) just extends the existing scaling box to include a handle attached to the lower-right corner for rotation but the user would always be forced to work and view it diagonally. In the second suggestion (illustration two), it orients the scaling along the vertical center line which I think makes it a lot easier to work with.

[NathanOtano]

Why not like the point for rotate but at the bottom? I mean, in the middle down but ON the bounding box. That way it will not go outside of the framed object, no need to unzoom or something if it's out of the frame.
It may be confusing with the rotate point also. I d'ont know if this kind of tool can be universal in all the transformation tools also.