Anim8or Community

Hi Steve,

I'm working on isolating various components of a model (not mine originally) which for me started as an STL file with no submeshes.

I started by using the latest DEV build (with the Build -> Split Solid function) which seemed to work OK as far as revealing the original sub-meshes. Many of these are not grouped into larger conglomerations, so the technique I'm using is to select individual meshes and/or locallized groups of meshes, group them, and move them into a separate layer.
Once I've gathered all the meshes I want in a particular assembly all together in a sperate layer, the plan then, is to go to that layer, ungroup the temporary groups and either re-group them or Join Solids. Then rinse and repeat to create other major assemblies.
Eventually all of these re-structured assemblies will be brought back together into some form of composite model.

That was the plan ... unfortunately, I've struck a problem.
IMAGE 1 shows the model with groups layers 0 and 6 enabled...
The curved section on the right has been isolated into a number of groups from different numbers of individual meshes (one of these groups is shown selected), and each of those groups gets moved to layer 6.

If I then hide layer 6, this proves that it this whole collection of groups is in layer 6.
(IMAGE 2)

What I need to do next, is hide Layer 0, and work with Layer 6 to un-group all the temporary groupings and then re-group or join those elements.

However (IMAGE 3) is what I see if hide Layer 0 with just Layer 6 enabled.


Ctrl-A shows that all the groups are there, but none of them is visible.
(IMAGE 4)

A bit of investigation reveals that in the process of grouping/moving these meshes the material definitions disappear. Instead of showing -default- as the material it is just showing a blank white space for the material, and there is also no way to re-apply the default (or any other material) to the group because neither the drop-down list, or the ellipsis button (...) is functioning.
(IMAGE 5)

If I then un-group everything in Layer 6, they of course are returned to Layer 0.
(IMAGE 6)

-- Incidentally, we've had a discussion a while ago about which layer objects should go to when un-grouped, and whether they should automatically go to Layer 0 when un-grouped).

In the process of un-grouping them, the material definitions are restored on the individual meshes, but they're back in Layer 0 ... a bit of a Catch-22. (I've moved the rest of the model out of Layer 0 temporarily in this screenshot.)
(IMAGE 7)

Trouble is, I need them in Layer 6, assembled / grouped with material definitions retained or re-applied (either individually or to the entire assembly), so that they are NOT invisible!

The main issue seems to be the loss of material definitions in the grouping process. For some reason, I can group them in Layer 0, and they remain visible in that layer, but when the group is either created or moved to Layer 6, the material definitions are lost and so they become invisible in Layer 6. I think it's happening at the grouping step, and the only reason they're still visible in Layer 0 is because for some reason it doesn't care about the missing materials. Incidentally, if both Layer 6 and Layer 0 are enabled, I can see the structure, but when Layer 0 is disabled and only Layer 6 is visible, then the structure (although present in the Layer) is invisible.

CC

EDIT: I've just confirmed that the issue is definitely caused by the group / un-group actions, rather than the layer change, by first changing the layer on individual meshes, then grouping them after they are already in Layer 6.
Once again, as soon as they are grouped, they become invisible (ie. lose the material definition).

(Build 1269)

So it's a bit hard to work out exactly what's going on with this one, but I think the crux of it is that when grouping objects it seems that the group is always sent to layer 0 (even when the grouped objects are initially all in the same layer).
If Layer 0 is hidden then the newly grouped object disappears from view ... in which case I can re-enable Layer 0 and re-assign the grouped object back to the original Layer, however if Layer 0 is visible, then it's not immediately apparent that the Layer has changed.
I understand that when the objects being grouped are individually in different layers before grouping, then the only logical decision I guess is to put the group in Layer 0, however when they're all already in the same Layer, then perhaps it is more appropriate for the group to remain in that Layer.

This opinion is based upon the way that I work --- I tend to use Layers to group multiple objects which are used to compose an assembly or assemblies, but I often need to temporarily un-group assemblies to make changes to individual elements, and then re-group the assembly or assemblies, at which point the assembly and it's components gets re-assigned to Layer 0 (and this fact often goes un-noticed by me if Layer 0 is also visible.)
I imagine that if I was to make changes in all Layers and forget to re-assign the Layer on every occasion after re-grouping, then eventually everything would just end in Layer 0 ...  so I think you can see the problem.

