In order to be able to better identify NLA Strips (and to reduce the complexity of the text on them), I've implemented a name property for the strips. The names are made to be unique within the AnimData block the strip comes from, though this may not always happen if not enough relevant context info is present to validate this.
* These settings can now be edited + keyframed (using IKEY over the button only for now... other cases will fail)
* Reshuffled some of the keyframing code to make this sort of thing easier to do. Also, restored corrections for NLA-mapping when inserting/removing keyframes.
TODOS:
* animation editors don't show these keyframes yet
* the buttons don't change colour yet to reflect this state. How to do this efficiently?
* allow keyframing of these in more places
* more robust UI handling for this.
Previously, the quick-hack I coded for Meta-strips evaluation didn't really take into account the possibilities to use Meta-Strips as strips in their own right - i.e. reversed, muted, time-mapping-curves, influence-blending - were all unavailable.
This commit makes the aforementioned capabilities of other strips available for Meta-Strips too. The evaluation is now kind-of recursive (as with most of the other methods which take them into account) so that each 'level' of strips get evaluated correctly within their frame-of-reference.
TODO:
* F-Modifier support for Metas...
Strip-sorting code was buggy, as it was trying to access an invalid pointer, so the call to sort strips after transform was temporarily disabled in previous commits.
* Chains of selected strips are now converted to meta-strips before transforms begin, and converted back afterwards. This simplifies the transform code needed in later stages...
* Transform-flushing code for Meta-Strips should now work. There seems to be a little bit of numeric inaccuracy problems somewhere, as two strips which met at the same frame can get separated when scaling.
* Meta-strips now draw with proper text identification
* Snapping strips now properly clears meta-strips if a moved strip needs to be moved into a new track to be accomodated.
* Fixed a filter used by a selection-operator.
* Split strip (YKEY) now plays nicely with Transitions and Metas. Meta strips get split up into their child strips, while transitions are ignored.
* Wrapped Meta_Strip->strips in RNA
* Bugfixes in Meta-strip API functions to silence some runtime-errors...
* Added several API functions for Meta-Strips editing. One of these (flush transform) still needs a few tweaks before it does its job well enough for all cases.
* Meta strips are now drawn with a purple-ish colour. The start/end points of the strips they encompass are shown with lines along the length of the strips, with lines starting from the top indicating start-points and lines starting from the bottom indicating end-points.
* Meta strips can be made (i.e. strips can be assigned to meta-strips) by selecting some strips and pressing Shift-G.
Meta strips can be removed by selecting some meta-strips and pressing Alt-G.
* Strips can now be 'snapped' to start from: the current frame, the nearest frame, the nearest second, or the nearest marker; using the Shift-S hotkey.
'Islands' of adjacent selected strips occurring in the same track are moved together as a single strip so that the start-point of the first strip is on the sepcified time, but all the relative lengths of strips stay the same. Internally, temporary meta-strips are created to facilitate this.
Refactored the backend code/API's to support 'meta' strips (i.e. strips containing other strips). These have been implemented to be nested to 'unlimited' depths (in terms of common usages that is, though there is a very remote chance of stack-overflow in theoretrical evil cases only that shouldn't ever be encountered in production).
This paves the way for implementing the necessary tweaks needed for the transform code (in addition to some cool user-level tricks)
The 'pin' icon beside the name of the active Action when tweaking some strip's action can be used to toggle between editing the Action's keyframes in 'mapped' time or in 'un-mapped' time.
* Made NLA Editing functions more aware of transitions.
- A transition can only be added between a pair of action-clips. Previous, two transitions could be added next to each other, which has undefined behaviour
- Deleting a strip with transition(s) on either side will remove the transitions too. Feedback welcome on this
- The 'type' setting for NLA-Strips is no longer editable. This was dangerous as it could result in transitions with undefined behaviour (though nothing would happen).
