Material preview before drop with optional outline

[Gopmyc]

Description

Context

Currently, when dragging and dropping a material onto an object, there is no visual feedback before releasing the mouse. This makes the workflow less intuitive and forces trial-and-error interactions.

Problem

• No visual preview before applying a material
• Unclear which object or surface will be affected
• Reduced usability, especially in complex scenes

Proposed Solution

Introduce a real-time preview system during drag operations:

• Temporarily display the material on the hovered object
• Optionally render an outline to highlight the target
• Revert the preview if the drag operation is canceled

Expected Behavior

• While dragging a material:

  • Hovering an object shows a live preview
  • Optional outline indicates the target

• On drop → material is applied

• On cancel → object returns to its original state

Impact

• Immediate UX improvement
• No major architectural changes required
• Relatively low implementation complexity

[adriengivry]

We might want to add a target material selection mechanism as part of this work.

Maybe instead of an ItemPicker that would show up on drop, we could make it so that the [TAB] key cycles through the target materials when hovering an actor while dragging a material.

[Gopmyc]

We might want to add a target material selection mechanism as part of this work.

Maybe instead of an ItemPicker that would show up on drop, we could make it so that the [TAB] key cycles through the target materials when hovering an actor while dragging a material.

I'm agree