Hi,<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Martin Levasseur <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:martin@servak.com">martin@servak.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
1- Keys handling could be a little more intuitive than using B (box) key<br>
and RMB only.<br>
<br>
I'm currently working on facial animation for a character we designed<br>
with 2.49b. The text that the character is speaking needs to be adjusted<br>
manually. Everytime the ipo goes from 0.0 to 1.0, a shape key is making<br>
the lips move. The problem is that I have a long animation to work with,<br>
which represents thousands of keys to play with. The feature I would<br>
like to see with IPOs or Graph Editor in 2.5 already exists with basic<br>
modeling in Blender, it is called "more". You can select a vertex than<br>
hit select and choose MORE or using CTRL-NUMPAD(+) and it would<br>
propagate the selection to the vertex connected to the selected vertex.<br></blockquote><div>This is easy to add, and can be down pretty quickly. Will put on todo :)<br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
In IPO mode/ Graph Editor, if implemented, would allow to select shape<br>
keys as complete curves instead of just a vertex and would allow to<br>
grab/move the effect and sync it to an audio scrub instead of clicking<br>
three times, once on peak, once on left, once on right while holding<br>
SHIFT and then move the curve (and also, with that many keys, it's just<br>
very difficult to work with). </blockquote><div>If you want to select entire curves (as in old IPO editor), just use Ctrl-Alt-Selectmouse and click on a relevant keyframe. This will select all the keyframes on the same F-Curve.<br>
<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I've tried CTRL-NUMPAD(+) and other<br>
similar keys, but it doesn't work (2.5.alpha included). Also, It would<br>
be nice to split the occurence of keys temporarily to allow grabbing a<br>
curve and not grabbing the whole timeline of curves. Let me explain: if<br>
the character makes an "Ohhh" but does it repeatedly as in "Hello how<br>
are you today?", I would like to be able to move the "O" in Hello<br>
independently from the whole, currently if I move "O" I move (grabx) all<br>
the Os shapes unless I grab the three vertex points that constitute the<br>
O curve (peak, left, right) in editor mode. Simply put, splitting curves<br>
as sub-objects in some sort of ANIMATOR MODE, since curves should be the<br>
basic units, not points. If not, then at least be able to select<br>
adjacent points as mentioned above would help a lot.<br></blockquote><div>I have no idea what you're going on about here, but from the last line, it sounds like it's just related to the above?<br><br>It also sounds to me a bit like you might also consider doing this lipsyncing via a collection of NLA strips. Set up one action per shapekey, probably with just a 1-2 keyframes at the maximum influence needed. Then, add these strips to the NLA editor as necessary - probably with different phonemes in different tracks, so you can just retime the actions as a whole (i.e. your "sub-objects") instead of worrying about different bunches of keyframes ("points")<br>
<br>I'd probably have to finish off NLA-strip baking for this to be really nice to work with, but you can probably get a lot done this way already.<br> <br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
2- Rendering in background doesn't let us specify size for render to<br>
override animator/modeler settings.<br>
<br>
When we start a render in batch mode on render farm in the background<br>
which is a great feature, sometimes we forget to hit back 100% size in<br>
render settings in a blend file and the batch render takes +/- half the<br>
time to render (yay!) but doesn't have the right resolution (doh!). Then<br>
merging the PNGs into AVIs we realize the mistake and must re-render<br>
everything or at least all frames that were rendered at 50%. It would be<br>
nice to override it in command line like -size 100 then it would be a<br>
simple script ajustement.<br></blockquote><div>Not my area of expertise, but it can probably be done already. Check the commandline options with -h or wait for a more informed answer about this :)<br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
3- Sorting "Shape Keys" alphabetically<br>
<br>
We have some files that contain 200+ shapes. They are sorted by their<br>
creation time, not their names (ascending/descending, etc). This makes<br>
it very difficult to find information. Some sort of sort feature or<br>
group (by name, by type) would be great instead of scrolling pages of<br>
shape keys with middle mouse button. I noticed it also applies to<br>
standard IPO curves (not only shape keys), but maybe 2.5 already has it.<br></blockquote><div>This could be done, and may probably be only a matter of coding up a suitable script that can be run from time to time as necessary. I don't think it should be something that is done automatically/behind-the-scenes-on-the-fly since that adds unnecessary overhead and also frustration when trying to put the curves in a certain order.<br>
<br>There are advantages to both approaches though, but I admit to having a bit of a dislike for alphabetical lists (especially long ones), since a list organised into appropriate sections that follow in some logical/hierarchial order can be better suited to the job.<br>
</div></div><br><br>Regards,<br>Aligorith<br>