* Menus for adding F-Modifiers now only show relevant modifiers (i.e. 'Invalid' is not included in the list, and 'Cycles' doesn't need to be shown for NLA since we've got repeat)
* Function Generator and Noise F-Modifiers now have complete GUI's. A few settings were missed during the porting process.
* F-Modifier buttons now have their source-ID's included in the RNA Pointers used. This didn't get them animateable directly, but is a step closer.
* F-Modifier API is now in its own file in blenkernel
* Renamed and refactored these so that they're no dependent on F-Curves, since all they really used was the fcu->modifiers list
* Added missing license blocks to a few files
While trying to fix the mapping conversions for repeat, I came across some limitations with the current (soon to be previous) mapping methods.
Now the mapping conversions should work nicely for all places that use them.
* Strip evaluation now takes into account repeats
* Increasing the number of repeats lengthens the strip, while decreasing the number of repeats does the opposite.
TODO:
- inverse correction doesn't take into account repeats != 1, so tweaking strips with repeats is currently not recommended!
* Transition tracks are now drawn in a different colour (bluish)
* Action line now shows keyframe indicators for the action it is representing. These are drawn as small empty diamonds to show that they're not directly editable (and never ever will be) via the NLA Editor.
* Action line is also drawn with borders to help differentiate it from the other tracks.
* As an experiment, removed the 'TweakMode' buttons from the header. I had originally added this as a way of indicating that this functionality was there (and to allow for keeping track of it), though it seems to have caused far too much confusion and frustration about 'modality' instead.
In TweakMode, the keyframes of the Active Action are now shown (and can be edited) in NLA-mapped time, with appropriate corrections applied when editing. This works in the DopeSheet and Graph Editors :)
To do this, got rid of the old wrappers/API-methods, replacing them with new-style ones. A few methods previously (in this branch) used only for evaluation are now used for this purpose too. As the same code is used for editing + evaluation, this should now be much better to work with.
I've only done a few brief tests now, but I think I might've muddled the invert-flags on one or two cases which I'll need to check out tomorrow. So, beware that there may be some weird and critical bugs for the next few days here...
Also, added proper license headers to new NLA files.
TODO:
- testing + bugfixing due to this commit
- show range of keyframes in NLA Editor active-action line
* Strips using the same action as the 'tweaking action' now get the error flag cleared after tweakmode is exited. (These strips draw with red shading)
* The direction in which strips get played (as a result of the 'reversed' option) now gets indicated on strips by the direction of the arrow text printed on each strip
* The active strip flag is now cleared after duplicating/splitting strips.
== Transitions ==
Transition strips are now able to be created + evaluated. Transitions allow for interpolation between the endpoints of two adjacent strips in the same track (i.e. two strips which occur in the same track one after the other, but with a gap between them).
- The current behaviour when only one endpoint affects some setting is non-optimal, since it appears somewhat inconsistently extend/replace values...
- Transform code needs a few fixes still to deal with these
== Strip Adding Operators ==
* New strips referencing Actions can be added using the Shift-A hotkey while in the strips-area. You must have a track selected first though.
The new strip will get added, starting from the current frame, in the selected track(s) only if there is enough space to do so. Otherwise, the new strip gets added at the top of the stack in a new track.
* New transition strips can be added with the Shift-T hotkey while in the strips area. You must have two adjacent strips selected for this to work.
== New Backend Methods ==
* Recoded the strip/track adding API to be more flexible
* Added a new method for testing whether F-Curve has any modifiers of with certain attributes. Will be used in a later bugfix...
== Bugfixes ==
- Fixed bug with strip-blending which caused the blending modes to be useless.
- NLA buttons now use proper poll callbacks instead of defining checks
- Commented out missing operator in menus, silencing warnings in console
- Removed obsolete/incorrect comments
New tracks can be added in the following ways (with the mouse hovering over the channels-list):
* Shift-A - this will add a new track at the top of the stack (i.e. above all the existing NLA-tracks but below the Active Action) for every AnimData block where there was a selected NLA-Track
* Ctrl-Shift-A - this will add a new track above every selected one
* Fixed an evil bug where the last frame of a strip was always incorrectly evaluated.
