General Category > Anim8or v0.98 Discussion Forum

Feature Request Thread

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Raxx:
That's true, but in my opinion these types of restrictions should be in the hands of the users, that it should be up to the coder whether their script should have true inconsistent/unique features or not, and up to the end user whether or not to use the script and/or unique features. Obviously in Anim8or inconsistencies aren't that useful, but you never know, something outside the box could be done with it that'd surprise us.

Anyway, a memo in the ASL spec about the usefulness of the Xrand() functions vs timestamps would help alleviate the issue :)

Raxx:
Another ASL-related request: Status Bar and Progress Bar output.

There's not much (read:nothing) in the way of GUI options for ASL. What I'd give for the ability to create custom dialog boxes in ASL...sigh. Anyway, something that *should* be simpler to implement is the ability to print to the status bar, and the ability to start/update/end the progress bar (same progress bar as what's shown when rendering). Yes, there's the console, but it's not a very user friendly method of informing the user about things. I've made progress bars in the console before but ugh, it's such a ghastly way of doing things.

Status bar text updates have lots of uses. Such as informing the start/stop of a script, latest warnings, error messages, debugging, etc. Same as the console but nicer. It could use the same .open/print/close functions as the console, but instead of "$console" it's "$statusbar".

Progress bar updates are useful in object editor scripts that take a long time to generate. Like my phur plugin, some of my export plugins, or some of the other mesh plugins others have done. The function to start/stop/update the progress bar could be as simple as SetProgressBar(#). Where it's a float value between 0 and 1 with 0 being off and 1 being full. Automatically sets to 0 upon script termination in case the user forgets to write it in.

And a side note, it'd be nice if the progress bar made use of the Windows task bar progress bar indicator (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1146574/how-do-i-code-a-progress-bar-for-windows-7-to-also-update-itself-on-the-taskbar). So that when rendering or while a script is running, the user can glance at the task bar and easily tell if it's still going or not. This is a Win7+ feature but it should be relatively simple to do an OS version check for it.

This is a future-friendly ASL feature request since the status bar and progress bar are key parts of the Anim8or interface. Even if more GUI features are implemented in ASL, these two elements will remain relevant.

PS...Personally I'd love it if the console was embedded in the bottom of Anim8or's interface (expandable above the status bar). Oh, and custom coloring the text...

Raxx:
Some other ASL requests that have weighed heavily on my mind for some time now. Usually after banging my head on the wall, I'd type up a big ol' write up of my grievances, then by the time my frustration's died down I'd realize it's more rant than request and delete it. This time it's a good night's sleep after, so hopefully I can articulate a good post :P

Here's an example of what I wrote last night trying to get a small matter accomplished:
function selectText(containerid){if(document.selection){var range = document.body.createTextRange();range.moveToElementText(document.getElementById(containerid));range.select();}else if (window.getSelection){var range = document.createRange();range.selectNode(document.getElementById(containerid));window.getSelection().removeAllRanges();window.getSelection().addRange(range);}}ASL Snippet if($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].x != -1.0){ if ($he_Pair1[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].x)]] != -1) $feature_neighbors[$he_Pair1[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].x)]]] = 1;  if ($he_Pair2[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].x)]] != -1) $feature_neighbors[$he_Pair2[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].x)]]] = 1;  if($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].y != -1.0) { if ($he_Pair1[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].y)]] != -1) $feature_neighbors[$he_Pair1[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].y)]]] = 1;  if ($he_Pair2[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].y)]] != -1) $feature_neighbors[$he_Pair2[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].y)]]] = 1;  if($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].z != -1.0) { if ($he_Pair1[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].z)]] != -1) $feature_neighbors[$he_Pair1[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].z)]]] = 1;  if ($he_Pair2[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].z)]] != -1) $feature_neighbors[$he_Pair2[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].z)]]] = 1;  if($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].w != -1.0) { if ($he_Pair1[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].w)]] != -1) $feature_neighbors[$he_Pair1[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].w)]]] = 1;  if ($he_Pair2[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].w)]] != -1) $feature_neighbors[$he_Pair2[$he_EdgeIndex[$fToInt($he_sharedPoints[$he_Point[$curHEString2[$j]]].w)]]] = 1; } } }} 

I built those lines slowly while it made sense, but now looking at it it'll take me a few minutes to actually figure out what's linking to where, and I'm the one that wrote it! There's also no simpler method that I could think of. To help myself out, I write nearly as many comments as lines of code, but still I would hate life if I had to come back to this code even a week later when it's not fresh in my mind. It's also only a small portion of the entire script, which I'm not going to share because it'd cause nightmares to all present.

