CORE Character Animation Tools Wishlist

[serhell]

I like this
http://joleanes.com/scripts_plugins/IKFKSolverVideo.php

[Grgeon]

wow that's nice... what is that? max?

I'd like to see a window that resembles an x-sheet... maybe something like Digicel's Flipbook for 2d animators to feel comfy with.

Color coded keyframing to show keys, breakdowns, inbetweens

Some sort of ghosting tool to see previous and next keys

motion paths that can be adjusted in the viewport.

-George

[calilifestyle]

I'm sorry but that ikfk link, i swear since they added sticky bones or is stretchy bones is you can do that.

[softdistortion]

***EDIT****

[coremi]

a similar copy of CAT would be nice.

[animatorkun]

I've never animated in LW, I used it for modeling and rendering. I am very interested in CORE.

It will be great if it has a grease pencil tool that lets animators draw rough poses in the camera view (like blender3d has).

playblast the keys only instead of every frame when blocking the animation.

timing sheet that shifts the playplasted images around to adjust the timing.

a slider can set % of value between 2 keys.

[ness]

Have you guys seen this... i hope newtek is taking some notes (from their competition).


http://www.cgchannel.com/2010/03/autodesk-announces-new-features-for-max-and-maya-2011/


For some reason the Non-Destructive Live Retargeting - HumanIK - video reminds me of MotionMixer in LW .... or what it couldve been, if developement at newtek wasnt so stagnated and slow.


The first Video is pretty cool too...


I think all this is do-able in Lightwave... and would be awesome to have (something similar or better).

[RobertoOrtiz]

ok guys I sent the first batch of comments.

Please do keep em coming.

-R

[sinbad]

My animation wishlist:

-Scalable Move/Rotate/Scale handles which affect the degree of value change (plus & minus keys in maya) as opposed to scaling the grid in Layout. Bigger handles = more subtle movements. Or something similar.

-A channel box (call it the animation box) type of window listing all keyable values. Ability to add and wire in your own custom attributes and set driven keys - like the lightwave sliders, but in one place & more elegant.

-Not really for animation but snapping tools for goodness sake.

-A more robust graph editor with all the different Bezier tangent types - spline, linear, clamped, stepped etc. Ability to cut & paste animation curve data between LW scenes and between characters.

- A character asset referencing system, so changes in the base rig can propogate into multiple animated scenes.

-Dynamic & keyable parenting.

-An elegant and reversable binding & weight painting system. Something like the new system in Maya 2011, or setupmachine with widgets

-Wire deformers and clusters.

-Non destructive and robust joints, and easy click IK & automatic Pole vector setup.

-Joint rotation order adjustability, euler filter or some other way to defeat gimbal lock.

-A timeline with easy to scale keys, easy to delete keys (by just hitting delete!) - colour coding for keys and breakdowns. Click and drag interaction.

-Rightclick context sensite marking menus on everything.

Damn it sounds like I want to change LW into Maya. I suppose thats because it is so robust and predictable in comparison at this point. Looking forward to what LW comes up with.

[animatorkun]

Animation layer will be awesome.

[Emiliano]

I think at this point our friends at Newtek already know what is REALLY missing in LW's character animation toolset.

My two cents:

- non linear morph targets
- unificated scene editor /dopesheet, all in one.... with full Undo
- A more complete Motion Mixer, for layer animation
- creation of new morph mixers targets in layout, basic tools at least like drag, move, and so.
(very handy for making corrective morphs seeing the real feedback)
- reusable animations, making of animation libraries and easy re-asignation of libraries to another characters

More to come
thanks

[Nemoid]

sinbad says quite all. I'd add something like

armatures in Messiah, making users able to modify the rig during animation
point animation
mesh correction with sculpt tools when animating (see Blender)


i insist for a revamped timeline, basically working like Maya one.

[sinbad]

Also..

A character retargetting system, so one character's animation can be wired through to another.

Dynamically pinnable end-effectors such as im motionbuilder/humanIK - switchable part or full body IK functionality

A Layered animation paradigm, such as in motionbuilder, so animation can be added non- destructively on top of motion capture or key framed animation

A built-in biped & Quadruped skeleton rig such as in Softimage, or 3DSMax which can be customised to fit

A built-in generic Facial rig system such as The Face Machine (TFM) or Softimage FaceRobot, for the more generic work for quick turnaround and automated lip synching

[Grgeon]

One of the things I hear a lot from the traditional animation masters that this miss from 3d is the lack of control they have to animate hair and cloth.This is usually handled by Sim TD's and it could probably fall under the rigging/dynamics section, but it's related to animation.

The ability to animate and "sculpt" the clothing and hair of your character and have it be part of the character animation storytelling process i think is the next step in bridging the gap between 2d and 3d character animation.

I think this is something Glen Keane wanted Disney to get it worked into the Rapunzel movie. I'll have to dig up the links this was referred in.


Side questions. Do we know when Newtek will start working on the animation tools for Core? I'd definitely want to be part of that beta testing process.
I'd like to see them employing a seasoned character animator master to influence the tools they'll be implementing. Do you think they'd need/want to do that?

-George

[Nemoid]

I think that hiring some rigging/animation expert would be a benefit, since Nt team has not a huge experience regarding complex animation tools especially for CA.
Yes despite what many people say, you can do it, but's not the best area of the app.
So for complex projects you end up to work with other apps.
Also some great inspiration could come from Maya, Blender and Messiah for sure.

[Grgeon]

Just finished watching a webinar with Raf Anzovin of the TSM rigging plugin fame for a:m and maya. He mentioned he used to use LW too. An animator/rigger like him would be a good candidate i think to move lw's animation/rigging tools forward. One can dream ;)

-George

[Nemoid]

yes TSM was a former LW plugin too. Hope it will come back with CORE. :buttrock:

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.