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[cooldude234]

1171 maybe we just want to rotate without messsing up the scale or scale without messing up the rotate accidentally....just a thought not everyone is an expert.its not as if the menu is overcrowded.

I'm pretty sure its either a glitch or Steve missed something.
He says

Click-drag the tip to to change length and rotate, elsewhere on the bone to only rotate.

But if you click anywhere else it just does the same thing as clicking on the end (which scales and rotates).

[Steve]

But if you click anywhere else it just does the same thing as clicking on the end (which scales and rotates).

cooldude234: That comment applies to the "Add Bones" tool when you press the <Shift> key to edit instead of adding, and to the new "Edit Bone" tool that Rotates and Scales.

[Steve]

Raxx:

Disabling "Default Bone Angles" keeps using user-specified default limits, rather than no limits which is what I expected.

The title "Default Bone Angles" is a but cryptic. What this does is set all joint angles to their default values (enabled), or show them at the normal 0 degrees (disabled). This hasn't changed from previous builds.

The idea is that you can skin a character in an unnatural pose (like with arms straight to the sides and legs apart) but set the defaults to a more natural pose. This setting allows you to see what skinning does in the default pose.

I don't know how useful this option is - maybe it should be removed. In any event I'll change the name to something like "Show Default Pose".

Rotating/scaling using the edit or new bone tools snaps the bone to the user's plane of view. I think it should keep it relative to the parent bone's orientation when creating a new bone, and keep it relative to its original orientation when editing the bone. It'll be pretty annoying otherwise when trying to tweak bones that have children (you have to go down the entire chain of bones changing it back to the way it was, since it becomes a domino effect), or when making minor adjustments by itself.

I'm not clear on what the "parent bone's orientation" means. Do you mean that the new bone rotates in the parent's X-Y plane (i.e. the Z-axis remains parallel to that of the parent)? I agree that it's a bit whacky the way it is now.

Widgets sure would be nice right about now

Agreed. That would fix a lot of issues.

[Steve]

But if you click anywhere else it just does the same thing as clicking on the end (which scales and rotates).

cooldude234: That comment applies to the "Add Bones" tool when you press the <Shift> key to edit instead of adding, and to the new "Edit Bone" tool that Rotates and Scales.

OK I see the problem now. With Fast Select disabled it always allows to length to be changed. I'll fix it for the next build - it's just one little negation missing in the code

[Raxx]

Raxx:

Disabling "Default Bone Angles" keeps using user-specified default limits, rather than no limits which is what I expected.

The title "Default Bone Angles" is a but cryptic. What this does is set all joint angles to their default values (enabled), or show them at the normal 0 degrees (disabled). This hasn't changed from previous builds.

The idea is that you can skin a character in an unnatural pose (like with arms straight to the sides and legs apart) but set the defaults to a more natural pose. This setting allows you to see what skinning does in the default pose.

I don't know how useful this option is - maybe it should be removed. In any event I'll change the name to something like "Show Default Pose".

Whoops! I thought you added it as part of the new feature. That explains it I never used the default joint limits feature for bones because numerically entering it is a bit tedious, and you can copy and paste keyframes and import/export sequences. But if there was an easy way to set it (like a "Pose Mode" to temporarily drag bones along their limits as if it was in the sequence editor and set the pose), I'd probably use it every time. By the way, when "no limits" are enabled for a bone, shouldn't there still be a default angle the user can still set? It's disabled currently.

Also, a way to temporarily move around bones while seeing what the skinning process does to it, without having to flip back and forth between editors, is a timesaver. So skinning while in "Pose Mode" would be a spectacular way to do this.

Rotating/scaling using the edit or new bone tools snaps the bone to the user's plane of view. I think it should keep it relative to the parent bone's orientation when creating a new bone, and keep it relative to its original orientation when editing the bone. It'll be pretty annoying otherwise when trying to tweak bones that have children (you have to go down the entire chain of bones changing it back to the way it was, since it becomes a domino effect), or when making minor adjustments by itself.

I'm not clear on what the "parent bone's orientation" means. Do you mean that the new bone rotates in the parent's X-Y plane (i.e. the Z-axis remains parallel to that of the parent)? I agree that it's a bit whacky the way it is now.

Yeah, something like locking the Z-axis to its parent will probably be a lot better.

[neirao]

Steve,
very usefull the feature "new join limits"
i think that you can insert at this function the option about "diameter" of bones
for memorize the "Dia" option for news add bones!!
What you think about this?

[Steve]

raxx you're right about the bones' orientation being broken. I was just looking at the bones themselves.. Then I turned on the axis and could see the bones rotate when you first click on them.  .

[johnar]

The idea is that you can skin a character in an unnatural pose (like with arms straight to the sides and legs apart) but set the defaults to a more natural pose. This setting allows you to see what skinning does in the default pose.

EDIT: Sorry. Misunderstood that the first time. Got it now... .......................
 

