100 dollar upgrade

#1

trying to formulate what people’s expectations for the suggested upgrade are, in part to assist decision-making process at pmG (please note that the right to decide lies with them)…

I’ve capped it at 14 days, and ask you to limit yourselves to ~3 options. Clicking everything is of course what we all want, but this poll is explicitly asking for a reasonable prioritization of a minor feature list for a paid (100 dollar) mini-upgrade …

edit:
Please also keep inmind that I haven’t had the opportunity (perhaps I should have waited) to get feedback as to what the pmG team think of which features, ie. how much effort each involves. So, be understanding if one of these turns out to be too involved for a short-term fix…

#2

Hi David,

Thanks for starting this. Just one point. The daynamic parenting thing is all about being able to do dynamic parenting in place in animation - so an expression or something. The drag and drop part of your poll suggests something else IMO - like in setup mode. Let’s not confuse this issue - please! I mean that in the nicest possible way!

:slight_smile:

Edit.
I’m voting with the assumption that DynaPIP (see original thread) is what you had in mind.

#3

Just curious, but this is not doing it for you under expressions?

" double DynamicParent (object parent1, object parent2, object child, double position, double damping )

Return Value: 1.0 for success, 0.0 for failure

Causes child to act as though it is parented to one of it’s two parents. If the position is 0.0 then the child behaves as though it is parented to parent1. If the position is 1.0 then it behaves as though it is parented to parent2. If the value is anywhere in between then it behaves as though it is parented to both; the parent with the position closes to it exerts the greater influence. This function controls both translation and orientation, it does not control scale.
Note: For more information about DynamicParent see the tutorials section."

And there is something called multiparent that you can use with up to 4 parents. If you use with a slider, it becomes very easy to turn it on and off.

k

#4

Well, you’re right. I misunderstood that.
Could you link to the thread here or explain it more detailed? (ie the difference to the expressions Kursad mentions). I remember having issues with DynaPIP too, but can’t recall exactly…

#5

Search using “DynaPIP”. It’s the one titled “Dynamic Parenting In Place”.

Trust me when I say that there is NOT an expression that does it. I don’t want to go over this all over again (I’ve banged on about this one too many times, as have others) - Do the search, read the post and you’ll get the whole idea and why all the work arounds and other seemingly useful plugins and expressions don’t work. Not grumpy, just too tired to go over it all again.:slight_smile:

#6

LINK
And a particularly informative post from Christopher Lutz.

#7

I have been in favor of videos over documentation simply coz IMO they are not only easier/faster to make but also you could get along with something simpler, not like docs that usually need to be worked a lot lot more.

Other plz Taron if in your view the zomby keys is “controversial” issue, then make a video showing why are they so good and how to avoid the problems they create.

One more this is not joke make a paypal donate link there is nothing wrong with it and maybe if you want we could accumulate donations to xchange them for a pro upgrade.

Make one online course Messiah-Rendering And SFX-101 charge for it at least 390 and offer a messiah workstation bundle for 150 more.

#8

key shortcut - complete options
customizable interface
“traditional” selection / de-selection

and NO more noise on “dense” mesh…(at least for quad only meshs…)!

#9

ok that clears out the matter for me. Maybe i would have voted for this one too, but again this is a missing function, i am more on usability :slight_smile:

#10

missing one option… fix the navigation from objects POV.

#11

Yep. Sorry. Hope Taron is droppin gin - it’s also listed at the bugtracker.

#12

I thought I’s take this opportunity to link more directly the fantastic bugTracker, that Stooch set up and manages. If you encounter a bug or an issue, you can report it there and telll others about it to get more feedback. Hopefully this will aid the pmG team

One thing I’ve also got high on my list of wishes is consistent behavior of multi-selected objects.

edit:
after reading up on the dynaPIP, it seems that might be too involved for the quick fix we’re discussing. Well, let’s see what the team has to say.

#13

Zombie keys I assume are those inactive keyframes that decide to become active when you use the dopemaster? I don’t see how that could possibly ever be good for anything. It’s the number one bug that drives me up the wall when using messiah.

#14

Yes, the inactive keys. There’s nothing controversial about them, I’ve yet to hear someome say the like them, let alone love them. On the other hand, everyone who has spoken of them dislikes them and I have heard a LOT of people say they hate them…me being one of those.

They are like a little gremlin in the computer that keeps screwing with you whilst you try to work.

#15

I don’t have a problem with inactive keys themselves as long as they don’t magically become active when I start dragging keys in the dopesheet/dopemaster. You can already hide them, that’s good enough for me as long as that damn dope bug gets squashed.

#16

I love the inactive keys and would be very sad if they had to go away.

Fred

#17

Great that you love them Fred but it would be nice if those of us that did not, had the option to not have them activate when we don’t want them to. I tend to work now in ways in which I don’t run up against them much but when I do I curse pmG for there existence. The expletives do fly.

And I want more lil tutorial videos from you Fred. Every one you have done have been both super informative and crazy funny… a double threat! :buttrock:

#18

Fred, do you never run into the bug with inactive keys magically becoming active and ruining your animation? I never had a problem with the concept of inactive keys until that bug popped up. I don’t care if inactive keys remain in the program and I have found them useful from time to time, but I’d rather lose them altogether than continue with that awful bug.

#19

There’s also the issue of them re-activating when you click on an armature at a time that contains an inactive key. Your armature that you’re planning on moving five pixels to the right to get a better arc suddenly goes flying off into the middle of nowhere (where the inactive keyframe is actually). Drives me bananas!

#20

Said one of the people responsible for their implementation!?!?! That’s assumed given that you or one of your team coded them BUT every experience I have of discussing them on this forum suggests that everyone (and that’s a bold but true experience) wants them to be either removed completely or have an option to de-activate them permenantly. It is VERY rare to get a completely one sided debate on such an issue. Normally at best you’d get 75% saying they hate them and 25% saying they love them but that simply isn’t the case. It seems like an obvious way to please a lot of people.

I recognise it’s easy for me to sit here and ask for such features to be removed. I don’t have to do the work BUT are you really unconvinced that people are unanimously requesting the same thing?