[Bf-taskforce25] Bf-taskforce25 Digest, Vol 15, Issue 3

[Martin Levasseur]

Thank you for your very fast answers and comments! 
My comments below...

> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 12:47:07 +1300
> From: Joshua Leung <aligorith at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Bf-taskforce25] Wish list 2.5!
> To: "The Blender 2.5 TaskForce" <bf-taskforce25 at blender.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<c3b983a20912041547t2d75e2d3icdf06551c43a1616 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Martin Levasseur <martin at servak.com> wrote:
> 
> > 1- Keys handling could be a little more intuitive than using B (box) key
> > and RMB only.
> >
> > I'm currently working on facial animation for a character we designed
> > with 2.49b. The text that the character is speaking needs to be adjusted
> > manually. Everytime the ipo goes from 0.0 to 1.0, a shape key is making
> > the lips move. The problem is that I have a long animation to work with,
> > which represents thousands of keys to play with. The feature I would
> > like to see with IPOs or Graph Editor in 2.5 already exists with basic
> > modeling in Blender, it is called "more". You can select a vertex than
> > hit select and choose MORE or using CTRL-NUMPAD(+) and it would
> > propagate the selection to the vertex connected to the selected vertex.
> >
> This is easy to add, and can be down pretty quickly. Will put on todo :)
> 

Great !!!  :)

> 
> 
> > In IPO mode/ Graph Editor, if implemented, would allow to select shape
> > keys as complete curves instead of just a vertex and would allow to
> > grab/move the effect and sync it to an audio scrub instead of clicking
> > three times, once on peak, once on left, once on right while holding
> > SHIFT and then move the curve (and also, with that many keys, it's just
> > very difficult to work with).
> 
> 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.
> 

I have tried CTRL-ALT select mouse (LMB and RMB) in IPO view, but all it
does is resize the graph over X/Y axis when ctrl-alt is down. Maybe I am
missing something?

> 
> I've tried CTRL-NUMPAD(+) and other
> > similar keys, but it doesn't work (2.5.alpha included). Also, It would
> > be nice to split the occurence of keys temporarily to allow grabbing a
> > curve and not grabbing the whole timeline of curves. Let me explain: if
> > the character makes an "Ohhh" but does it repeatedly as in "Hello how
> > are you today?", I would like to be able to move the "O" in Hello
> > independently from the whole, currently if I move "O" I move (grabx) all
> > the Os shapes unless I grab the three vertex points that constitute the
> > O curve (peak, left, right) in editor mode. Simply put, splitting curves
> > as sub-objects in some sort of ANIMATOR MODE, since curves should be the
> > basic units, not points. If not, then at least be able to select
> > adjacent points as mentioned above would help a lot.
> >
> 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?
> 

In a way. Imagine the basic unit that could be selected with RMB was a
sinusoid shape represented by 3 points (left,peak,right) instead of only
one point as is currently the case, because in my view, a point is a
basic unit, but a sinusoid shape is too.

In many cases I realized the effects of an event in a graph are spread
over time for events, i.e. in my case the opening and closing of the
mouth; but it could apply to anything not just lipsyncing; If there was
a way to select a sinusoid shape right away (left,peak,right) as a new
basic unit when RMB clicking, it would allow to move curves right away
over time instead of having to click twice more after selecting any
point (and often the points overlap one another when editing multiple
curves which make it difficult to select the sinusoid shape at the first
try!). Hopefully, this makes more sense now...

> 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")
> 
> 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.
> 

I'll have to try that... thx.

> 2- Rendering in background doesn't let us specify size for render to
> > override animator/modeler settings.

> 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
> :)
> 
> 

I've tried. There is no such option at the command line unfortunately.
It still causes many errors in rendering on our side. Some frames are
rendered at other than 100% and create pixelization in the final result
and must be redone. something like "-size 100" would be perfect. It
would override the settings anyone put in the blend file.

> 
> > 3- Sorting "Shape Keys" alphabetically
> >
> > We have some files that contain 200+ shapes. They are sorted by their
> > creation time, not their names (ascending/descending, etc). This makes
> > it very difficult to find information. Some sort of sort feature or
> > group (by name, by type) would be great instead of scrolling pages of
> > shape keys with middle mouse button. I noticed it also applies to
> > standard IPO curves (not only shape keys), but maybe 2.5 already has it.
> >
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 

I understand... does this mean that there will be some sort of
hierarchical grouping for shape keys done in 2.5? And will you be able
to move the order of keys manually by using the mouse or keys for
example? I have to say, now that you mention it, it would be even better
to use groups and reorganize as you see fit rather than listing
alphabetically...

Thank you very much for your help,
Martin


> Regards,
> Aligorith
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