New Versions are Up (2.4c)

#16

Hey, first of all: thanks! :thumbsup: Lots of nice things in there, and those slider channel limits - mmmmmh, finally :slight_smile: Now, to take this to another level, how about having such channel limits for all items - that would be a killer :smiley:

Unfortunately I seem to have a little OGL glitch again with this patch: whenever I double click something in the list view, to edit the name, all the text first gets selected, but when I want to place my cursor somewhere inside the text, or select portions of the text, the field gets validated instead of beeing able to edit anything. I hope my explanation makes sense…

Now, I’d also like to profit from this occasion to renew an old, much needed feature request, since our production is in a situation where this would be needed really badly, and there’s no workaround that would be a real option for the kind of things we have to do: real Dynamic Parenting IN PLACE, aka DynaPIP, and/or general Constraint Compensation, combined with blendable constraints, as in XSI! This is something that is so often needed in character animation, for interaction between characters and objects etc. - please please please, can you make this a high priority feature on your list for the next update…! :D:bowdown:

#17

dobermunk: yes, subfolder recognition for plugins and scripts etc. would be great to make organization easier. I vote for it :slight_smile:
I only copy my own materials over which I have in separate folders already so nothing should be lost.

BTW. I found that I still get the “focus jumping to the next material when deleting nodes” in 2.4c although this is meant to be fixed if I understand the release notes correctly. It seems to be dependent on the (creation-?) order of nodes somehow - it doesn’t happen for all nodes.

Maks: Works fine here? Any special circumstances?

Thanks again! :bowdown:

#18

Nope, no special circumstances, and 2.4b works fine…
Geforce 6800 GS, Forceware 83.40 - I might try other drivers…

#19

I have drivers 84.21 running with no problems so far.
Are you sure it is OpenGL related?
Did you test it on another machine?

I will try my ATI-Laptop later today…

Cheers and greetings to munich :slight_smile:

#20

Yeah. What Maks said. Keep the great work up!

#21

Actually not sure if it’s OGL, just a guess… Just tried it on my laptop with an ATI 9200, and it does the same thing: double click an item in the item list (or an expression in the expression list) to make the name editable, then click anywhere inside the name to position the text cursor, or to select only parts of the name - here it validates (deselects) everything as soon as I click the second time.
But: I just noticed that if I don’t click the second time, but use the arrow keys to move the text cursor, it works… So, not that much of a problem, but strange nonetheles :shrug:
Cheers from Munich :beer: :wink:

#22

Thanks for the update…and maybe a minor issue.

Is it just me, or can anyone else move the edit sphere in two directions in the Left/Right windows? In front/back,top/bottom/, and perspective, I can move in more than one axis at a time. But in L/R I just can’t seem to activate more than one direction.

Obviously not a huge deal, but it does take two moves to move something, as opposed to one.

Best,
Rick

#23

thanks for the update! :slight_smile:

hello Rick,
try to change to Screen Coordinates (bottom right of the World View)

#24

Thanks. Guess that didn’t occur to me; but why is it only in Left/Right ports that it doesn’t work with ?

Best,
Rick

#25

Thank you pmG for the hard work! Good to see the wheels turning. :thumbsup:

#26

i don’t know, it’s a mystery for me too.
i would like too not to have to switch the coordinate system every time i work in the side view.

perhaps someone at pmG can give an answer.

#27

Well, from day one of using messiah, I felt that the whole EditSphere idea isn’t really good.
For me, it is the most painful manipulation gadget on the market.
The basic idea isn’t that bad, but in the end, I prefer the classical approach with 3 different key-shortcuts for move, rotate and scale, especially if it is implemented like in XSI where you just hold down the key as long as you need it (“Supra Mode”): Select something (with the left mouse key) press “V” to move the object around with 3 arrow handles that are just perfectly logical, release the “V” key and be back in your last mode before pressing it - in this case selection.
I am 10 times faster in XSI than in messiah.

If I had to vote, I would get rid of the edit sphere like yesterday.
I just hate it.

Sorry, I don’t intend to be negative here, but I think at one point in time this major tool that is one of the core components in everyday work has to be brought to a really intuitive and perfectly working state. Otherwise this single issue has the potential to influence the perception of messiah in a very bad way.

Cheers! :bowdown:

#28

First of all, Thanks PMG, you are doing a good work!
Thomas, I think the same, the classic esphere edit in the other softwares is more intuitive and handy. Will be a good feature, if this option it will possible … :thumbsup:

Whats happen with the ‘Animate inmediate’ ¿…?, it´s lost? :sad:

I have one more problem, (not in this particular version) :

When I zoom out in the perspective view, the viewport it distorts, as when you put very lower values in the camera zoom (eye fish lens effect). it is normal? or only affects to my?

Thanks!

#29

Hi !!

  T Ha a N K K S S ! ! ! !
  MANY T h h a n n k s ! !
  
  You are doing a wonderfull work ! I like the frequent update !
  Perfect, continue like this, I can't wait for the next update ;) ...
  My refresh button on PMG Web page is burning :)
  
  Cheers!
  Opera
  Mourad K.
#30

That’s normal from a certain zoom level on, which can occur with e.g. very large objects. In this case use the right mouse button instead of the left one, this “dollies” the camera instead of zooming it. Hope this helps.

#31

Thanks Maks, another solution that I found is to create a global null parent for all the items in the scene, and scale to reduce it before animate.

I think that the problem when use the dolly whit big objects, is that is very difficult to center the object in the screen, because each time when I press the ‘a’ key, my object is center in the screen in a big scale and I have to do de dolly once and again … :shrug:

Regards

#32

I’m with Maks on the Dynamic parenting in place. A must for CA.