This was because these frames were not being included in the strip's 'range' as defined by the IN_RANGE() testing macro, which only considers the given range as an open interval (i.e. non-inclusive of boundary points). I've added a new macro, IN_RANGE_INCL(), which is inclusive of boundary points, since this is a common test in many other parts of the code.
* When an AnimData block is in 'tweaking' mode, the tracks following (and including the active track) are now correctly skipped during evaluation.
* Finished coding the option of setting a single NLA-track per NLA-block to play 'solo' (i.e. only that track is enabled for evaluation).
To enable this, simply click on one of the grey 'dots' beside the NLA-track names, turning this dot yellow. The 'yellow' dot means that the track will play by itself (even the 'active action' gets silenced). Only one track per AnimData block can play solo at a time. To disable, simply click on the 'yellow' dot again.
NOTE: this currently uses the View3D layer-status icons. We probably need some special ones for these later (coloured vs grey star?)
* Also (not related to evaluation) made the selection operators for the NLA Editor only work when not in tweaking mode, since in tweaking mode they can potentially result in data being resolved inappropriately when leaving tweaking mode.
In this commit, I've introduced the mechanism by which actions already referenced by strips used in the NLA can be edited (or 'tweaked'). To use, simply select a strip you wish to edit, and hit that TAB key to start tweaking that strip's action, and hit TAB again once you're done.
What happens when you enter 'tweak mode':
1) The action of the active strip temporarily becomes the 'active action' of the AnimData block. You are now able to edit this in one of the Animation Editors (DopeSheet/Action, Graph Editors) as per normal (i.e. sliding keyframes around, inserting keyframes, etc.). The 'action-line' will therefore get drawn immediately above the active track containing the active strip, so that it's clear that that's what we're editing.
2) All the NLA-tracks (and all the strips within them) that occur after the track that the active strip lived in get disabled while you're in tweakmode. This is equivalent to travelling back to an earlier state in a construction history stack.
3) The active NLA track also gets disabled while in tweakmode, since it would otherwise interfere with the correct functioning of the tweaking for the action of interest.
4) The 'real' active action (i.e. the one displaced by the active strip's action) gets put into temp storage, and will be restored after you exit tweakmode.
5) Any strips which also reference the action being tweaked will get highlighted in red shading to indicate that you may be making some changes to the action which you don't really want to make for the other users too.
Please note though, that this is only a rough prototype of this functionality, with some niceties still to come. i.e.:
* NLA-tracks after the active track should still get drawn above the 'tweaking action line', but perhaps with different appearance?
* Various tools will still need awareness of this to prevent corrupting operations from taking place. How to proceed is still undecided...
* When exiting tweak-mode, the strip the action came from still needs some form of syncing with the modified action... there are a few tricky issues here that will need to be solved
* Evaluation code doesn't totally take this into account yet...
---
Also, fixed a number of bugs with various code (notably selection, and also a few drawing bugs)
* Following user feedback, I've increased the separation between normal NLA-tracks and the 'action lines' to try and differentiate them more. This hopefully this will be sufficient, otherwise, I'm going to have to abandon the use of nice, generic channel-identification code for lists of channels...
* Improved drawing of 'active' strips.
- Now, the active strip (when NOT being 'tweaked') will be simply drawn as a yellow strip + a white border.
- The active strip (when BEING 'tweaked') will now be greenish + a white border. The colour here may be tweakable, but we'll see...
* Strip extrapolation modes (hold, etc.) are now visualised as rects with alpha and the same colour as the strip they belong to.
* Selecting strips now makes them 'active' (and deactivates the others). Only one strip can be active at a time. Still need to figure out precisely how this will work with multiple AnimData blocks + NLA-'tweaking'.
