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Separate enables and visibilities per Object/Figure/etc.

10 (90.9%)

One global set of enables and visibilities per Project

1 (9.1%)

Total Members Voted: 11

[Steve]

The Object and Scene editors now support Layers. You can give each mesh or objects a layer and toggle the visibility and the ability to edit each layer in the top toolbar.

Everything is on layer 0 by default. You can set the layer to between 0 and 7 in the properties dialogs. Each layer can independently be displayed or hidden, and editable or locked. The top toolbar displays the layers' status. You toggle the visibility by left-clicking on a layer, and toggle whether is can be edited or not with the right mouse button. Locked layers have a little lock in the lower right corner. By default layer 7 is locked.

Questions:

1. Should the layer's status be saved to the .an8 file with each Object and Scene? I tend to think this would be useful but would like your feedback. -- Added in 1066.
2. Should layer 7 be locked by default? -- Removed in 1066.
3. Would layers be useful in the Figure editor?  If so, how important is this (versus other potential improvements)?

[Raxx]

1. Definitely. I'd hate to have to reconfigure the layer setup every time I come back to a project, especially if I start making habit my own standard system of using the layers (ie layer 1 for reference images, 2 for base meshes, 3 for accessories, etc depending on the project and personal preferences).
2. Seems a weirdly arbitrary layer to lock? I don't really care either way.
3. I wouldn't rank this as very important *if* you implement the following suggestion: Retain layer visibility for object shapes throughout all the editors. Meaning, shapes in a hidden layer in the object editor remain hidden in the other editors. I like the idea of "out of sight, out of mind", even if the scene layer that the object is in is visible.

A few more suggestions:

How about a Selected Layer feature? New shapes/objects get added to the current selected layer, rather than defaulting to Layer 0. Also an easier layer assignment feature? For example, something like:

• Select Layer - Ctrl-click on the button and it selects the layer. Maybe a border around its button?
• Assign to layer - Shift-click on the layer's button and it assigns the selected shape(s) to that layer
• Layer indicator - It'd be nice if when you select a shape, it marks its layer button in such a way that it's easy to see which layer it's on

Bug: It seems the layer label for the dialog boxes is covering the input field, seems to need resizing or change of z-index.

[Steve]

Good feedback.  Yeah, I messed up all the layer dialogs when I fixed all the tab orders.  I'll fix that and post an update.

I've fixed this and updated the exe.

[Water Music]

Interesting. I like it.

Two things I'd find useful: a transparency slider for each layer, instead of just a visibility toggle, can help with relative positioning; and being able to add select vertices - to a layer to change visibility and lock for editing - would be insanely useful on complicated meshes.

Gotta love scope creep.

[Raxx]

Nice ideas Water Music. Transparency sliders would be interesting. If layer selection is implemented then all you'd need is a single slider along the bottom of the row of buttons. Vertices/edges/faces visibility would be cool also, I wonder if that'd be much more difficult to implement.

Some more feedback from me as well.

Turns out you can select a shape (or vertex, edge, whatever), hide the layer, and still manipulate them while they are invisible. I think it might be better to deselect or disable the content in hidden layers so that unintended actions don't occur if someone leaves something selected by accident.

The lock mechanism seems incomplete. You can select a shape, then lock it, and then manipulate it still. Point edit operations also seem to affect the content within locked layers. I think layers will become a powerful tool if a locked layer is absolutely, totally locked. Also, I think it would be wonderful if locked layers don't show the points in point-edit mode, or maybe put a locked layer GUI option set in Configure->GUI? Or Options->Layer dialog options for GUI settings on a per-layer basis?

I know we're kinda adding a ton of ideas onto this. Layers can have a lot of features to them, and some people might want more or less depending on what the layer's being used for. Personally, I'd like to know what your vision for layers is, Steve.

[kreator]

I have been playing about with these layers but I cannot see the point of them or am l missing something here?

say I have an aircraft model with a transmap propeller I make the transmap object as another object , use that as  layer1 ,but there is no way to multi select layer 0 and 1  together which kind of defeats the point of layers and I may as well just use the object tab and copy/paste to the original propless body.

l suggest layers should operate just like any graphics program ( Photoshop,gimp,corel)

As it stands at the moment will just add to confusion with any new user

l realize that is a development build, but I feel you should really be addressing some of the items that still are not implemented within anim8or

[CrashDrive]

Personally I find the layers to be a nice addition.
In their most basic form they allow different elements of your model to be
selectively hidden as opposed to copy/paste or the all encompassing 'Hide' option.

I would be in favor of saving the layer status with all layers toggled on during startup.

I don't see a point in having a layer locked by default.

I think layers in figure mode would be nice but less useful then in object mode.
There are several improvements I would rather see happen first in figure mode.



EDIT: Forgot to mention.. as Raxx stated a visual cue as to which layer your selected mesh belongs to would help.

[captaindrewi]

1 definately
2 not essential
3 not essential...not above audio sync track.

[thecolclough]

1. yes - it's always nice to come back to a project and find your workspace the way you left it.
2. i'd say no - initialise them all with the same settings, and leave the user to change what they want to change.
3. what raxx said...

3. I wouldn't rank this as very important *if* you implement the following suggestion: Retain layer visibility for object shapes throughout all the editors. Meaning, shapes in a hidden layer in the object editor remain hidden in the other editors. I like the idea of "out of sight, out of mind", even if the scene layer that the object is in is visible.

i'd also second raxx's suggestion of having new components get added to the current layer by default instead of defaulting to layer 0

one more suggestion to add: maybe when viewing flat-shaded or wireframe mode, the mesh for shapes/objects on a locked layer could show up in grey or something instead of black, as a visual indicator that they're unavailable for editing?

so, maybe one or two details to fine-tune, but on the whole this is a brilliant feature - i had an all-out squee moment when i saw you'd added it!   

[kreator]

Regards my previous Post, I  downloaded  another copy of the development build ... and it is now working.
Did I have a dud download?

This should be very useful , however my comments regards fixing outstanding items still remains.

 

[lppena]

Layers are nice for keeping complex scenes a bit more managable, but I never really used them all that much in Caligari Truespace; I believe it supported up to 8 layers. Advanced model maker will probably come to appreciate the layer feature in Anim8or. Thanks, for adding the feature Steve. Leroy.

[thecolclough]

3. what raxx said...

3. I wouldn't rank this as very important *if* you implement the following suggestion: Retain layer visibility for object shapes throughout all the editors. Meaning, shapes in a hidden layer in the object editor remain hidden in the other editors. I like the idea of "out of sight, out of mind", even if the scene layer that the object is in is visible.

even better: could you make this a toggle-able option?  call it 'Cascade Layer Hiding' or something...

[ianross]

Thank you Steve for these great new additions, just started to use the layers, could be very useful  in the scene editor for animation?
Some 2D animation packages use layers, for example for facial expression, could be an alternative to morph targets?
The layers in blender were always useful, and I use layers in Photoshop all the time.
Check out these tutorials for animie studio and toon boom

http://anime.smithmicro.com/tutorials/as9/debut/switch-layers.html

Also for toon boom

https://www.toonboom.com/resources/video-tutorials/video/layers

[Steve]

Good tutorials. They have some good ideas. I had thought of Layers as only an editing tool but I can see that they can also be useful in animation.

[kreator]

I assume Layers are currently limited to just object mode, and scene mode is not implemented?