* Cleaned up Keyframing API to get eliminate some of the problems faced during the original implementation of PoseLib, thus reducing code redundancy.
* Added new Animato evaluation functions specifically for use by PoseLib.
* Replaced parts of PoseLib code which relied on old animation system to the equivalent code for Animato. Notice the much cleaner + saner + compact code!
Next step is to operatorfy the PoseLib tools (while maintaining possibility for an API to some things) :)
Drivers can now be Added/Removed from buttons using the D/Alt-D hotkeys, and also through the menu. Driver settings (i.e. the target) are not set by default. To set those, go to the Graph Editor (see notes).
Notes:
* Buildsystem maintainers - I've added a new file "editors/animation/drivers.c"
* Widget colours for the driven-setting indications are needed
* To see the new drivers, go into Graph Editor -> "Drivers" mode. Currently, there's a little bug there which prevents editing of the new drivers.
- I key over a button inserts a keyframe.
- Alt+I removes a keyframe.
- With right mouse button a menu with these options pops up.
- Buttons are colored green if the property is animated, yellow
if it is on a keyframe. I followed the colors from the UI
mockups, but the flicker on keyframes seems too distracting in
practice?
- This only works for properties on the ID itself at the moment,
path callbacks need to be filled in for all structs but mesh
still.
- It doesn't work when you're over a related label, that needs to
be made to work.
- I made it insert keyframes outside of any keyingset. Not sure
how this is supposed to integrate?
When inserting keyframes in the 3D-View (support will be extended to other editors in due course) using the IKEY hotkey, the menu which appears will now consist of 3 parts:
* 'Active Keying Set' - this option allows you to use the user-defined KeyingSet which is active for the current scene (i.e. the one seen in the TimeLine/Outliner headers)
* User defined Keying Sets - a list of all such available KeyingSets is included, and entries can be chosen from there
* Built-In Keying Sets - see later...
To achieve this, several changes needed to be made first:
* Added support for 'relative' in addition to 'absolute' Keying Sets. Relative Keying Sets are Keying Sets which operate on data from the current context (i.e. a 'location' KeyingSet will add location keyframes for selected objects/bones/nodes as opposed to location keyframes for some particular object). The is a tentative 'templates' requirement system here, which still needs to be fully fleshed out.
* Added support for builtin Keying Sets (i.e. 'Location', 'Rotation', 'Scaling', and 'LocRot' as a few initial demonstrations), which replaces the temporary Insert Keyframe operator for the 3D-View (IKEY). These are effectively relative Keying Set definitions which are included in Blender by default and stored in a list separate from user-defined ones. Volunteer help in defining a few more of these for other editors will be welcome soon.
* Removed/replaced much of the crappy temporary Keyframing operator code, though a few tweaks could still be done.
These operators - ANIM_OT_keyingset_add_new() and ANIM_OT_keyingset_add_destination() - are designed for use from PyAPI or through some other means, and as such, have not been assigned any hotkeys.
They should only be used when all the relevant settings can be supplied to them, which in ideal circumstances would be through some script used by a rigger to define all the necessary Keying Sets for their rig for example.
Whether we will be building many of the utilities for the PyAPI like this remains to be seen.
Note: the second one doesn't work yet, as there are problems with accessing certain operator props.
* Insert/Delete keyframe buttons in the TimeLine work again. These now use two new operators which only insert keyframes for the active Keying Set.
* Renamed the old insert/delete keyframe operators. These now have the "*_old" postfix on their names. What happens with these temp operators is yet to be seen.
* Added insert/delete keyframe buttons beside the operator buttons for Keying Sets in the Outliner->Datablocks view
* The settings of KeyingSets can now be viewed/modified through RNA.
* Shuffled RNA wrapping for AnimData over to its own file
* Moved insert-key flags to DNA_anim_types.h, as they're now used for KeyingSets.
When fully implemented, these will be the clearest demonstration of 'Everything is Animateable', as they will allow users to define an arbitary group of settings through selecting items in the Datablocks (RNA-Viewer) View of the Outliner to define custom 'sets'. Such Keying Sets are known as the 'absolute' ones, which are created for a custom purpose.
Of course, 'builtin' Keying Sets will still be provided. Such built-in ones will not work on any particular paths, but will use context info to maintain the legacy method of inserting keyframes (via IKEY menu).
Currently, KeyingSets cannot be created/edited through the UI, though the backend code is in place to do this.
