[Bf-taskforce25] Animato - Current Status as of end of February

[Joshua Leung]

Hi all,

In the next few months, I will have less time to work on Blender's Animation
System in 2.5. However, I plan on overseeing/reviewing some of the work that
may take place during this time. What follows here is a brief roadmap of
what is done, and what still needs doing.

Firstly, a link to the long promised docs on the Animato system:
http://aligorith.googlepages.com/250_Animato.doc
(At the time of writing this mail, the doc is not yet completed, but the
file will be updated... same link)

What works now / has been rewritten for the new system as appropriate:
* Core evaluation code for Actions/FCurves/Drivers works as described in the
specifications
* Everything is animateable - currently exposed to users via Keying Sets.
While other methods may evolve, ultimately, Keying Sets do provide a number
of convenience
* Conversions for old files mostly works
--> lib-linking doesn't always work OK yet
--> some drivers don't get loaded yet
--> some drivers don't function properly yet
--> some IPO datablocks don't get converted yet as there doesn't appear to
be any corresponding entries in RNA
* Action Editor expanded to include "DopeSheet" view by default, which shows
overview of keyframes in multiple actions for easier synchronising of
movement
* IPO Editor renamed "Graph Editor" - it's been totally rewritten to be
based upon the same code used by the DopeSheet/Action Editor. Also, many
long-requested improvements (many ported from AnimSys2 branch) have been
incorporated as the code was ported.
* Action/Graph backend shared code is now much cleaner, with some cleanups
performed to the data abstraction on-demand flexible filtering system. As
part of this, I've streamlined the filtering options, and set up a keyframe
iteration system which drastically reduces the amount of bulking code needed
in most if not all cases.

Work still to be done:
* Markers API + Operators - there are still a few missing operators. More
importantly though, there is no nice usable API for markers which can be
utilised by various keyframe editing tools in DopeSheet/Action and Graph
Editors.
* NLA System (evaluation + conversions + editor) is largely unported yet. It
is risky to leave the conversions until after 2.5 is eventually released
since patching the old files becomes an order of magnitude more difficult.
* F-Curve Modifiers have not be thoroughly tested yet. Although a few have
been implemented as examples, there are a few that have yet to be done.
Also, there is no UI access to them yet. Probably we need a temp nkey panel
in Graph Editor to show this, until decisions are made on this...
* Related to the UI for F-Curve Modifiers is the UI for drivers. This should
show in a similar way, though restricted to 'Drivers' mode only. No editing
of drivers is permitted elsewhere, as nowhere else are drivers visible.
* Refined filtering tools for Anim editors - i.e. options to filter by
F-Curve property names (i.e. "rotation" or "color"). Also, pinning option
(useful when dealing with animated visibility)
* Object layer changing doesn't get synced yet

Unrelated issues:
* Some rigs may still be broken (BBB ones in particular, though Mancandy
works nearly perfect) due to PyConstraints and PyDrivers not working yet
(Python API having been removed)


That should be all for now (off the top of my head).
Joshua Leung
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