Has anyone made use of path lofting or know of a way to extrude a shape along it in 3d for godot?

dotted

There is scarce information (about 1 video that I can recall).

The issue I have is getting at it and understanding how or if one can do the desired process with this feature.

What I would like to do is draw a path on one of the axis planes (xy, xz whatever) and then either extrude a shape along that path (such as making a square or circular tube from a series of line segments, making a zig zag pipe) or loft the path in the remaining dimension to generate a similar shape even if it is square in cross section.

I made one try at it but the shape was lofted into a sheet and not a volume.

the point is to do this dynamically and not as a static model. I don't want to rewrite volume of revolution code.

(I am already using CSG booleans to generate a shape but i am curious if lofting would be faster)

dotted

Here I am speaking of CSGPolgyon

The documentation for lofting along a polygon is wholly opaque because the Path node has no editor available way to drawing a path visually (at least obviously)

what I expect is an option to define a path in 3d by clicking points in a plane or 3 space and an option to define the cross section shape to use as an extrusion shape.

the UI is utterly opaque

(time stamp at or a little after 6min)

gd-quest mentions CSGPolygon (and that it the ui isn't clear) but there isn't an explanation of why the polygon is a child of a path (or if it is relevant) or how to to define a path shape (which is not covered from godot docs either)

dotted

OK this is where godot editor really falls down. Add a path and then a bunch of buttons to -define- the path silently appear in the scene editor. The documentation falls down. The videos fall down.

One of the things I really hate about the editor UX: often it silently introduces visual elements that are exceedingly hard to notice. It's a road block regarding developing UI -- the layout icons that appear without any visual cue in a circumstance where the user is visually focused elsewhere (like the scene tree panel)

Or they do not follow basic UX design rules like high-lighting when rolled over (say like output or debugger icons that are -buttons-).

Megalomaniak

Hmm, yes I sometimes do wish that the widget in the viewport would be able to do more of these things rather than (visually) disconnected buttons in a header somewhere.

dotted

Well I am burrowing into the flesh of Curve3D and find that the reference frame for the points defining it is not specified. In short if I add Vector3(1, 1, 1) will this be a point relative to and in local space of the containing path or what?

Curve3D is a resource. It does not have its own spatial transforms.

I think in writing this I have clarified the situation to myself but docs at times need spiffing up. Contributing myself might be a nice idea but I would rather make it a proposal so the devs can make any corrections and clarifications before hand.

Calinou

One of the things I really hate about the editor UX: often it silently introduces visual elements that are exceedingly hard to notice. It's a road block regarding developing UI -- the layout icons that appear without any visual cue in a circumstance where the user is visually focused elsewhere (like the scene tree panel)

This will be improved by this pull request if it's merged.

I think in writing this I have clarified the situation to myself but docs at times need spiffing up. Contributing myself might be a nice idea but I would rather make it a proposal so the devs can make any corrections and clarifications before hand.

Don't hesitate to contribute to the class reference directly. We can review your pull request and apply corrections :)