[davdud101]

So johnar, you're basically saying that the terminology should be a bit more understandable is all?
Quite a pamphlet for that ^^
(I keed, I keed!! XD)

[johnar]

Took me a while to catch up.  I am following....

[Steve]

raxx: I'm still having trouble finding a good way to add and rotate bones. The video you posted on Mar 2 only shows a 2D skeleton. All the bones and their coordinate systems stay aligned to the screen (as far as I can tell).

I have a build that does the following:

Add new bone: New bones initially have the same orientation (coordinate system) and direction as the parent.

Rotate: Rotation (Add Bones and the new Rotate+Length tool) rotate according to the view. It doesn't realign the Z axis to point out of the screen like build 1170. If a bone points out of the screen at a 45 degree angle it will keep that same relative angle to the screen.

This initially seemed to work well. However it has some weird side effects. If you start with a view where the parent bone points out of the screen at a small angle, and keep adding child bones with a rotation in the same direction, it builds a spiral not a flat skeleton.

What should I be doing?

[Raxx]

Hm, I see. It may be more advantageous to keep the Add Bone tool the way you had it, based on the screen coordinate system, and the rotate/scale tool based on itself.

While testing and comparing in other programs like Blender, I can see that not having a rotation widget is really hurting. Currently, Anim8or is entirely reliant on the local coordinate system of the bone when animating. You can only rotate along the bone's axis using the three mouse buttons, and not relative to the screen or global coordinate system. Having a widget removes the need for three mouse button movement, enables screen X/Y based rotation, and frees up the animating experience a lot.

I know you're working on the figure editor at the moment, but I think this is a fundamental issue that extends into the figure editor as well. Because due to this restricted style of animation, the user has to mind the orientation of each bone while rigging, with absolute care and precision. In the other 3D programs I've used, the orientation of the bone doesn't have as much importance when rigging because when animating you can rotate either globally, locally, or along the screen XY coordinates. It's still good practice to have at least one axis aligned close to its main plane of movement, especially in some cases when working with constraints, but that's what the child-independent transformation feature I suggested in the earlier post is for.

When doing animation, guess which coordinate system I never use? Local. I animate almost entirely based on the screen coordinates, and then otherwise mostly global since it's more intuitive to animate relative to the entire world and the surrounding elements. All this is one of the reasons why I don't bother with joint limits.

^^^^And all that is justification to keep the Add new bone tool as you originally had it, being based off the screen.

You know, the graphic that shows the bone's joint limits (Bone Axis <X>), can be converted into a rotation widget. Draw it on top of everything, add detection on if/which axis was clicked and dragged on, and add an outer circle for screen coordinate rotation. Then make it change and transform based on which coordinate system the user has selected, and you're set. The pivot graphic is almost a translation widget as well.

Even if you don't implement widgets now, I think you're going to be forced to move away from the LMB/MMB/RMB axis transformation deal when it comes time to work on the sequence editor. It'll be a situation where you have to change it to screen coordinate rotation using the LMB, and then use the X/Y/Z axis buttons on the left toolbar to restrict to certain axis if necessary. That's the only way to drastically improve the animation experience without widgets (it's sort of a half-baked alternative), though I'd certainly recommend just getting the widgets done and over with now to save time in the long run...

[Steve]

Maybe I should just start working in widgets. I had planned on making a quick pass through all the editors to whip things into better shape for an "official" release, then another pass to do more ambitions things like property sheets and widgets. But working widgets now could save a lot of work in the long run.

On a related note, I'll be gone for two months again this summer and another month and a half in the fall (Italy again ) so I won't be writing any code during these times.  But I'll certainly be back at it when I return.

[Steve]

I posted a new build 1172 that makes these changes to the following tools:

Add Bones: Bones are always added parallel to the screen with Z-axis pointing out.

Add Bones and Rotate+Scale Bones: Fixes annoying bug that forced bones to align their Z-axis to the screen when you rotated them.

Rotate Bones: New mouse behavior:
Screen Space Rotation:
    LMB - Rotate around screen Z-axis, bone follows mouse.^[1]
    MMB - Rotate around screen X-axis, move mouse up/down to rotate.
    RMB - Rotate around screen Y-axis, move mouse left/right to rotate.
Bone Axis Rotation:
  With Shift key pressed:^[2]
    LMB - Rotate around bone's X axis, move mouse left/right to rotate.
    MMB - Rotate around bone's Y axis, move mouse left/right to rotate.
    RMB - Rotate around bone's Z axis, move mouse left/right to rotate.

[1] The reason that the LMB rotates around the Z-axis of the screen is because that's the more common way that you rotate things when you think of a rotation in screen space.
[2] This is how widgets would work (not with the L/M/RMB but with along one bone axis at a time) but widgets aren't written yet.

[neirao]

Very cool this new version!

STEVE,
can you insert "diameter" of bones
for memorize the "Dia" option in  "joint angles dialog"? 
in add selecteds/all bones buttons,  this is very usefull too..

PS: need change the TITLE VERSION, in topic.. "Current Development Release - Build 1171, April 15, 2015"