As I can have multiple assemblies which I may want to view and work upon independently, I tend to organize each assembly and it's components into it's own Layer. I then want it to remain in this Layer unless I choose to move it elsewhere. The constant re-assignment to Layer 0 causes a bit of chaos which affects my workflow.

Other people may have a different opinion about this if they perhaps use Layers in a different way to me, but this is how it affects my workflow.

CC

This post referenced in: Version 1.0 Bugs and Suggestions

Great that we now have the ability to organize objects into folders, however, in projects which have a lot of objects (eg 100+) it can be very tedious and time-consuming to create (or re-organize) those folders because each object must be visited individually, and a dialog opened, etc...  in order to change it's folder.

Some way of bulk-selecting objects (and maybe drag and drop functionality) to be moved into a specific folder would make life a lot easier in this respect.

This post referenced in: Version 1.0 Bugs and Suggestions

A while ago I told Steve I had a few thoughts / observations / suggestions for version 1.0, however I'm always too busy doing other things, so I never get around to posting them.
So what I thought I'd do is create this thread as a place-holder containing a reference to each of the suggestions, bugs etc, as I get around to posting about them. Some will be simple bugs, others might be issues raised as a result of changes in the latest build, and some others will be issues that have been around for a long time which I've never got around to reporting. (Most of these I've either long forgotten about or found workarounds, so I'll probably just post about each of these as I re-encounter them and my memory is jogged.)

Please DO NOT REPLY to this thread, as it's just designed as a personal reference / index to the issues as I report them. Please only comment / reply in the DETAIL thread (once I've created it).

As I get around to it, for each issue, I will add a bullet point to this post/thread with a link to the detailed thread describing the issue in more detail. If you see an item listed here without a link to a separate thread, that's just because I haven't got around to creating the detailed thread yet.

As I said, if anyone has comments about any of these issues, please reply in the DETAIL thread (NOT in this thread).


Here's the first few:

#	Status	Description
1.	OPEN	Build 1269 BUG - Alt key has been re-assigned.	DETAILS HERE
2.	FIXED	Object Folders - Parent Folder needs an indicator as well.	DETAILS HERE
3.	OPEN	Object Folders - Some sort of bulk re-organisation functionality needed.	DETAILS HERE
4.	OPEN	Group / Ungroup - inconsistent effects on Object Layers	DETAILS HERE
5.	OPEN	Group / Ungroup loss of Materials -- (May have been fixed already - TBA)
6.	NOT A BUG	Redraw failure + keyboard remapped on SAVE.	DETAILS HERE

I'm doing some rendering tasks at the moment which require the exact viewpoint to be replicated for every single render. The rendering tasks are very tedious and repetitive, so I was hoping to write a script to automate this. Is this possible in ASL?
I haven't really done a lot of scripting in Anim8tor, but a quick look suggests that ASL is perhaps aimed at modelling and animation tasks, but I'm not sure if it's capable of scripting user actions, etc.

For example, after setting up a Custom Viewpoint, the script might need to do some or all of the following:
(pseudo code)

Initialize/specify Renderer
Perform AA Setup (set SPP, Sampling Method)
foreach <object> in <list of objects>
{
   foreach <material> in <list of materials> 
   {
      -- apply material to object
      -- Render -> Render Image 
         Select Antialiased
         Select Image + Alpha Channel)
      -- Save the rendered scene as a PNG to a specified Output Folder with a unique filename genarated using some convention such as:
      <obj-id><material-id>-<obj-id><material-id>-<obj-id><material-id>-<obj-id><material-id>.png 
      -- Close render window
   }
}

The end result would be a folder containing a rendered PNG with alpha channel for each combination of object / material.
      eg. a couple of example filenames using this convention might be:
         01black-02white-03-green-04-blue.png
         01white-02white-03-stone-04-tartan.png

Can these sort of tasks be automated in ASL?

Cheers
CC