What's New in Modeling

UV Editor improvements

A number of selection improvements have been made to the UV Editor to increase parity with the 3D workspace. These include:

• Menu organization: The menus along the top of the editor have been re-organized for a more streamlined workflow. For more information, see UV Editor menu bar.
• Drag Select: It is now possible to drag select components either by activating Drag via Tool Settings or by holding Tab and dragging across them with the left mouse button.
• Grow Selection and Shrink Selection: You can now expand and contract the current selection in the UV Editor by Ctrl + right-clicking the current selection and selecting either option. See Select UVs.
• Split UVs on multiple meshes: The Split UVs operation now works when multiple objects are selected at the same time.
• Improved visibility: When Display Image is enabled with Color Correction, but no texture is loaded, the background no longer changes color.
• UV selection consistency: The UV Editor will now automatically convert your current selection to the appropriate one before applying certain commands. This saves you from having to perform these conversions manually. After performing these commands, the current selection will then return you to your original UV selection. These commands include:
  • Normalize
  • Unitize
  • Flip
  • Rotate
  • Grid
  • Align
  • Straighten UV Border
  • Sew UV Edges
  • Merge UVs
  • Separate the selected UV into one for each connected edge
• Selection performance: Selecting and deselecting a high number of UVs on a dense mesh in the UV Editor is now significantly faster.
• Texture selection: It is now easier to switch between textures applied to the selected geometry via the UV Editor's Texture menu. You can also instantly apply checker patterns for easier UV adjustments from here. For more information, see UV Editor Textures menu.
• Wireframe appearance: You can now modify the color and alpha values of UV shells in the UV Editor. For more information, see UV Editor View menu.
• Multicolor UV Shell display: You now have the option to shade UV shells different colors both in the UV Editor and the Viewport to better differentiate them. For more information, see the UV Editor View menu.
• UV Distortion transparency: You can now modify the alpha values of UV distortion display. For more information, see the UV Editor View menu.
• Finer dimming control: You can now control how much a texture is dimmed in the UV Editor with the Dim options.
• Selection Constraint: You can now narrow your component selection to something more specific, or select edge rings between texture borders using the Select Tool settings.
• Convert to Edge Ring / Contained Faces / Face Path now work in the UV Editor. For more information, see the Select menu.
• Prevent Negative Scale now works in the UV Editor. For more information, see the Scale Tool.

Object / Component selection mode consistent across 3D view and UV Editor

The UV Editor is now aware of the 3D view's current selection mode and vice versa. This means that you can select a few components in the 3D view, switch to the UV Editor, and continue selecting those same types of components without having to manually switch modes again first.

Bevel improvements

A post-process has been added to Bevel that makes the results more consistent, particularly when Chamfering is off.

Quick Edge Constraint hotkey

You can now Ctrl + Shift drag any manipulator handle to quickly transform with the Transform Constraint set to Edge mode. For more information, see Slide polygon components.

Quick Extrusion hotkey

Holding Shift while dragging any transformation tool manipulator handle in component mode now extrudes the currently selected components. For more information, see Extrude a polygon face, edge, or vertex.

Quick Duplicate hotkey

Holding Shift while dragging any transformation tool manipulator handle in object mode now duplicates the currently selected components. You can toggle this functionality in the Move, Rotate, or Scale Tool Settings. For more information, see Duplicate.

Symmetrize Command

In addition to the Symmetrize Tool, there is now a Symmetrize command that you can use to symmetrize selected UVs. For more information, see Symmetrize UVs.