Highlighted points/polygons/edges

On 05/02/2017 at 10:47, xxxxxxxx wrote:

User Information:
Cinema 4D Version:   R18 
Platform:   Windows  ;   
Language(s) :     C++  ;

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I am playing with an idea for a plugin, but it is based on the assumption that the needed information is available ... somewhere.
Before I dive in I'd like to know if this needed information is indeed actually available.

Before doing any selection (points/polygons/edges) the candidate items are drawn highlighted when the user hovers over them (using live selection, ring selection, loop selection, path selection, ...)
Would it be possible for a plugin, be it a message, scenehook or tag, to listen to a particular message in order to detect which items are being drawn highlighted.

I know that in i.e. case of polygons I could use a ToolData plugin and use a viewportselect to perform a GetNearestPolygon to detect the polygon underneath the mouse cursor, but that would mean I need to duplicate all native selection tools in order to detect the items being highlighted.

I know it is far fetched but I was hoping there was a message being sent to let Cinema know which items to draw highlighted?

On 06/02/2017 at 03:08, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi,

no, there is no such message. Usually the highlighting is done internally in a ToolData, the information is not passed anywhere.
We are also wondering, what you'd want to do with such information? After all the user could just accidentally hover the mouse over an object. Not asking to crush your idea, not at all, but to learn about workflows C4D should possibly support in future.

On 06/02/2017 at 03:52, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

Well, one example for the use of this information is in following scenario:
Assume you have your 4 views (perspective, top, front, side) showing, with perspective being the active one. The user could use a loop selection and hover over some points to select them.
If there would be a way to know the "candidate points", a plugin could display them in the other views as well. Allowing to see what will get selected, from different points of view, helping in deciding if the candidates are indeed the ones the user wants to select.

Other scenarios could benefit from this as well, but as mentioned, they're only ideas for now. So maybe not worth the time to invest.