Smoove tool not working as expected?

#1

I was very excited to try out the smoove tool, unfortunately it doesnt seem to do anything. The selected area is seemingly smooved as expected, but when clicking to “apply” or “accept” it just returns to original. move tool etc works as expected.
Note that I am using the Quest 2 not PC link, but directly on the quest, editing models live with the code. (I can’t get VR Sketch to work with the PC link)

While I couldn’t apply the tool, I could test it, and while it is very impressive, it seems to lack the on function that would set smoove in VR apart from regular smoove tool, which is the ability to NOT lock into any axis, simply moving the soft selection geometry freely in all directions using my hand. I don’t know if i missed out on some trick, or if there is software limitations, or deliberate descision, but it would be really great to have a full 3D soft selection drag-any-direct option to edit surfaces, terrain etc.

#2

Hi Adrian! Thanks for this report, it is likely that we forgot to add some logic somewhere.

A quick reply already now: you can change the axis (it’s an entry in the B button menu), but indeed you can’t have the axis move freely. I came up with various ways in which the interactions could work, but eventually settled on the current one: the position of the controller in 3D configures the distance and radius of the effect along a fixed axis. If we wanted the axis to move freely, then we would need a different way to choose the radius. Or we could split the process into two steps, but that seems suboptimal too and inconvenient for two common cases—the case where we just want to use the same axis as before (e.g. vertical), and the case where we just want to use the same radius as before.

Maybe something I didn’t think about would be a toggle in the context menu: you could have either a fixed axis and variable radius, or a variable axis and fixed radius. The joystick could also be used to switch between these two states quickly.

#3

Yes, the current setup is a clever way to set up the radius freely. But it’s not very useful overall if you are locked to the fixed axis, I’m much more likely to want to use a completely random angle not close to the red/green/blue axis. Besides it is extra steps to lock to specific axis, so whatever speed saved on freely changing radius is lost, and doing it this way is already possible in SketchUp using exising plugins.

Using the joystick to change radius would be a good solution. Personally, I’d make the smoove tool a completely different tool than move since it’s a real game-changer, you want it to be very visible for new users and not have to toggle it on in the sub-menu each time switching to it. I made a small illustration of what would be amazing: the ability to drag meshes/terrain freely, and even rotate my hand a bit while dragging the soft selection. Quickly changing the selection size is certainly a big bonus, but the free hand movement is what would set it aside as a VR-only tool. I also noticed that smoove worked on line segments, so the possiblities to create custom shaped curves (which can later be extruded) is also amazing and unique to VR gestures.

(If you also added an option to auto-subdivide triangles when smooving like Artisan plugin does, the possibilities for sculpting Z-brush style would be endless, but i imagine its much less easy to implement so don’t worry too much about this one)

Either way, thank you so much for continuing to develop this amazing and very useful software.

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#4

I tried in the Quest editing a local file, and it seems to work fine for me with the latest version. What are you trying to do exactly? Editing a local file, or the more traditional editing of a file from a PC/Mac running Sketchup? In that latter case, can you make sure that the PC/Mac has got the latest version of VR Sketch installed? Using an older version on the PC/Mac likely doesn’t work for the smoove tool…

#5

I tried again with same result, despite having recent version of both. However, after uninstalling and reinstalling on both devices, the problem disappeared. Thank you!

I just tried the passthrough mode thing for the first time and WOW what a game changer. I can now easily access my PC, eg to give additional commands with plugins, and I have much more control of my office surroundings. It’s just amazing.
I figured out now how to lock to a random axis, not just blue-red-green, which is definetly better than not having that option, but I still think it would be better with smoove tool separate and using joystick to select radius, at least as an option. The way I see it, smoove tool should be more of a “hand” tool instead of a “move” tool where you can take advantage of both 3 dimensional movement and rotation.

I was reluctant to use Meta quest standalone app instead of PC link since I had limited success first attempt, but now I am very impressed with the process. No more crawling below desk to connect pesky cables.

One more question, I noticed that the video/recording tab is gone. I’d love to show people how amazing this process is, including the smoove tool, not to mention the passthrough experience. Is there any way to share/record what I’m experiencing inside the quest 2, preferably with passthrough if possible? maybe you tested some external recording tools for this purpose?

#6

Hi! I see the point of making it a suboption of “Move Freehand” rather than “Move”, but for now I’d like to think a bit more about the related idea of subdividing big edges and faces. There is no tool to help you with that in VR Sketch yet; I’m thinking to either just make one, or else make it an option of “smoove” that would split big edges and faces as you try to use the smoove tool. With such an option, smoove would make total sense as its own separate tool.

I guess this won’t be in the next release (due soon), but the variable-axis-and-fixed-radius mode works great and will be included.

About choosing the radius: it probably makes sense to use the joystick, like you suggest. A bonus point is that this naturally gives “the same radius as last time” by default. In the released version of VR Sketch, the radius is the same as last time as long as the controller is close to the axis and switches to a variable radius if you move the controller away from the axis—and switches back to “the same as last time” if you move the controller near the axis again. It works but it doesn’t feel completely natural IMHO.

Video/recording: yes, the Quest has a built-in option to record a video: see Record video on Horizon OS and Meta Quest in the Meta docs.

#7

Fantastic! I am very excited for the upcoming releases.