It works like for moving Object Ipos to the Action, press the Action icon
in the header of the IpoWindow, to the left of the mode selection menu.
It then creates an Action (if not existed) and moves the Shape Ipo to the
Action, using custom channel "Shape".
Main code change was that evaluating Ipo Curves for Relative Shapes had to
be recoded, but that's pretty minor and even much cleaner. (added "curval"
in the KeyBlock struct).
That this feature can work is thanks to the full modifier/derivedmesh
recode Daniel did, can't give him enough credits! :)
Also; small fixes in Outliner, for clicking on the Ipo icon (sets the Ipo
window to show that Ipo).
When using vertex weight groups to control Shapes, the vertexgroup also
worked when no IpoCurve was assigned to channel (channel defaulting to 1).
This now only works with a Pinned Shape. For relative key situations it was
not useful. :)
Just fill in the name of a Vertex group in the Shape Panel, and this
Shape will then become blended with the reference Shape.
It is useful for example for a symmetrical modeled head, make a
copy of that Shape, and use two Vertex Groups to make it asymetric.
Of course the Shapes update nicely while Weight Painting.
Also new; since the Vertex group names reside on Object level, you might
want to copy these names to the other Objects that have the same Mesh.
That's a new button "Copy to Linked" in the first Edit Panel.
First note that this is new functionality, unfinished, and only for
testing and feedback purposes. I'll list below what works, and what will
need work still.
This text is also in cms: http://www.blender.org/cms/Ipo_Drivers.680.0.html
An IpoDriver is like an IpoCurve, but instead of a Bezier curve, it allows
to connect a property of other Objects as input for the "channel". For
example, IpoDrivers can be used to have a Shape Key being "driven" by
the rotation of a Bone. Or the RGB colors of a Material get driven by the
XYZ location of an Object.
Editing of Drivers happens in the IpoWindow. Here you can notice that the
channels (right hand window) now have an "active" channel indicator.
To add a Driver, you have to use the "Transform Properties" Panel (Nkey).
Here you can add or remove a Driver to the active channel, and use the
buttons to fill in what kind of relationship you want to establish.
Driver Objects
Note that any Ipo Channel can become driven now, but that only Object
transformation or Pose Bone transformation can be used to become a
Driver now.
At this moment, only the local transformation is taken into account.
For Objects that means the location/rotation/scale value without Parent
transform (as shown in "Transform Properties" Panel for Objects).
For Pose Bones it means that only the Pose transform (changes of rest
position) is Driver information (also as shown in Transform Property
Panel in Pose Mode).
Mapping of Drivers
When an Ipo Channel is "driven", the mapping is by default one-to-one.
It is only restricted by already built-in limits for Channels, like
for Material the "R" value can only range from 0.0 to 1.0.
Also note that when mapping rotations, the actual rotation values
in Ipos are scaled down with a factor 10.0. (180 degrees actually has
in the Ipo system a value of 18.0). This is an ancient year zero
convention in Blender... it is a bit hidden, because the ruler
(vertical as well as horizontal) displays the virtual values correctly.
Only the Properties panel shows the actual value.
When you draw an IpoCurve in a Driven channel, this curve will define
the mapping between the Driver output (horizontal) and Driven input
(vertical, as usual).
A nice new option to use is "Insert one-to-one curve" (press I-key,
or in pulldown menu). This will also zoom the display in exactly to
fill the window, allowing easy edit. If you use this option with
degrees, it will map 180 degree rotation to a range of 1.0 unit.
Live updates
Since the Drivers are integrated in the Ipo system, they will always
be updated whenever an Ipo is evaluated. This happens at least on
frame changes.
For interactive feedback, updates while transforming objects were
added in these cases:
- Driven Object Ipos, by other Objects or Pose Bones
- Driven Shape Key Ipos, by other Objects or Pose Bones
You can also insert Drivers on Action Ipos, but these are only evaluated
on frame change now.
Todo
- Drivers can also get a text button, allowing a 1 line Python script
to be executed.
- Make UI for it a bit less hidden... maybe with visualization in 3D?
- Allowing global transform coordinates as Driver too.
Issues
- renaming Bones won't rename drivers
- (file) appending the Ipo won't append the linked driver Objects
User doc: http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Shape_Keys.678.0.html
- The mixed use of "Vertex Key","Key" or "RVK" in Blender was a bit
confusing. Also a 'vertex key' assumes keys per vertex, which actually is
only a single key for the entire shape. The discussions on blender.org
forums all mentioned "Shape" or "Blend Shapes", which I think is an OK
name for a "Vertex Key" in the UI. :)
- Most work was code spaghetti cleanup. Doing shape-keys now nicely goes
via the depgraph and DerivedMesh. That then allows to have different
shapes per object, with the new "Pin" feature.
