Shade 10: Introducing the 3D Manipulator

Without a doubt, the feature long time Shade users will notice immediately is the new 3D manipulator tool in Shade 10.  This feature gives you more ways to quickly and easily modify your scene without requiring any changes to the way you work.The Shade workspace and workflow has always been open and uncluttered. For 3D professionals coming from traditional design, architectural, illustration or CAD backgrounds, the traditional Shade interface has historically been a like a second home. Put into perspective – some users have been designing with Shade since it shipped in 1986 – just four years after the appearance of MS DOS 1.0 and two years after the appearance of the Apple Macintosh. Compare again that the first version of 3D Studio MAX didn’t appear until 1990. Some customers have literally been using Shade since its first release.

Because of its origins and long customer involvement, the Shade development team has been very, very careful to change the customer experience in a way that would disrupts traditional workflow.  At the same time,  the Shade development team wants to meet the expectations of more recent generations of 3D designers – especially at the root of the customer experience – interaction with objects in a scene.

Shade 10 introduces a major tool addition: the 3D manipulator. In Shade 9 or earlier, if you wanted to move or resize and object interactively, you’d leverage command keys or go to Tools > Move menu. You can still do that in Shade 10, however now you can interactively manipulate objects in the Figure Window.

Here is a typical layout in Shade 10, using multiple display options and the universal mode of the 3D manipulator:

Shade 10 Figure Window with 3D Manipulator

You can interact with any object using the 3D manipulator. Here is the universal manipulator cage with a single camera in Perspective view:

Shade 10 Perspective View Showing Camera and 3D Manipulator

Often you will only want to modify one aspect of your object or scene, so using a universal mode tool increases the chance you’ll make an unintended change. For that reason, you can also limit the 3D manipulator to just one mode.

Maybe you only want to move an object along an axis – you can limit the 3D manipulator only to Translate mode:

Shade 10 Camera with 3D Manipulator - Translate Mode

Just need to change the size of your current object? Limit the 3D manipulator to Scale mode:

Shade 10 Camera with 3D Manipulator - Scale Mode

What about rotating your selected object? Use the 3D manipulator in Rotate mode:

Shade 10 Camera with 3D Manipulator - Rotate Mode

With its long history, there is a chance some long term Shade users will want to stay with the old tried-and-true methods. If you are one of those users, you don’t have to worry – the 3D manipulator can be turned off.