Topic: blender 3d widget not always visible

[ratty redemption]

i usually don't use it but recently wanted to. problem is with some of my custom window layouts in blender 2.63 and 2.65, the widget isn't visible, despite toggling on it's icon. and i can't see any other ui settings that are different from the windows where it is visible and fully functioning. could this be a bug?

[kat]

Can you post a screengrab? (use "Prt Scr" to capture your screen when the problem happens). I get the same thing happening occasionally (not often though). Suspicion points to the graphics cards ability to properly render what's in the Scene. When was the last time you updated GFX drivers?

[ratty redemption]

thanks kat, and here's a screen capture.

weird thing is on this window layout, it's only the bottom left viewport that is not displaying the widget, although i've checked the header option to be the same as the other viewports. it doesn't matter what draw mode it's in either, ie solid, wireframe etc and on other layouts it seems random whether it shows up or not.

re gfx drivers, this is an old work pc with built-in gfx (ati radeon xpress) and it's not been updated in years, but i haven't had any other problems like this with blender.

[kat]

Oh right, yes, I've had that happen. I think it's similar to the 'sort' we used to have to work around in level editing where the renderer can't determine the order in which something should be drawn. Although it seems more likely to be a GFX/driver issue I can't say for sure as I'm on an Intel based system and have that happen.

[ratty redemption]

understood,thanks kat.

although i'm suspecting in this case it's more of a bug specific to blender, rather than gfx drivers etc, because i've just noticed if i join two of the viewports then split them, the widget is displayed correctly. also it's not as random as i previously thought, as the bug appears to be in the same viewports after saving and reloading the .blend file. at least it's straight forward enough to fix, even if somewhat annoying.

[ratty redemption]

*ratty facepalms*

turns out the widget was correctly being displayed in each of my viewports, only some of them had the pivot point set to 3d cursor and that was off screen, he he, i feel like such a noob.

[kat]

OK.. that is rather funny! haha

[ratty redemption]

he he, and quite humbling, which isn't a bad thing either.

[Shaderman]

I had recently locked the 3D view to an object by accident and didn't know this was possible at all. It happened in the upper left widget and I tried to replace it which seems to be impossible, because you can only split/create new widgets to the right side (AFAIK). I don't know if this makes any sense to you, I just want to say there are other noobs out there ratty 

[ratty redemption]

hi shaderman, he he, thanks. although i'm not sure exactly what you were describing in blender? are you talking about the 3d manipulator widget or something else?

[Shaderman]

Hi ratty,

It was something like this: http://cgcookie.com/blender/2011/06/29/tip-camera-lock-in-blender-2-58/

I didn't lock the camera view like showm in this video, instead it was locked to an object in my scene 

[ratty redemption]

sorry for the late reply, that lock camera to view looks quite useful, thanks for the link.