* Fixed view-matrix bug introduced in last commit for text drawing. For now, we'll just reset the view matrix after doing that, since it's not too acceptable to move these calls to the end yet, as they should get overlapped by some other editor features (such as the Current Frame indicator)
* Added click-select/left-right select and deselect all/invert all selection operators. For now, these basic operators will suffice (more advanced selection operators will be coded at a later stage).
* Fixed a few bugs in DopeSheet found while coding the relevant tools for NLA.
* Added custom border-select operator for NLA channels (since the standard one assumes negative direction channel order)
* Added new API-method for NLA strips to check if the strip occurs within a given range, since this test needed to be performed in a few places...
* Tweaked the NLA Editor View2D ranges a bit to give saner default sizing. This still isn't right yet though.
* Trying to save no longer crashes in some cases when the NLA Editor was open with some data. The sanity check added in filesel.c might be able to be backported to 2.5? (Elubie, please check)
* NLA-track names now get drawn with the correct colours for identifying themselves as being selected or not selected.
* Now the 'push down' functionality for actions will try to add the new strip to the last NLA track, provided it has space in the range required.
* When new strips are added, they will only be allowed to extrapolate before/after if they are the first (time-wise) strip for the set of NLA data per AnimData block. This stops layered strips overriding strips that occurred in earlier tracks at earlier times.
* Fixed some bugs which meant that NLA-strips weren't getting drawn
* Removed some debugging code
* Fixed bug with Action-line disappearing after 'pushing down' actions
* Fixed bug where Objects with no animation data showed up in NLA
* Tried fixing a bug where NLA-strips were evaluated erratically. I have a feeling that there are some rounding errors I'll need to pay more attention to somewhere :/
In this commit:
* Added code for freeing NLA data now stored in AnimData
* Started writing some utilities for adding NLA data, especially the 'push-down' concept for Actions
* Cleanups of existing code - removal of obsolete NLA code from various places
Next commits/parts:
* File IO code for new-style NLA data
* Version patching for old data to new data
- first work on getting area/screen handling back
- added structure for where to put stuff, is still under
review, wait a bit for docs?
Campbell is working on removing every bad level include from
sources, so we can safely rebuild the src/ directory.
When adding a new Action Strip to an Object which didn't have any Action Strips previously, NLA-override mode is turned on by default for that object (the Action/NLA-icon beside the expand/collapse triangle).
- FORWARD CYCLING & MATCHING
Up to no now, adding multiple actions in NLA with walkcycles required to
animate them standing still, as if walking on a conveyor belt. The stride
option then makes the object itself move forward, trying to keep the foot
stuck on the floor (with poor results!).
This option now allows to make walk cycles moving forward. By
indicating a reference Offset Bone, the NLA system will use that bone to
detect the correct offset for the Armature Pose to make it seamlessly going
forward.
Best of all, this option works as for cyclic Action Strips as well as for
individual Action Strips. Note that for individual strips, you have to set
the strip on "Hold". (Might become automatic detected later).
Here's an example edit image for NLA:
http://www.blender.org/bf/nla_match-cycle.jpg
And the animation for it:
http://download.blender.org/demo/test/2.43/0001_0150_match.avi
Blender file:
http://download.blender.org/demo/test/2.43/mancandy_matching.blend
Using this kind of cycling works pretty straightforward, and is a lot
easier to setup than Stride Bones.
To be further tested:
- Blending cycles
- matching rotation for the bones as well.
- ACTION MODIFIERS (motion deformors)
The above option was actually required for this feature. Typically walk
cycles are constructed with certain Bones to be the handles, controlling
for example the torso or feet.
An Action Modifier allows you to use a Curve Path to deform the motion of
these controlling bones. This uses the existing Curve Deformation option.
Modifiers can be added per Action Strip, each controlling a channel (bone)
by choice, and even allows to layer multiple modifiers on top of each other
(several paths deforming motion). This option is using the dependency graph,
so editing the Curve will give realtime changes in the Armature.
