[Feature Request] "Keyframe All Settings" operator for Character properties #110
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Currently, the "Keyframe All Settings" operator does not create keys for properties added to the Character tab, I think it would be useful to either extend the functionality to include Character properties, or to create a new operator which only keys the Character props.
This is intentional because in our use cases those properties are always just used for viewport display settings (which is why I should actually rename that panel to "Viewport Display"), which aren't meant to be animated.
Could you tell me about your use case?
I primarily use the panel for viewport display settings as well, but I actually do need these to be animated, my use case centers around stills, a lot of stills, using linking extensively. It's easier to lump a large portion of these stills in one blend file, and have the outfits and clothing items switched between on the timeline along with other poses.
If outfit properties aren't keyed or manually overridden, the value may change on resync, so it means I constantly have to make sure I save the file with the same settings in the character properties, or else it'll change them in the linked libraries. Maybe a way to get around that though, is to override all properties whenever the outfit selector is used? It currently only overrides properties which have changed from their previous value, I think.
Expanding a little more on that outfit selector idea... For me, it would be really beneficial if the outfit selector itself would key properties, when like auto keying was enabled or something. Obviously everybody is not going to want this, but for me, if I need a bunch of properties changed to specific values frequently, which I will in some cases I think, it would be super useful to just create an "outfit" to define the settings I need to change, then use that outfit in the project files to do all the work for me.
I was also under the impression, though I don't think I ever tested it, that the outfit selector wouldn't interact with properties outside of the Character Property bone. Because of that, I do have some non-viewport display settings that are found on that bone so that they can be controlled via the selector, physics settings per outfit for an example, which otherwise might make more sense on dedicated "Physics Props" bones or something like that. That's not a real issue if it doesn't matter what bone the properties sit on though.
You should definitely insert keyframes for anything you change on a character rig and has any artistic intent behind it, whether it is linked or not, and whether it's a CloudRig rig or not. Otherwise your intent is just not stored in a safe way. That's a Blender architecture problem, and yeah, keyframing everything is our workaround.
I think your use case for wanting a convenient global keying option for Character properties is sound and it reveals a design issue in CloudRig that outfit properties are considered Character properties (which also reminds me why that panel is called "Character" in the first place).
To improve the situation, I would like to implement the following before Blender 4.0 release:
mentioned in issue #115
This will be tackled as a part of #116, where there will no longer be a distinction between "Character Properties" and other rig properties.