When inserting keyframes on previous un-animated Objects/bones, F-Curves will be added into Action Groups into either "Object Transform" or <PoseChannel Name>. Ob->Material settings are not grouped for now to illustrate what's possible.
Old files are currently not patched to use do this, as it's still not clear whether this will be ideal.
Finally, here is the basic (functional) prototype of the new animation system which will allow for the infamous "everything is animatable", and which also addresses several of the more serious shortcomings of the old system. Unfortunately, this will break old animation files (especially right now, as I haven't written the version patching code yet), however, this is for the future.
Highlights of the new system:
* Scrapped IPO-Curves/IPO/(Action+Constraint-Channels)/Action system, and replaced it with F-Curve/Action.
- F-Curves (animators from other packages will feel at home with this name) replace IPO-Curves.
- The 'new' Actions, act as the containers for F-Curves, so that they can be reused. They are therefore more akin to the old 'IPO' blocks, except they do not have the blocktype restriction, so you can store materials/texture/geometry F-Curves in the same Action as Object transforms, etc.
* F-Curves use RNA-paths for Data Access, hence allowing "every" (where sensible/editable that is) user-accessible setting from RNA to be animated.
* Drivers are no longer mixed with Animation Data, so rigs will not be that easily broken and several dependency problems can be eliminated. (NOTE: drivers haven't been hooked up yet, but the code is in place)
* F-Curve modifier system allows useful 'large-scale' manipulation of F-Curve values, including (I've only included implemented ones here): envelope deform (similar to lattices to allow broad-scale reshaping of curves), curve generator (polynomial or py-expression), cycles (replacing the old cyclic extrapolation modes, giving more control over this). (NOTE: currently this cannot be tested, as there's not access to them, but the code is all in place)
* NLA system with 'tracks' (i.e. layers), and multiple strips per track. (NOTE: NLA system is not yet functional, as it's only partially coded still)
There are more nice things that I will be preparing some nice docs for soon, but for now, check for more details:
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-taskforce25/2009-January/000260.html
So, what currently works:
* I've implemented two basic operators for the 3D-view only to Insert and Delete Keyframes. These are tempolary ones only that will be replaced in due course with 'proper' code.
* Object Loc/Rot/Scale can be keyframed. Also, the colour of the 'active' material (Note: this should really be for nth material instead, but that doesn't work yet in RNA) can also be keyframed into the same datablock.
* Standard animation refresh (i.e. animation resulting from NLA and Action evaluation) is now done completely separate from drivers before anything else is done after a frame change. Drivers are handled after this in a separate pass, as dictated by depsgraph flags, etc.
Notes:
* Drivers haven't been hooked up yet
* Only objects and data directly linked to objects can be animated.
* Depsgraph will need further tweaks. Currently, I've only made sure that it will update some things in the most basic cases (i.e. frame change).
* Animation Editors are currently broken (in terms of editing stuff). This will be my next target (priority to get Dopesheet working first, then F-Curve editor - i.e. old IPO Editor)
* I've had to put in large chunks of XXX sandboxing for old animation system code all around the place. This will be cleaned up in due course, as some places need special review.
In particular, the particles and sequencer code have far too many manual calls to calculate + flush animation info, which is really bad (this is a 'please explain yourselves' call to Physics coders!).
* Brought back clean (OKEY), sample (Shift-OKEY), and delete (XKEY/DELKEY) tools for the Action Editor.
Currently clean uses a predefined threshold (as a rna-prop, though it's still lacking the popup to set this when it is called)
* Added new file for 'destructive' keyframe operations/tools.
* Got keyframing.c compiling. Now, some of these tools need to be operatorised. Also, the API there might change when enough of the system is stable for RNA-IPO work to take place (so that it can be tested).
Brought back the Filtering API for Animation Editors. This is the 'backbone' of the current Action/Dopesheet Editor code, so it is essential to have this working.
* Added new 'Animation' submodule under Editors. This will be used to house all code + features that are used by many different Animation Editors (Action/Dopesheet and IPO) as well as other parts of Blender.
* Added back some of the core code need by the Action/Dopesheet editor, which will also be used by IPO Editor.
* Brought back file for keyframing management code (i.e. keyframing.c), but there's still quite a lot of missing stuff that I'll need to restore, so in the meantime, it's #if 0'd out.
* Moved markers code to this new module (I'm not sure whether SVN will recognise this change, as TortoiseSVN doesn't seem to have any obvious copy/move commands)