Arrays in functions: Passing arrays as parameters, and returning arrays from functions. Without this, I have to create arrays beforehand outside of the $main function so that the function can fill in arrays. This is extremely counter intuitive, and hard to organize when multiple functions need to output arrays multiple times for the main function or between other functions.

Recursion: It's incredibly difficult converting algorithms that require recursion into non-recursive functions. A lot of 3D-related algorithms rely on binary trees/linked lists, and making non-recursive traversal functions (especially without custom data structures as requested below) is a stack of headaches rolled into one. I have to create stacks and counters and do convoluted orders of operations to try and cope with it.

Custom data structures: I'm not asking for anything super complicated like full-featured object definition. I just want to be able to make my own data structure out of the data types already available. I could make linked lists without having to create a dozen arrays with weird convoluted relationships to each other passing indices as values to be indices for other arrays.

An example of how it'd look creating a new data structure could be something like:

--- Code: ---!datatype half-edge (int id, int next, int prev, point3 point, int edgeindex, int opposite);
--- End code ---
! indicates it's compiled first before the rest of the script, and needs to be asserted outside of the $main function. Then to use the half-edge data type, declare it like any other variable:

--- Code: ---half-edge $HE[1];
--- End code ---
To assign the values, two methods can be used.

--- Code: ---$HE[0] = (0, 1, -1, (0,0,0), 85, 23); // Can also have variables passed as values
$HE[0].id = 0;
$HE[0].next = 1;
$HE[0].prev= -1;
$HE[0].point = (0,0,0);
$HE[0].edgeindex = 85;
$HE[0].opposite = 23;
--- End code ---
It'd be useful to also be able to use custom data types within custom data types. For example a custom data type vertex:

--- Code: ---!datatype vertex (int id, point3 loc);
vertex $v;
--- End code ---
Can be used in half-edge:

--- Code: ---!datatype half-edge (int id, int next, int prev, vertex point, int edgeindex, int opposite);
--- End code ---
Writing to it can look like this:

--- Code: ---$HE[0].point.id = 1;
$HE[0].point.loc =(0,0,0);
--- End code ---

Pointers: Same * and & operators/behavior as in C++, would aid the use of custom data types, binary trees, linked lists...

Matrices: I'm already fairly deficient when it comes to 3D math, so I won't go into much detail here. Some means to make matrices Nxn size, and functions to perform operations on these.

Type conversion. toInt and toFloat functions for strings (like toInt("123.45") returns 123 and toFloat("123.45") returns 123.45. I made my own functions in ASL to do this but it'd obviously be much more efficient if this was built-in.

toString for ints and floats (yes there's PrintToString, this would basically be a simplified macro of that).

Automatic type conversion between ints and floats (for example $array[1.466] automatically converts down to $array[1]).

Adding two multiple strings appends them together in the order they appear. Example: $var = "Hello" + " " + "there" + ", " + "everyone!"; is a lot simpler than doing $var = PrintToString("%s%s%s%s%s", "Hello", " ", "there", ", ", "everyone!");

[Edit] Obviously, most of these requests are things found in regular programming languages. If instead an API/dll extension system was being worked on, I really couldn't care less about these requests and just wait for that to save myself all the headache :P

Raxx:
Small request: Make it so that the axis buttons are triggered the same way as the p/e/f buttons. LMB enables only that axis and disables the others, RMB toggles by add/subtracting from the current set.

Steve:
Raxx: sure, that makes sense.

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