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[johnar]

The menu folder grouping is great so far.
 As a trial, for now, for froyd, i created 4 groups.
 Below waist. Above waist. HandLeft and HandRight. (for fingers).
  Everything is grouped in the timetrack as it should be, and once the collapsable folders are in place, the amount of room in the timetrack will have increased massively.
 Menu folders will make a huge difference in the timetrack, and morph targets will be much easier to access, without needing to scroll past everything else to get there.
 Nice one steve.

[Steve]

OK then "Key All Bones" will key all bones in any figure that is selected or has at least one bone selected. Note: switching between modes will preserve figure and bone selection, but entering IK or FK will deselect everything else (cameras, attached objects, lights, etc.) since these other things aren't relevant for these operations.

[johnar]

That sounds excellent.

 Found a possible bug. It may not, however, be an issue if you're planning on changing how we move between IK and FK. (both active with bone rotate tool. (?))
 Anyway, what i've noticed is, in sequence mode, changing from IK to FK turns off the animation key.
 Probably shouldn't. ?

 Keep up the great work steve Many thanks.

[johnar]

Hi steve.
I've noticed with shortcut key 'k', for key selected bones and morph targets', that bones need to be selected for a morph target to be keyed at the same time.
 It would be good if you could select just a morph target, or targets' and key those with 'k' as well. ie: key selected morph targets with no bones selected.
 Position and Orientation keys could possibly be an option as well?
 What say you.

Edit: Point in case: I've got a bouncy ball with a face. It has 13 morph targets, and no rig.
 With Orientation and position keys added, thats 15 'double click -> ok's to set the first keys for that. A Left click to select 1, then right clicks to select the rest, then press 'k', is sooo much quicker.
 And, further along, same deal. Single or multiple morph targets can be selected and 'k'd in no time at all.

[daniel99]

Steve, just a quick remark: When I lock the position and save and close the project. When I reopen the project, the locked effectors are not locked anymore. Can that be fixed?
And also, would be a good idea to also have locked position and rotation for the end effectors ? 
Thanks.

[Steve]

johnar: the k hot-key was supposed to work for selected morphs regardless on any selected bones. I was just searching figures and not plane objects so those were missed. I'll fix it.

changing from IK to FK turns off the animation key

Anim8or enables animation automatically when you enter the IK tool and reverts to the user's setting when you leave. It's a good idea to do that for the FK tool, too. Thanks for the suggestion.

daniel99: yes, locked positions and the locked flag will be saved, animated, etc. It's a lot of code to get this working but I'm almost there.  As for rotation, I plan to add locks for that too, after all the basic implementation detains are worked out for position.

[nemyax]

yes, locked positions and the locked flag will be saved, animated, etc.

But why animate the locked/unlocked state of an effector if you can simply animate its position? It's "locked" at a spot as long as the corresponding position key holds.

[daniel99]

nemyax Because, for example, I lock my character's feet, and just animate the walk. When I move the feet, I keep them locked, and only rotate them if I need to. That's one of the IK tool purposes.

[nemyax]

I lock my character's feet, and just animate the walk.

What happens when they are unlocked? Do you mean you switch to FK whenever a foot isn't planted on the ground?
Animating locks sounds like a convoluted way to animate the path of the IK chain end effector. Instead of, you know, animating the path of the IK chain end effector.

[daniel99]

nemyax Well, for me works just fine, and when Steve is gonna fix the "wiggle" for the end-effectors lock, everything will be perfect.
Usually, as I said, I lock the feet of a character, then moving the body. The feet are kept in place. When I make a step, I move the locked foot using its controller.
Without the IK, animating a walk is a bit annoying, because the feet will always kinda slip.

[johnar]

Thanks steve
 By the way. Good job on the trackball visibility thing. Tidies things up immensely,
All thumbs up.

[nemyax]

I lock the feet of a character, then moving the body. The feet are kept in place. When I make a step, I move the locked foot using its controller.
Without the IK, animating a walk is a bit annoying, because the feet will always kinda slip.

Consider these animation keys from a different animation program that doesn't have the concept of "locks" and doesn't need it. They are position keys for the IK target of the right foot in a walk cycle (left/right, backward/forward and up/down).

There's no micromanagement to it, it's pure holds and slopes, which an animator understands immediately. All you need to do to animate a "lock" is go to the frame directly before the "unlock" should happen and set a position key, creating a hold.
You don't have to keep track of something called a "lock", and you animate the motion of the end effector like you would animate anything: hold, jump forward in an arc, hold, jump forward. As for the foot staying planted, it should do that anyway as long as IK is enabled.
I believe that if the IK end effector has animatable transforms (position, rotation and scale) and an animatable IK on/off switch, it has  everything. (Well, almost everything; some kind of IK chain twist control would also help so you can swing the IK chain left and right.)

[johnar]

If i could just chime in, i think what nemyax is saying is absolutely correct, and i'm thinking this is perhaps just a bit of a misunderstanding between 'lock' and 'hold', which are essentially the same, but just under a different name.
Traditionally, the correct word is 'hold'
 Anim8or has keys, just as any other animation program, and a 'lock' key is really just a 'hold' key anyway, which will 'lock, or hold' that position until a different key is set, in which case it has become 'unheld, or unlocked'.
 Same with rotation/(orientation) keys.
 This is how anim8or already works, so i'm pretty sure the usual key method would be no different for 'holding/(locking)' an end effector into place. 

[nemyax]

Anim8or has keys, just as any other animation program, and a 'lock' key is really just a 'hold' key anyway, which will 'lock, or hold' that position until a different key is set, in which case it has become 'unheld, or unlocked'.

Not quite. A position hold is only a special case of animated position. That's why I'm emphasising that the generic ability to animate the effector position is needed.

[Steve]

I think the term "locked" is a bit misleading; I should pick a better one. What "locking" an end effector does is actually enable IK. When the "locked" effectors are animated (I'm working on this now ) they will move in a manner similar to any other key-animated point, along with the position of the figure. After these values have been set, the IK system will position the joints in the IK chains for all "locked" effectors.

If an effector isn't moved between two keys, it is locked in place, hence the term locked. The spline interpolation needs to be slightly different for effectors or the won't be held exactly in the same place between two keys with the same value. Instead there is a bit of overshoot caused by the so called "lowest energy" shape that they normally assume.

A better term might be "active" or "enabled" or "". Any ideas?