Anim8or Community

Fast Selection is enabled by default in the Object editor as of build 1086. This allows you to click on an unselected shape and immediately edit it, without changing to Select mode and back or using Control-Shift. It works for the Select, Move, Rotate, Scale and Non-Uniform Scale tools in the base Object editor. It is enabled by default but you can change back to the old behavior in the GUI dialog.

I've had portions of this ready for a while but couldn't decide on the details. I'm reluctant to change the behavior of something so fundamental to work flow but, as many of you have suggested, there are better ways to handle selection. I'm interested in your feedback on what you like and don't like about how I've implemented it and whether you want this enabled by default. So don't be shy about replying!

You can now use the mouse wheel to zooms the graphic views in and out, and to scroll the material and left hand toolbar. You don't have to click in a particular area - it acts on whatever the mouse is over at the time.

In uniform scale mode the mouse wheel scales the object up and down.

In non-uniform scale mode it scales in the X direction if the left mouse button is pressed, and in the Y direction if the right button is pressed.

Note: There is a bug that causes the view to scale at the same time. I plan to fix that so that Anim8or only scales for these two tools.

Any feedback is welcome on what you like or don't like, or other suggestions for the mouse wheel.

Build 1075 introduces the initial step towards adding a few CAD-style feature to Anim8or. To enable it click on the new button in the top toolbar that looks like a little ruler, or type Ctrl-D. Then select a single item. Anim8or will show the minimum and maximum coordinates,horizontally and vertically, relative to that view.

Note: this only displays in non-perspective views, and is limited to the Object editor for now.

The next part I have planned is to add alignment tools.  You'll be able to click on the horizontal and vertical edges of the window to set "sticky" plains. When you move an item so that it's bottom, axis, or top is close to a plain it will align exactly, similar to how Align To Grid works.  Moving spline points, points in the point editor, etc. will do something similar.

There are a lot of other things that Anim8or could potentially do.  Feel free to post you feedback

There is a new int member layer in shapes that you can read and set.  It is silently clamped to between 0 and 7 if you assign a value out of range:

    int shape.layer;

Objects have new functions for accessing and setting layer properties:

    int object.IsLayerVisible(int layerNo);
    int object.IsLayerLocked(int layerNo);
    int object.ShowLayer(int layerNo, int ShowValue);
    int object.LockLayer(int layerNo, int Lockvalue);

LockLayer and ShowLayer lock and make visible the given layer when the second parameter is non-zero, respectively. They return the old value.

ASL now has functions add new attributes and to change their types and values.  Previously you could only read existing attributes' values.  In addition attribute functions now work for materials.

Object attribute functions:
    attrubute object.NewAttribute(string name);

Material attribute functions:
    int material.GetNumAttributes(void);
    attribute material.GetAttribute(int index);
    attribute material.LookupAttribute(string name);
    attribute material.NewAttribute(string name);

Functions to set attribute values:
    int attribute.SetKind(AttributeTypes);
    int attribute.SetBoolValue(int);
    int attribute.SetIntValue(int);
    int attribute.SetFloatValue(float);
    int attribute.SetPoint3Value(point3);
    int attribute.SetQuaternionValue(quaternion);
    int attribute.SetStringValue(string);

Note: these functions automatically change the type of an attribute to match the type of the SetTypeValue call, so be careful when using them. I thought that this would make it easier to add new attributes but if you thing that they should check that the type matches, or convert the value, let me know.

They return 1 if they succeed which should always happen, for now. This will change if we decide that they should check the types in one form or another.

Build 1071 adds the integer bit-wise operators &, ^, |, << and >>. Since there is no unsigned int in ASL the right shift always sign extends.

Build 1075 adds bit negate ~, and ++ and --.

Note: Build 175 had a bug parsing prefix ++ and -- so it was replaced by build 1076.

As of build 1070 Anim8or supports user functions in ASL. The format is like normal functions:

<type> name ( <type> ident, <type> ident, ...)
{
    <statements>
}

There is a new type void for functions that don't return a value and a new statement:
return <expr>;
As usual, return statements can only appear in functions and don't have the <expr> for void functions.

OK now the restrictions:

1. No forward declarations. Function headers must be followed by the definition in the form of a compound statement "{...}".

2. No recursion. Anim8or doesn't check for self-recursion yet (a last minute bug  ).  If you try it be prepared for chaos. I plan on allowing recursion but it's quite a bit of work to do efficiently so it may take a while.

3. Functions must be declared before they are called.

4. There is no "main" function yet. Any statements that aren't in a function are gathered into the "main" function, no matter where they appear.  Kind of whacky, I know, but this allows you to more easily add functions to existing scripts. I'll fix this shortly by supporting a "main" structure.

5. No array parameters. All parameters and function results are the predefined types: int, string, float, point2, point3, quaternion, float4x4, shape, meshdata, spline, material, attribute, texture, object, figure, sequence, scene, and tridata.

6. All parameters are passed by value. Remember: types that represent objects within Anim8or (shape, meshdata, material, etc.) are actually handles so any changes to the parameter within a function affect the same object as outside the function. In the future I hope to add support for an out modifier to return values through parameters as well as via the function result.

7. Function format parameter and local declarations are in a separate scope from global variables.  Declarations within compound statements {} are still in the enclosing scope however. I hope to fix this soon as well but it could potentially break existing scripts. Let me know if you think this would be a big problem.

8. Not really function related, but you can use C++-style "//" comment delimiters now.

I'll post a couple of examples when I get a chance but hopefully this gives you something to start with!