<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On 11/11/2007, at 2:25 PM, Jason van Gumster wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">And how many curves are going to be displayed at the same time?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">think the IPO window is probably the wrong place to do this.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>You</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">should use this window primarily to adjust the specific motion of</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">specific objects by editing the actual curves.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>While you can move keys</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">around with the K-key, this really isn't the best place to be doing</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">this; especially for large numbers of objects</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>I disagree, there are plenty of times where I've needed just this. It's not just about motion of objects, it's about editing different *types* of curves, i.e. not just object ipo curves, but also constraints, materials, and path speed curves. If you're trying to sync the animation of multiple different types of things, it's currently a real hassle.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I've had to do the 'create 5 ipo windows and lock them all' trick for this, but it's a real big pain.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The way I've used it in shake, which seems quite sensible for something so generalised and flexible, is that next to each keyable number field there's a toggle icon "add to curve editor". Basically the curve editor is like a blank canvas that you can just add curves to, to edit at the same time. When you're finished with them, you can just turn them off. The advantage of this approach is that it's dead simple when you create custom data and custom variables to animate (which is done quite a lot, extremely useful with expressions). You just create your custom variable, then add it to the curve editor to animate, rather than having to worry about finding things in fixed lists.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Fusion does it somewhat similarly, in that once you set a key on any property (eg. right click on that number field and set a key), it will appear in the curve editor, however it's also organised in a hierarchical (per node, outliner-ish collapsible list, and each option has a check box that you can turn on or off to show or hide that curve.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The IPO editor in Blender could really use a lot of love - the big long hard-coded list of channels on the side is a pain to navigate up and down, and it's easy to miss things that are scrolled off screen.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But in any case, one idea could be to just add a 'custom' mode, besides the current object/material/etc options, that works similarly to shake - right click on a number field (or maybe even an existing curve in another ipo view), and add it to the curve editor. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>cheers</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Matt</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lucida Grande; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>------------------------------------------</DIV><DIV>Matt Ebb . matt@mke3.net . <A href="http://mke3.net">http://mke3.net</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>