Feedback Can the Transform tool and other Gizmos be improved by making them bold? I say yes!

Here's one of thing that bugs me quite often:



The Transform Tool and many other Gizmos in Unity are very hard to see on certain backgrounds. I would say that is mostly because the lines are so incredibly thin, they almost can't be rendered correctly.

I would rather see all tools and Gizmos be much bolder like this:



Please excuse my crude graphics skills here, but it is supposed to demonstrate that bolder lines are much easier to see and additionally, the gizmo would benefit from perspective and some depth. I would go for a soft gradient and a depth effect and also reduce the clutter slightly. We don't need half a sphere of rotation gizmos, when a quarter is enough.

Is this something to consider?

 

As a long-time heavy 3D software user I will have to partially disagree with this. There's a reason why almost all industry-standard tools stick with what you would call "incredibly thin gizmos". The "bold mockup" you provided only works well with extreme close-ups and a limited amount of objects in the view, just like in your screenshot basically.
Once you zoom out in a heavy scene with a crap ton of objects, objects become smaller and smaller while your "bold gizmo" remains the same, thus takes up too much space, resulting in UX degradation.

However, I would agree that gizmo colors and lines could use some tweaking, better tonal versions of RGB colors and slightly thicker lines(1px thicker) could make a huge difference in terms of usability especially on high PPI displays which are becoming a standard nowadays.

 

Thank you for your response!

I haven't made this experience in Unreal, where the move, rotate and scale tools basically look exactly like in the screenshot I've shown. That's the reason why I think Unity's version is lacking, because it is much better to use in Unreal.

I'd also argue that Maya, one of the leading 3d applications, has a configurable manipulator tool with defaults, that are much larger than Unity's Gizmos. Blender's Gizmos are similar to Unity, but they are just slightly thicker, making them better to read.

I agree, that it's all about preference and a specific project's need. That's why users can resize the tools in Maya via the tools window or keyboard shortcuts and why they offer options to configure the line thickness and colors. I think Unity would benefit from these accessibility/pro features.

The current transform tool could indeed already be improved by making Gizmo lines 2 pixel instead of a single hairline.

 

I would disagree on UE's gizmos being comfortable to use, Imo they are one of the worst on the market.

As for the second part of your message, I think we basically agree on that, it should be configurable to some extent and the default thickness should be higher just a bit.

 

I'm invading the conversation to share my opinion. I too find the current lines way too thin and agree that lines like the ones in the second image would be way better (personal opinion).

Unity really should have, like Xarbrough said, a full stack of settings for the Gizmos. But even more than that, if thick Gizmos really get in the way as one zooms out, they could either fade out or even get thinner as the camera moves further away.

 

I personally really dislike Unreal's gizmos, and find the thin one in unity much better. But hey, settings are nice!

 

You just need add thickness parameters in editor settings as well

 

I just think that having one pixel wide lines is ugly. I would much rather prefer wider ones.

 

I just started to do a lot of work laying out assets for my project and with these transform handles its a real pain.
I agree that Unreals transform tool is a bit chunky.
Max, Maya and Blender do not have this issue, I have used them all for years and Unity is not the same, it's noticeably thinner or at least not as readable and really finicky to use.
Please can we get some kind of option to make them a little thicker. (I'm stuck on 2018 so I'm guessing I'm screwed)