[Bf-committers] Animation editor context

[Lukas Tönne]

Currently the animation editor does not support node groups. This is
because the animation editor filters any possible channel set based on
the active context, i.e. mostly scene, world and the active object.
This works fine for any data block that is uniquely associated to an
object (i.e. you can get from object to ID block anim data
unambiguously). Correct me if i'm wrong here, since i don't have a
whole lot of animation experience :)

The problem is that some data blocks might not necessarily have this
kind of direct connection to objects (point in case: node groups). As
long as a base node tree is reachable, one could simply list anim data
for all the node groups in that node tree, but this could get pretty
messy once groups inside groups come into play and the number of
animated node groups increases.

One possible solution could be to base the display of node animation
data on the visible node editors, rather than the active object. I.e.
instead of going along the object->material->node_tree path for shader
nodes or scene->node_tree for compositor, the graph/dopesheet/nla
editor would display channels for the currently visible node editors.

Since the node editor has an explicit "active" node tree (either the
base tree or some edited group), this would give much more control
over the display of node animation data. After all it is not of much
use to display animation data for a node tree without actually seeing
the tree (or so it seems to me). I'd also like to point out that the
upcoming node groups patch [1] supports node tree pinning, i.e. a node
editor can then display a node tree independent of the current context
and selection.

Does this sound like a reasonable idea? Or are there design problems
i'm overlooking?

Regards,
Lukas


[1]
https://www.gitorious.org/~lukastoenne/blenderprojects/blender-lukastoenne/commits/node-groups-upgrade