Objects now define what Shape is shown (ob->shapenr)
- Added a Shape Panel in the Edit buttons with the various options
- Fixed a lot of issues in the IpoWindow, with drawing the channels.
For example, deleting a key-line there caused the entire Relative option to
go wrong, same for moving the lines up/down.
Changing key-line order now reflects in order of channels. The active
Shape is drawn more clear now too.
- Noticed it doesnt work yet for curves/lattice. Need modifier advise!
to that in editmesh as well as for edit{curve,lattice}
- added a G.editModeTitleExtra string that gets displayed in header info
string in editmode. currently used to display "(Key)" when editing a
key (before there was not UI level display of this info).
Aim was to get a total refresh of the animation system. This
is needed because;
- we need to upgrade it with 21st century features
- current code is spaghetti/hack combo, and hides good design
- it should become lag-free with using dependency graphs
A full log, with complete code API/structure/design explanation
will follow, that's a load of work... so here below the list with
hot changes;
- The entire object update system (matrices, geometry) is now
centralized. Calls to where_is_object and makeDispList are
forbidden, instead we tag objects 'changed' and let the
depgraph code sort it out
- Removed all old "Ika" code
- Depgraph is aware of all relationships, including meta balls,
constraints, bevelcurve, and so on.
- Made depgraph aware of relation types and layers, to do smart
flushing of 'changed' events. Nothing gets calculated too often!
- Transform uses depgraph to detect changes
- On frame-advance, depgraph flushes animated changes
Armatures;
Almost all armature related code has been fully built from scratch.
It now reveils the original design much better, with a very clean
implementation, lag free without even calculating each Bone more than
once. Result is quite a speedup yes!
Important to note is;
1) Armature is data containing the 'rest position'
2) Pose is the changes of rest position, and always on object level.
That way more Objects can use same Pose. Also constraints are in Pose
3) Actions only contain the Ipos to change values in Poses.
- Bones draw unrotated now
- Drawing bones speedup enormously (10-20 times)
- Bone selecting in EditMode, selection state is saved for PoseMode,
and vice-versa
- Undo in editmode
- Bone renaming does vertexgroups, constraints, posechannels, actions,
for all users of Armature in entire file
- Added Bone renaming in NKey panel
- Nkey PoseMode shows eulers now
- EditMode and PoseMode now have 'active' bone too (last clicked)
- Parenting in EditMode' CTRL+P, ALT+P, with nice options!
- Pose is added in Outliner now, with showing that constraints are in
the Pose, not Armature
- Disconnected IK solving from constraints. It's a separate phase now,
on top of the full Pose calculations
- Pose itself has a dependency graph too, so evaluation order is lag free.
TODO NOW;
- Rotating in Posemode has incorrect inverse transform (Martin will fix)
- Python Bone/Armature/Pose API disabled... needs full recode too
(wait for my doc!)
- Game engine will need upgrade too
- Depgraph code needs revision, cleanup, can be much faster!
(But, compliments for Jean-Luc, it works like a charm!)
- IK changed, it now doesnt use previous position to advance to next
position anymore. That system looks nice (no flips) but is not well
suited for NLA and background render.
TODO LATER;
We now can do loadsa new nifty features as well; like:
- Kill PoseMode (can be option for armatures itself)
- Make B-Bones (Bezier, Bspline, like for spines)
- Move all silly button level edit to 3d window (like CTRL+I = add
IK)
- Much better & informative drawing
- Fix action/nla editors
- Put all ipos in Actions (object, mesh key, lamp color)
- Add hooks
- Null bones
- Much more advanced constraints...
Bugfixes;
- OGL render (view3d header) had wrong first frame on anim render
- Ipo 'recording' mode had wrong playback speed
- Vertex-key mode now sticks to show 'active key', until frame change
-Ton-
- Dupli-Frames objects didn't render correct with Motion Blur (they moved!)
- VertexKey on Bezier paths didn't animate the 'twist' rotation. This did
work for Nurbs paths.
Plus; removed Nabla slider from Stucci, it doesn't work for that texture.
* Quaternion action ipos accidently got swapped in the Ipo module
* Ipos not editable if not linked to a datablock (was possible in 2.33a)
Also fixed a typo in Object.getMatrix(): localespace -> localspace
And I add:
* channels Key 32 through Key 63 for relative vertex keys
(MVert,MFace,etc) off into DNA_meshdata_types.h, to isolate areas
of source that actually edit mesh *data* vs. areas that just edit
mesh object information.
