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[Steve]

Ok here's a small update: build 1240

Trevor: I worked on the Extrude Connected tool. It should keep all the new faces parallel to the original ones for your example. I added a lot of fairly complex code; can you give it a good testing?
argee: The crash on start-up that you reported should be fixed. Can you give it a try?
daniel99: I fixed the IK controls so they work again when bones aren't being drawn. Haven't gotten to the other things yet but they're coming. Some features don't really make any sense in the Sequence editor. For example, you can't edit the Figure's location or orientation so locking a foot to a point on the ground is undefined.  Once IK is in the Scene editor it will work.

[daniel99]

Thanks, Steve. Yes, looks great.
Just one small question. Would be possible to have the IK controls show over the figure? Like, sometimes I have some controls inside the mesh (next to the bones, of course), and they're not visible. Would be better to have them show over the mesh, even when they're inside it, to be easier to grab?

Also, about the ... limbs locking. I made a little gif showing what I mean. The body could be moved by the root, and even rotated, within the Joint Limits set in the Bone Editor. Same as a limb moves.
Something like DoIK does it for after effects, but that's only 2D

[daniel99]

Update: Sorry, I forgot to mention. It seems the command Ctrl+B doesn't fully work since the last few versions. For example, Using ARB and Using OpenGL Materials works, but Using GLSL is not...And is unfortunate, because GLSL shows the most accurate sim based on scene lighting.

[argee]

argee: The crash on start-up that you reported should be fixed. Can you give it a try?

Yes! starts up fine with no file association required! Thanks Steve!   

[Trevor]

Danial, as mentioned by Steve, what you are asking for is a "Scene Mode" option, not a sequence mode option.
Sequence is locked to origin, movement within a world makes no sence, if you want to walk round a world you need to be in scene mode.
This was something I found with trying to import GoldenEye animations to an8.
We first used the sequence mode but after sub had said that animations also "moved" we needed to move them into Scene Mode.

Cool, Ill download and test.

oh, just read
"Extrude Connected Faces: Faces are now extruded parallel to the original faces in most cases. This is physically impossible without the introduction of additional faces to cap points with complex geometry."
What do you mean exactly?
I might find out once I start testing

Trev

Ive given 1240 a quick whirl and its perfect.
Im still not sure what you meant with the above comment as I see no extra faces being created that are any different to before

Ive extruded skirting on rooms : Perfect.
Ive extrided a sphere like when people talk about the core of the earth : Close enough, easy fix
I extruded a cog : Perfect

I then took the cog and kept extruding bit, merging points etc all perfect

Just need to copy that code into shell mode now

[Steve]

Trevor: fixes are coming to the Shell, too, soon

If you mathematically intersect 3 non-parallel planes they always intersect in a single point.  Consider the case when there are three faces (or groups of parallel faces) in common with a point, p0. To find the direction to move p1, Anim8or intersects 3 planes that are offset by 1 unit in the normal direction of the original planes to find their intersection p1. It uses the vector p0->p1 as the direction and magnitude for the move.  This way all three newly formed faces stay parallel to the original faces.

If you add a 4th non-parallel plane it will most likely intersect the planes elsewhere, not at p1, likely forming 3 additional points p1', p1'' and p1'''.  No matter what direction you move p0 there will be at least one new face that isn't parallel to the original one.

However if you create 4 new points then the new faces will stay parallel - but there will be a hole in the corner which can be capped with a flat quadralateral after a bit more math, or 2 triangles.

I don't create this extra face.  The reason that it seems to work OK now for points with 4 non-parallel face is because a simple averaging of the 4 normals is close to correct for all for in most cases.  But it you measure the length that the point moves it's always 1 times the scale where as other points are moved further.  In the case of a sphere the angles are all about the same so it still looks good.