Soooo looking forward to getting on with some CA.

#33

WOW!!! What’s going on here?!? HAahha…amazing! Well, I’m very happy to see all the replies and thanks! Means a lot to us! It’s just great to see that much appreciation!

SO, now…what else, aha…Focus jumping in the material editor? That shouldn’t happen now, I havn’t…oh crap! Now that’s entertaining…it doesn’t show that it still jumps and you could continue editing just fine, but it actually kinda still does jump…I just kept deleting nodes and it actually deleted the material underneath…hohoho…whotta?! Great, I see 2.4d is already getting it’s first entry! Man…sorry. We’ll figure it out asap!

As for the fish-eye when zooming out, use “[” and “]” to scale the grid-size in and out! That’ll take care of that, you’ll see. Zoom is always zoom and it’s relative to the grid-size, which acts as a dimension!

Hmmm…edit sphere has changed quite a bit, that’s true. Some of it requires a little getting used to, but overall it acts a lot nicer. The biggest thing that I’m not fully sure about is the on one hand great new trade, that object handles, like bone-length for instance, have priority over the edit sphere handles. But the same thing can lead to some confusion in some situations as well. It’s a wicked trade-off and I’m not yet perfectly sure, what will be both best to handle in terms of visibility and interaction speed. Another thing to still keep ironing out. But overall I’m getting very much used to it already and get a good flow going.

BUT…hmmm…more alternative editing handle styles…hmmm, hmmm, hmmm…I do think it’s a good idea. Why not keep customizing things like that. Every single one will have it’s lovers and haters, there’s no doubt, but it’s a great thing to have a chance to choose. I perfectly agree! Not sure what it takes, but we most certainly will look into it and how elegantly it can be made to fit in. :thumbsup:

Double click selects whole name, no way to click inside of the string, yes, I noticed that, too. I apologize to our guys, that I failed to mention that, either. Wasn’t sure what’s up with that. That’s another great one for 2.4d (haha, already collecting…what in the world!). But great! :banghead: (ohmm…wrong smily) :wip: (yeah, that’s the one!)

I FREAKING HATE that COORDSYS stupid crap thing there…I always have it deactivated…no idea why I can’t convince us to just toss the damn thing, but well…in case you run into any funkiness, you probably have it turned on…just turn the darn thing off by clicking on it! I have it off by default, so I’m always a little confused when I read a post about issues with moving things around. Start messiah, Turn it off, exit again…should be in the config then. I (as in AY <loudly announcing>) shall apologize for our wicked decision to have it in the first place. I think I never once ever used or needed to use it…but someone out there must like it?! :argh: :cry:

(same goes for animate immediate to me, which I really don’t like either, but it should still work…no idea, though…I’m not using it!)

Dynamic parenting in place…hmmm…don’t we have that in setup? I know that stuff is always a bit more wacky than it seems… :hmm: …we’ll revisit that! Good idea! :lightbulb

Alright, so altogether…I’m very happy about the general reception from all of you and we’re on the ball and we’re staying on the ball, too! It’s a powerful roll and it’s a fun one, too! You have to imagine and should understand how much fun it is for us, really, to see how things boost into place. It continues to be a piece by piece procedure, but this is just exactly how it works! With all your help…see what’s happening! Just fantastic! SOOOOO:

THANK YOU!!! :love:

#34

Quickie. I’m on 5.4 (was going to go for 5.4b but then 5.4c came out…then it seems 5.4d might be in the works…) Can someone confirm or deny (a Monsters inc line!) if this has gone in 5.4c.

Blank scene, add some KF’s for the camera. Now select all the dope master cells using the rectangle lasso. Does it select ALL of them or does it, like at my end, miss out one?

#35 
    Well, I actually use the new coord system, don't know, just got used to it, and I find it clearer what you do because the edit sphere alignes to the chosen coord system, which is not the case with the old system. But maybe that's just me :shrug::D
    
    As for having seperate edit spheres for translation, rotation and scale, I'm for it (as I already said on the beta list some time ago) - I'd vote for having it at least optional :)
    
    On a more general note: actually I don't use the new edit sphere, mainly because of some wacky behaviour that I noticed in some complex rigs. I'll try to put together a simplified scene if I can reproduce it... But also because the new edit sphere doesn't let you LMB select items that are behind the edit sphere in animate immediate mode, which brings me to the next point:

(same goes for animate immediate to me, which I really don’t like either, but it should still work…no idea, though…I’m not using it!)

    I *LOVE* the animate immediate mode, and I use it all the time!!! So, please keep it! :D

Dynamic parenting in place…hmmm…don’t we have that in setup? I know that stuff is always a bit more wacky than it seems… :hmm: …we’ll revisit that! Good idea! :lightbulb

    Errr, I didn't talk about the setup parenting, but about a dynamic parenting function in animate mode, such as the one that already exists, but which keeps the object in place while switching parents. There was a thread on this subject some time ago: [http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=230486](http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=230486) - some people tried to make such a plugin, but no one succeeded so far. Apparently such a function involves some heavy matrix conversion operations - unfortunately my programming knowledge isn't up to the task here, or I'd already had done it myself :/ Have you already used XSI? Their constraint system actually is something even more flexible: every constraint is smoothly blendable, and you have a "ConstraintCompensation" button which keeps the constrained object in place if desired, while activating/deactivating a constraint. Think of Dynamic Parenting as a Pose Constraint (MoveTo combined with Align), smoothly blendable, but the constrained object keeps it position and alignment when blending the constraint. Makes sense? :)

    SOOOOOOO:
    Keep up the good work guys! :D