The previous walkcycle, controlled by two curves:
http://download.blender.org/demo/test/2.43/0001_0150_deform.avi
Blender file:
http://download.blender.org/demo/test/2.43/mancandy_actiondeform.blend
Action Modifiers can be added in the NLA Properties Panel. Per Modifier you
have to indicate the channel and a Curve Object. You can copy modifiers from
one strip to another using CTRL+C (only copies to active Object strips).
Setting up a correct Curve Path has to be carefully done:
- Use SHIFT+A "Curve Path" in top view, or ensure the path is not rotated.
- make sure the center point of the Curve Object is at the center of the
Armature (or above)
- move the first point of the curve to the center point as well.
- check if the path starts from this first point, you can change it using
(in Curve EditMode) the option Wkey -> "Switch Direction"
- Make sure alignment uses the correct axis; if the Armature walks into
the negative Y direction, you have to set in Object Buttons, "Anim settings"
Panel, the correct Track option. (Note; option will probably move to the
Modifier later).
This is a good reason to make such paths automatic (on a command). Is on the
todo list.
Also note this:
- the Curve Path extends in beginning and ending, that's (for now) the default,
and allows to use multiple paths. Make sure paths begin and end horizontal.
- Moving the Curve in Object Mode will change the "mapping" (as if the landscape
a character walks over moves). Moving the Curve in Edit Mode will change the
actual position of the deformation.
- Speed (Ipos) on paths is not supported yet, will be done.
- The Curve "Stretch" deform option doesn't work.
- Modifiers are executed *after* all actions in NLA are evaluated, there's no
support yet for blending multiple strips with Modifiers.
- This doesn't work yet for time-mapping...
This commit is mostly for review by character animators... some details or
working methods might change.
This feature can also be used for other modifiers, such as noise (Perlin) or
the mythical "Oomph" (frequency control) and of course Python.
Special thanks to Bassam & Matt for research & design help. Have fun!
-> Any Group Duplicate now can get local timing and local NLA override. This
enables to control the entire animation system of the Group.
Two methods for this have been implemented.
1) The quick way: just give the duplicator a "Startframe" offset.
2) Advanced: in the NLA Editor you can add ActionStrips to the duplicator
to override NLA/action of any Grouped Object.
For "Group NLA" to work, an ActionStrip needs to know which Object in a
group it controls. On adding a strip, the code checks if an Action was
already used by an Object in the Group, and assigns it automatic to that
Object.
You can also set this in the Nkey "Properties" panel for the strip.
Change in NLA: the SHIFT+A "Add strip" command now always adds strips to
the active Object. (It used to check where mouse was). This allows to add
NLA strips to Objects that didn't have actions/nla yet.
Important note: In Blender, duplicates are fully procedural and generated
on the fly for each redraw. This means that redraw speed equals to stepping
through frames, when using animated Duplicated Groups.
-> Recoded entire duplicator system
The old method was antique and clumsy, using globals and full temporal
copies of Object. The new system is nicer in control, faster, and since it
doesn't use temporal object copies anymore, it works better with Derived
Mesh and DisplayList and rendering.
By centralizing the code for duplicating, more options can be easier added.
Features to note:
- Duplicates now draw selected/unselected based on its Duplicator setting.
- Same goes for the drawtype (wire, solid, selection outline, etc)
- Duplicated Groups can be normally selected too
Bonus goodie: SHIFT+A (Toolbox) now has entry "Add group" too, with a
listing of all groups, allowing to add Group instances immediate.
-> Library System
- SHIFT+F4 data browse now shows the entire path for linked data
- Outliner draws Library Icons to denote linked data
- Outliner operation added: "Make Local" for library data.
- Outliner now also draws Groups in regular view, allowing to unlink too.
-> Fixes
- depsgraph missed signal update for bone-parented Objects
- on reading file, the entire database was tagged to "recalc" fully,
causing unnecessary slowdown on reading.
Might have missed stuff... :)
