[Bf-python] Negative vertex group weights for DSON TriAx import

[Khalifa Lame]

I've designed lots of characters in blender and I can't tell you how much
pain and sweat a feature like this will save me. I'm fully in support of
this and I hope you get the backing you need.

This is one of the longest-standing features in my wishlist and it would be
very useful to have something functionally similar to TriAx. I know it's
just an importer, but I hope we'll see blender navtively supporting
something similar in the near future.

I think that this feature shouldn't be hidden in user prefs. Rather, it
should be out in the open like freestyle. A simple checkbox
enables/disables negative weights and anything else needed specifically by
the addon.

Patented technology... I don't think that should cause any problems as long
as all the patented stuff are contained in the addon itself (which has got
a greenlight from DAZ).

On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 6:56 PM, Michael Soegtrop <MSoegtrop at yahoo.de> wrote:

> Dear Blender Developers,
>
> I started to write a native DAZ DSON import script and got pretty far in
> just a few days (meshes, armatures, skinning, all fully featured).
>
> One issue is that DSON supports different skin blend factors for
> different rotation axes of a bone. DAZ calls this TriAx. This is
> actually patented, but I have written confirmation from DAZ, that they
> don't object against a DSON import feature in blender, which does
> support DSON TriAx.
>
> TriAx is quite useful. E.g. at the ellbow joint you can distribute the
> rotation along the axis of the lower arm over the whole lower arm, while
> the skinning of the rotation along the perpendicular axis is close to
> the ellbow joint.
>
> The only feature required to support TriAx in blender are negative
> weights in vertex groups. Then TriAx can be implemented by duplicating
> bones for each axis and adding some rotation copy constratints between
> them. So I implemented negative vertex weights in Blender 2.73a. It
> works well, except for the color ramp editor in the user preferences (it
> works, but display is strange).
>
> My main question is, what do you think about negative vertex group
> weights? There are lots of range checks for vertex group weights in
> blender, and supporting negative weights would mean removing these.
> Should negative vertex group weights be made optional? Do .blend files
> have global options like this? Making this optional in the preferences
> doesn't make much sense, since it should be enabled when a file which
> uses this is loaded.
>
> Another question is what you generally think about support for patented
> technology in blender. As I said, I have written confirmation (by email)
> from DAZ and negative vertex weights as such are not patented so real
> TriAx is just in the import script.
>
> Please share your thoughts on this.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Michael
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-- 
khalibloo®
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