General Category > Ongoing Anim8or Development
v1.01 Development Release - Build 1403, August 29, 2022
chuft-captain:
Will check out this build as soon as I get a chance Steve, esp. as it looks like you may have addressed some of the issues I raised with you in December regarding Groups and Layers functionality.
(BTW. Does private messaging work on this forum? I sent you a follow up PM in Dec, but as there is no apparent Outbox/SentBox in the forum, in the absence of a reply from you, it's not clear to me whether PM's are delivered or not.)
CC
PS.
A suggestion for new functionality...
I do quite a lot of repetitive actions in my modelling (especially involving rotations, as I often design models which have some level of symmetry around the Y-axis).
For example, I might create a piece of geometry which I then want to duplicate and rotate through 60 degrees (x 5).
In this case the actions would be:
ctrl-V (Paste in the initial geometry)
then ...
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, Edit -> Rotate -> Rotate Custom -> tab to the Y-Axis box, type 60, click OK
and repeat this 4 more times...
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, Edit -> Rotate -> Rotate Custom -> tab to the Y-Axis box, type 60, click OK
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, Edit -> Rotate -> Rotate Custom -> tab to the Y-Axis box, type 60, click OK
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, Edit -> Rotate -> Rotate Custom -> tab to the Y-Axis box, type 60, click OK
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, Edit -> Rotate -> Rotate Custom -> tab to the Y-Axis box, type 60, click OK
WHat would be quite good is if there was some sort of "Repeat last operation" function (ideally linked to a hotkey ... perhaps ctrl-R or ctrl-shift-R)
This would significantly improve this workflow, by reducing the need to access several layers of menus multiple times in order to repeat the same rotation, and if tied to a hotkey would greatly reduce the tension in my mouse wrist! 8)
ie. It would be reduced to:
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, Edit -> Rotate -> Rotate Custom -> tab to the Y-Axis box, type 60, click OK
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, ctrl-R
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, ctrl-R
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, ctrl-R
ctrl-C, ctrl-V, ctrl-R
I guess this "repeat last operation" could extend to other types of operations as well, not just rotations (that just happens to be the situation where I often find myself needing it).
selden:
CC,
Groups can be used to reduce the number of manual copy-paste-and-rotate operations when the rotations are around a central point. You can group the models that already have been rotated and then rotate that entire group. It can significantly reduce the total number of operations involved. When you're done you can ungroup them all (or not) as appropriate. Similar groupings can help when creating linear assemblies.
I agree, though, that creating "macros" consisting of a sequence of operations would be very helpful.
Steve:
chuft-captain: For your immediate example, try:
1.Copy, paste paste paste paste, and position them.
2.Select all copies and Edit->Rotate->Rotate Custom one time to rotate them all y+60.
In the past I've looked into building sort of "recorder" where you could record all actions and then play them back. Originally it was for making tutorials, but the underlying code could do what you suggest as well.
One big issue is that it has to work for pretty much everything. Partially working features are frustrating to use because sometimes they just mysteriously don't work. Another is screen resolution which affects some commands. And the big one is the amount of work to add it.
chuft-captain:
--- Quote from: selden on January 30, 2018, 07:45:15 am ---CC,
Groups can be used to reduce the number of manual copy-paste-and-rotate operations when the rotations are around a central point. You can group the models that already have been rotated and then rotate that entire group. It can significantly reduce the total number of operations involved. When you're done you can ungroup them all (or not) as appropriate. Similar groupings can help when creating linear assemblies.
I agree, though, that creating "macros" consisting of a sequence of operations would be very helpful.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Selden,
I have in fact used that technique many times in the past which can be great for replicating geometry where symmetry is involved.
--- Quote from: Steve on January 30, 2018, 11:15:30 am ---chuft-captain: For your immediate example, try:
1.Copy, paste paste paste paste, and position them.
2.Select all copies and Edit->Rotate->Rotate Custom one time to rotate them all y+60.
--- End quote ---
You may have misunderstood my description of the scenario. In my example, the first object is copied and pasted then rotated to 60 deg. It then has focus, so the next copy/paste operates on that object which is then rotated to 120 deg (60+60), the next 180, and so forth around the y-axis. --- So I end up with 6 objects at 0,60,120,180,240,300.
I should mention that these are imported objects which seem to be treated a little differently in rotation than natively created objects.
eg. If I draw a cube, position it at [-50,0,0] then rotate it, each copy is rotated about it's own internal axis.
(IMAGE1)
However, if I first export and re-import it (as an STL), then each copy is rotated about the workspace axis.
(IMAGE 2)
I'm NOT complaining! This difference (whether deliberate or not) is a very helpful feature, but anyway, the second scenario is what I was talking about, whereas I think you're talking about the first.
--- Quote from: Steve ---One big issue is that it has to work for pretty much everything. Partially working features are frustrating to use because sometimes they just mysteriously don't work. Another is screen resolution which affects some commands. And the big one is the amount of work to add it.
--- End quote ---
I understand. It's just a suggestion for what might be a "nice to have", but the decision about what to do is entirely up to you, and must be tempered by the amount of work required, and the risk of regression/confusion.
My initial feeling was that this could be restricted to rotations, but I understand your motivation to implement a feature such as a "repeat last action/operation" with as wide a scope as possible.
I do think that cut and paste operations maybe should be excluded from a feature like this, and of course it should be subject to the usual undo/redo functionality.
If you were to add this in some form and extend it's use beyond just rotations, perhaps there still should be some limit to it's applicability ... ie. no cut/paste and perhaps limited to "transformation" type operations only, but then as you point out, you get into the issue of confusion around "partially working features". I really don't have a broad enough knowledge of Anim8tor functionality to be able to suggest limits on it's scope.
Probably requires a bit more thought by "minds immeasurably superior to mine".... da .. da .. daaaah; da .. da .. daaaah ! ;-)
Steve:
The reason that STL imports behave differently is that the format doesn't have a separate center (aka the "pivot") for the model, or for separate parts of the model, like Anim8or does. So Anim8or places the pivot at the origin.
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