[daniel99]

Trevor: Yes, of course that's for scene mode 

[daniel99]

Hey, Steve. I have a big and annoying problem. I dunno why, but anim8or start crashing when I'm in sequence mode, animating.... (( It just freezes and "Not Responding" ... I don't know why.
  I go to the desired keyframe, move the IK controllers, then go to another keyframe.
After 6 or 7 moves, it just freezes. I have the latest version. I don't know what to do.
The figure I'm working with for the current project it's not even too hi poly. Usually, I set the subdivisions to 0 and only when rendering I set it to 2 or 3. So, it shouldn't have this problem...
I even waited for the program to respond, but after 15 min of waiting, nothing... Had to ctrl+alt+del to close it... What can I do to prevent this? Please HELP !!!
Btw, When the next release?

This is what I see in "problem details" :

_______________________________________________________________________
Description:
  A problem caused this program to stop interacting with Windows.

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   AppHangB1
  Application Name:   Anim8or_1240.exe
  Application Version:   0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:   00000000
  Hang Signature:   d014
  Hang Type:   0
  OS Version:   6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
  Locale ID:   1033
  Additional Hang Signature 1:   d01402234357ade936b90b71f63d6b4f
  Additional Hang Signature 2:   889f
  Additional Hang Signature 3:   889f2da0383ffa038b8ea6ce3db888cf
  Additional Hang Signature 4:   d014
  Additional Hang Signature 5:   d01402234357ade936b90b71f63d6b4f
  Additional Hang Signature 6:   889f
  Additional Hang Signature 7:   889f2da0383ffa038b8ea6ce3db888cf
_____________________________________________________________________________-

[ronaldefarmer]

Steve,

Extrude Connected works much better now. Thanks for doing that. I still wish there was a way to avoid having to clean up faces that become inverted when extruded toward one another. Might it be possible to add an option to automatically merge any new points that pass within a certain proximity of one another during extrusion?

Ron

[Steve]

daniel99: Is this reproducable, or just happens in more or less the same way?  Are you playing the animation? I haven't been able to reproduce it so far.

But I have been able to reproduce a hang when you play a sequence or scene in loop mode (Options->LoopScene) by typing <CR> twice, once to start it playing then once again while it's still running, and then click on the menu. This causes Anim8or to stop responding.  The same thing happens if you click on the Play button in the toolbar.

#098-087 - Hang when playing a Sequence or Scene in a loop.

[Steve]

ronaldefarmer: Unfortunately what you are asking would be rather complicated to implement.  I also think it's ambiguous. What happens when the points don't meet at the same time, if multiple points cross from other directions? The user may have a good idea what they want but I can't think of a good algorithm for deciding.

Note: I've cleaned up the Shell command so it keeps faces parallel, similar to Extrude Connected. This will be in the next build.

[Steve]

daniel99: Re: Ctrl-B:

1. Can you set UsingShaders+GLSL in the View->Preferences dialog? Ctrl-B should cycle through GLSL-->ARB-->NotUsingShaders-->GLSL (but close the dialog first, type Ctrl-B, and re-open it for it to work.
2. Is the GLSL setting possibly grayed out?

[ronaldefarmer]

Thanks for explaining, Steve. And thanks again for the many recent improvements.

[daniel99]

Steve:

It happened for a couple of my projects where I use IK, quite often. I even considered this happens because I move the controllers to fast (I know this couldn't be the reason)

I use the arrow keys to move through the sequence, and even for playback, so I don't really use the loopmode.

Here's one of the projects, and how it behaved since opening the project. It took 1m30s to freeze. If you think would help find the cause, I can provide this project.

Thanks.

As for the Ctrl+B, the GSLS is not grayed out. I'll try to find the project I talked about, maybe to provide a screen shot.

[slex]

daniel99 - I think that you undo buffer hogs the memory because it tries to remember all the undo-redo steps. I had similar issue and that's the only thing I find suspicious. Open the task manager and see how the memory used by Anim8or increases after every movement. You can free that memory by save+close+reopen the project. Integrated GPU uses the computer RAM, maybe it works better with dedicated GPU.
 Anyway, some mechanism should be implemented which 'forgets' the undo steps older than let's say 20th or if used memory is above 200MB, I'm sure Anim8or wouldn't crash then.