For example, direct manipulation concepts can be applied to interfaces for blind or vision-impaired users, using a combination of tactile and sonic devices and software.
Other widgets may be unique for a particular tool, such as edge controls to change the cone of a spotlight, points and handles to define the position and tangent vector for a spline control point, circles of variable size to define a blur filter width or paintbrush size, IK targets for hands and feet, or color wheels and swatches for quickly choosing colors.
Complex widgets may even incorporate some from scientific visualization to efficiently present relevant data (such as vector fields for particle effects or false color images to display vertex maps).
Direct manipulation, as well as user interface design in general, for 3D computer graphics tasks, is still an active area of invention and innovation.
The process of generating CG images is not considered to be intuitive or easy in comparison to the difficulty of what the user wants to do, especially for complex and less common tasks.