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Strangely enough, pie menus in blender was the first time I ever sat down and took a (programming) idea to full completion. Before that all I really was doing w

Strangely enough, pie menus in blender was the first time I ever sat down and took a (programming) idea to full completion. Before that all I really was doing was hunt-and-peck at bugs and adding small functionality where it was missing. Had to learn me some vector math, fix bugs in the python openGL wrappers, figure out how the openGL state machine actually works and then get it all put together in a reasonable way. Turned out pretty well and other people took that implementation and made it into a complex addon that eventually ended up being widely used. It might have changed in the years since I did any blender programming but I had to do a lot of bug hunting and adding functionality to get python scripts working -- which was fine since most of the stuff I worked on was specifically to get the python API able to do whatever random thing I (or, more likely, someone else) needed.

DonHopkins 8y ago
Cool -- thank you for keeping the pie rolling! I love the way the new Blender 2.80 interface (which is a whole new ball game) integrates pie menu layout as a first class citizen, so you can nest any other kinds of user interface stuff inside of pie menus, and everything just works. Have you seen the astounding Pie Menu Editor extension? It's getting seriously into HyperCard territory! https://blendermarket.com/products/pie-menu-editor?ref=2 https://blendermarket.com/products/pie-menu-editor?ref=2 It's SO much more than just just a pie menu editor: you can edit all kinds of blender user interfaces widgets, linear menus, dialogs, panels, key bindings, macros, modal operators and properties. You can make custom control panels and put them into pie menus, as well as copying existing parts of the Blender user interface into your own pie menus and panels! And of course you can script and customize everything with Python. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-kU2IrTxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-kU2IrTxk It's really hard to convey everything it does, and the documentation and demos are pretty sparse, but here is a playlist with lots of examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTAsqEyZnEs&index=1&list=PLsowJ3v5QWhE9db_GcPnSrTXWJrA5poWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTAsqEyZnEs&index=1&list=PLs... Defining your own modal operators (interactive modes for live editing with visual feedback, temporary key and mouse bindings, etc) is particularly mind blowing! And those are great for invoking from pie menus, enabling a very fluid live direct-manipulation editing style. https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/User:Raa/Addons/Pie_Menu_Editor/Editors/Modal_Operator/ https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/User:Raa/Addons/P...
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  > Cool -- thank you for keeping the pie rolling! Chances are pretty high I found some of your code laying around on the interwebs and used that to figure out how it all works so you probably deserve most of the credit;) Matt Ebb did a C prototype way back when and gave me his code but it was too complicated to help out with the python one I ended up writing. Honestly I haven't been keeping up with what blender is doing since I can't even open the new version due to my videocard being too old. I'd be nice to get back to blender hacking (have some ideas on compiling down the node trees using partial evaluation) but can't see a new computer happening anytime in the near future.

DonHopkins 8y ago

Cool -- thank you for keeping the pie rolling! I love the way the new Blender 2.80 interface (which is a whole new ball game) integrates pie menu layout as a first class citizen, so you can nest any other kinds of user interface stuff inside of pie menus, and everything just works. Have you seen the astounding Pie Menu Editor extension? It's getting seriously into HyperCard territory! https://blendermarket.com/products/pie-menu-editor?ref=2 https://blendermarket.com/products/pie-menu-editor?ref=2 It's SO much more than just just a pie menu editor: you can edit all kinds of blender user interfaces widgets, linear menus, dialogs, panels, key bindings, macros, modal operators and properties. You can make custom control panels and put them into pie menus, as well as copying existing parts of the Blender user interface into your own pie menus and panels! And of course you can script and customize everything with Python. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-kU2IrTxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-kU2IrTxk It's really hard to convey everything it does, and the documentation and demos are pretty sparse, but here is a playlist with lots of examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTAsqEyZnEs&index=1&list=PLsowJ3v5QWhE9db_GcPnSrTXWJrA5poWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTAsqEyZnEs&index=1&list=PLs... Defining your own modal operators (interactive modes for live editing with visual feedback, temporary key and mouse bindings, etc) is particularly mind blowing! And those are great for invoking from pie menus, enabling a very fluid live direct-manipulation editing style. https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/User:Raa/Addons/Pie_Menu_Editor/Editors/Modal_Operator/ https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/User:Raa/Addons/P...

UncleEntity 8y ago
> Cool -- thank you for keeping the pie rolling! Chances are pretty high I found some of your code laying around on the interwebs and used that to figure out how it all works so you probably deserve most of the credit;) Matt Ebb did a C prototype way back when and gave me his code but it was too complicated to help out with the python one I ended up writing. Honestly I haven't been keeping up with what blender is doing since I can't even open the new version due to my videocard being too old. I'd be nice to get back to blender hacking (have some ideas on compiling down the node trees using partial evaluation) but can't see a new computer happening anytime in the near future.