Hi, first of I want to say that I'm really exited about all this, and secondly that I have some requests of my own to share.
1. Transparent rendering.
Its already possible to render a luma-matte, which works well in most cases when you want to get rid of the background in your film. The problem is that if you render a transparent model, a luma-matte won't work correctly, it will get rid of a part of the background and a part of the model itself. Additionally it would be much easier with a transparent-rendering option.
2. Possibility to rotate around the Z-axis.
I think the rotation works well as it is now, except for that if you turn of rotation around the X and Y-axis you can't rotate at all. I think it would be practically to be able to rotate around the Z-axis when the other axes are turned of. Otherwise the rotation would works as now.
3. Possibility to parent an object to a bone.
As it is now you can only parent an object to another object in scene mode, and I think it would be practically if you also could parent an object to a bone. For example, if you were animating a character who is supposed to carry something, like a hat, it would be much easier to parent the hat to the characters hand-bone instead of animate it frame by frame.
When an object is parented to a bone it simply acts as if it was attached to it by armature.
4. Possibility to keyframe a parent-influence.
I was thinking that even if you can parent an object to follow another objects movement, you may want it to stop following at some point of time.
So I was thinking about a function that let you keyframe the value of influence a parenting has on the parented object. It would work much similar to morph-targets, that you can set the influence-value to 1 if you want a normal parenting, and set it to zero if you want the parented object to stop follow the object its parented to. If you set it to a value between 0 and 1 it will move at the same direction as the object its parented to, but not as much.
For example: you have character who is supposed to pick up a hat, and therefore you parent the hat to the characters hand-bone (assumes that you are able to parent to a bone). But in the beginning of the animation you want the hat to lay down still on the floor, so search the frame there the character pick up the hat and set the value for the parent-influence to 1. Then you go back one frame and set the value to 0, and so you get the hat to lay still on floor until the character picks it up.
Furthermore, it would be great if you also could have an object to have several parents. It may sound odd, but it would be necessary if you want a character to not only pick up a hat but also put it on his head. Then you could add the characters head-bone as an additional parent to the hat and keyframe the influence-values for the hand- and head-parentings so the hat changes from follow the hand to follow the head. More specifically you would search the frame there he puts the hat on his head and set the influence-value for the head-parenting to 1 and the hand-parenting to 0. Then you go back to the last frame and set the hand-parenting value to 1 and the head-parenting value 0. This way it will change parenting during these frames.
As you see its very similar to morph targets, you keyframe the parentings influence, and I was even thinking that you would find the parentings beneath the object as you do with morph-targets.
It would not be necessary to set the values each time you parent, its an option to keyframe.
I know its much I have asked about, and I may not have explained clearly, but at least I have shared my ideas.
Thanks!
I have also created some examples of the 2'nd and 4'th request so you more clearly can se what I mean. I did it by editing the screen
recordings I did, in after effects.
