EIAS Features Requests: User Interface

#1

I’d like to open this thread to discuss feature requests regarding EIAS user interface. That would mean things such as interface widgets, items manipulation in the different kinds of windows and inspectors, windows and palettes’ sizes and internal organization, keyboard shortcuts, etc. From minor things (say, being able to reorder Master Materials in the Project Window by hand) to biggie proposals (such as adopting an After Effects style of dockable windows/panes). Mockups and sketches would be great to see.

Obviously, this thread is not relevant v7-wise: its just too late. It will be interesting to see what’s new in EIAS v7’s UI, though.

Well. I’d open fire with this simple one:

OPTIMIZING CAMERA’S WINDOW SIZE:

In multiprocessor machines, when one wants to watch from two to eight Cameras’ behavior, one wishes they would produce smaller windows and remember their last position on the screen (or screens, in a multimonitor setup). I think it would be great if a Camera window could switch among these three sizes, say, by clicking on the EIAS logo or whatever. Here there is a Photoshopped sketch of what I mean:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=118145&stc=1

#2

Excellent thread idea.

I vote for dual monitor support, with saved, named layouts.

Highlighting on manipulator widgets so we can see which axis will be selected (the Rotate manipulator being notoriously bad), along with a user preference to set the cursor’s pick radius.

We should be able to marque select key frames in the project window, tap the “S” key to enter Scale mode, then click and drag in the middle to scale key frames in and out from center. When the cursor moves to either edge of the project timeline, the cursor should change to tell you you can click and drag to scale with the opposite edge as the anchor.

Tap the “T” key to return to Translate mode and move the key frames into position.

#3

I like that highlighting idea a lot: Hexagon 2 has such a thing, and it works very well, specially with the rotate widget. EIAS’ rotator is very difficult to work with (would having an “universal” widget such as those in most SDS modeler apps be an interesting feature?).

If highlighting the manipulators was a complicated feature to implement, changing the cursor so that it shows a tiny x,y,z letter at its side would be useful, too. Actually, having a mutating cursor would be very useful for quickly discovering which modifier gives you things such as Bezier handle manipulation, XYZ constraint and such: one just tramples on the usual keyboard modifiers and there it pops out the relevant cursor to show what does what.

About Project window-related requests, perhaps After Effects would be a good reference for most things. There are so valuable features to get such as Ease-in/out Contextual Menu commands (plus related keyframe markers), keyboard shortcuts to reveal tracks’ properties, inline-renaming, drop-substitution of selected items, etc.

Being at that: wouldn’t it be better to substitute the CMD-SHIFT-M collapse/uncollapse offspring shortcut with, say, a simple M (or any other key, I don’t remember if M did something else), no modifiers at all?

#4

Hi,
this is my design proposal of 2004. The right tab can collapse and call it from master window.

#5

Nice thread!! Usually people say…what??? you want prettier colors or aqua??? …ARGH! Interface means SO much more than that. There is tons I want in a new EI gui.

Making the viewports one window like Maya, XSI or C4d. When you want to maximize a window, simple “spacebar” hit in the particular viewport makes it full and “spacebar” again goes back to 4 windows(huge time saver). The separate windows allows the interface to get very messy in my opinion.

A small palette (possibly collapsable) on the right side of the screen for all objet info/transform tools (look at XSI or Maya). The separate window is annoying…always having to slide it out of the way or close it.:banghead:

Lots more customization for hotkeys. I hate having to remember all the apps diff key combos. Most apps are customizable enough that you can make em all the same so you never have to spend time relearning an apps nav tools and such.

Ah… I could go on for a long time.

#6

It is very nice. My issue is it still being too big when one has four to eight Cameras running at once. Do you think you could produce a smallish version?

Regarding pane-based UIs, I remember StrataStudio as being a nice solution. EIAS’ multitude of differently sized Inspectors would still be a problem, anyway. I really like After Effects’ style, even if I’d wish it’d be smart enough to sort of “windowshade” or collapse a momentarily no-panes window (for example, having a window on a second monitor for timelines, and closing the project: it would be nice if AE, seeing there is currently nothing in that window, would shrink it into a Window bar and a bit of extra space for docking things into it).

A first useful thing for EIAS to have is its windows being able to turn into floater ones (always on top) by clicking some window bar widget or setting some preference button.

I am not too sure I would like to have this kind of lateral scrolling Inspector one sees in apps such 3D Studio (I hate the scrolling part), but then some effort should be made so that one can dock some inspectors into an squarish mass aside somewhere

#7

ROTATE TOP/BOTTOM VIEW 90º:

This is a minor one, but it would help a lot sometimes: when one has to edit a scene in which there are long complex objects arranged along the Z axis, top and bottom views happen to be a bit vexing to use, as things are limited by the height of the monitor so one has to zoom and scroll a lot. It would be great if one could produce a 90º Y-axis-rotated top or bottom view window for those occasions, as it would work very well in today’s widescreen monitors.

#8

I want to click on an object name and rename it right there, as in EIM and After Effects.

The edit field in the project window has always bothered me.
It feels like an extra, unnecessary step.
You can’t even copy and paste names into it.

If I’m wrong and missing some shortcut, please tell me.

Jim Mulcahy

#9

Ok here’s a very simple request.

Can all the animation channels under a particular group be switched off as default!

I spend most of my day turning these green arrows off. It is very rare or never that you need to animate all the channels and so it would be far better if you could just switch the ones on that you need.

As above - If I’m wrong and missing some shortcut, please tell me.

Robert

#10

If you switch off the green triangle of the group itself, all channels downards are also isabled and won’t animate. There is no need to switch them off.

Jens

#11

Hi Jens

“If you switch off the green triangle of the group itself, all channels downards are also isabled and won’t animate.”

That is true. But my problem is when you want to animate just one of the channels, eg the Y position and nothing else. I tend to switch all the other channels off so I don’t inadvertently animate them eg when you change the groups colour and the time line isn’t at zero.

I just think it would be better to have them all switch off and let the user has the chose of which one to turn on.

Cheers

Robert

#12

Yes, this would be indeed better - since usually there are always fewer animated channels than non animated channels.

Jens

#13

Nice to have a right click > set selected for the green triangles (as well as all the constraints options now I think about it)…

Ian

#14

Now that v7 has been finally released, and seeing that there are no UI novelties at all, which is a bit disenchanting, in think we could restart this thread, perhaps keeping as a goal suggesting just little bits and pieces that REALLY shouldn’t be that difficult to implement.

So, to start again with a few ones:

WINDOWS:
-Workspaces: windows arrangement user presets. At least three or four keyboard shortcut-recallable ones
-Floater Windows: that all non four-view windows have a “turn into a floater” window widget available, so we can set some to never be occluded by the 3D views.

RENDERED IMAGE PREVIEW WINDOWS:
-Add a default setting for their new gamma options in Preferences.

PROJECT WINDOW:
-Mouse Wheel support.
-“Solo track” or “Shy track” functionality, be it a new checkbox or button or using a modifier while clicking the visibility one (so the box changes colour or something to denote Solo or Shy). I see the visibility button as an important group attribute, and it is irritating to have to change it for a lot of groups just to “solo” some element to preview, specially if one has done a complicated visibility/invisibility arrangement. If not possible to keep “Solo” state data inside project files, just don’t store them.

#15

And don’t forget the long awaited and much needed “always on top” option.

#16

Certainly: the way I wrote that, it isn’t that clear that I’d wish the Project Window to be “floatable”, too.

#17

sorry, wasn’t paying attention :slight_smile:

#18

Nah. It wasn’t that obvious in my post :slight_smile:

#19

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.