Re: questions about the animation editor in V5.01 Part 2

[Alan Jones <skyphyr(at)gmail.com>]

Hi Luc-Eric,

Just to check if I have absorbed what you've written correctly. Does setting it keyable hide it everywhere? or just in the keying panel? for instance I've got parameters I'd like to appear in the PPG, but not to be keyable/in the keying panel.

Cheers,

Alan.

On 12/1/05, Luc-Eric Rousseau <lucer(at)softimage.com> wrote:

There are some advantages to Market Set, yes, and not all our content has been updated yet.

However the Key Panel are not necessarily more complicated, it's more complicated only if you only know XSI and have an heavy investement in market sets.  Keyable parameters in XSI is exactly the way that Maya works, so anyone comming out of school with Maya rigging training gets it.

The TD hides (or shows) the real parameters from the animator, not make a copy in a separate property set.  If you need more 'meta' parameters on an object to key something, you add a custom parameter onto the object, linked with an _expression_ from the actual parameter (wherever it lies, including a geometry parameter or other object), and make it keyable.  Or non-keyable if you only needed it for your implementation.  And you'll hide the parameter which the animation shouldn't ever see or touch.  You can prevent the animator from keying parameters by mistake through srt marking and similar.

The animator selects control objects, and keys all keyable parameters (object or branch), locking the rig in place.  The keyable parmeter selector, combined with expressions and custom parameters is the Interface Builder for the rig, and that interface apears in the Keying Panel ( a.k.a Channel Box).

--

Marking set is a custom parameter set with a hard-coded name (everything will break if you would rename it), with a link to other parameters, it doesn't do anything to protect the other parameters, and you loose some of the grouping UI information and proper title.  The software is often confused as to what to show because the same parameter is in two places. Parameters apear in two places, sometimes alongside parameters that should be hidden.  Keyable Parameters leave parameters where they are and just set a flag on them to show or hide them.

Keyable parameters are not about seeing stuff in the explorer (as mentionned below), it's actually about hiding stuff.   (note : the Scene Explorer DOES have a keyable parameter filter)  The TD works with everything visible, and the animator with everything set to Key Panel Parameter filter.  In the future we can optimize more, and build more tools for the TD-side to design the animator-side of the user interface with less SPDL hacking, scripting, etc, necessary.

--

For the non-TD person, which we'd like to be always in Keyable Parameter filter mode (the default I believe in maya mode), they can just show or hide parameters from the Keying Panel with the GUI.  The non-TD person is also very important to Softimage, the software's gotta be easy to use without training.

The software can provide proper good defaults in the future for various commands so that the user doesn't have to ask  "do I want the Marking set parameters, the marked parameters, the transforms, the animated parameters?"  in multiple menus and views.  The proliferation of filters and menu commands in XSI is symptomatic of trying to do everything excessivly generic and non-commital at the cost of complexity, in some cases innability to optimize (for performance and UI) for real-life senarios.  No doubt some people will disagree with this, but XSI needs to understand that the user is animating, animating what, with that can provide a better user experience for it.

------------------
Luc-Eric Rousseau
Team Leader, User Interface
Softimage|XSI


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM
> [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM]On Behalf
> Of Christian Rittener
> Posted At: Thursday, December 01, 2005 9:42 AM
> Posted To: xsi
> Conversation: questions about the animation editor in V5.01 Part 2
> Subject: RE: questions about the animation editor in V5.01 Part 2
>
>
> In other words, it's like creating Marking Sets, but it's more
> complicated.
> Maybe it's a bit early to bitch, as I don't have XSI 5 yet,
> but I got a
> chance to do a few tests with it (Foundation trial, but I
> guess it makes
> no difference), and IMHO, at this moment, Marking Sets are definitely
> better. Reasons:
>       - They accept any kind of parameter. The keying panel apparently
> doesn't want geometry operators parameters, for example.
>       - Marking Sets appear clearly in the Explorer.
>       - Marking Sets are integrated with the Animation->Actions->Store
> menu.
>       - The Primitive Rigs include all the necessary Marking Sets, but
> are not set up for the Keying Panel.
>       - Marking Sets can be created with a couple of key combinations
> (X/C/V, then ctrl-shift-M). And no, I don't want to create
> more scripts
> and assign more key combinations etc.
>
> I beg to be proven wrong, but for someone who wants to spend his time
> producing content instead of messing with yet another way to
> do things,
> the KP appears to be, for the moment, redundant.
>
> Christian Rittener
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM
> > [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of David Saber
> > Sent: November 30, 2005 21:38
> > To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
> > Subject: Re: questions about the animation editor in V5.01 Part 2
> >
> >
> > Hi Luc Eric, thanks for the explanations. Some comments below.
> >
> > Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:
> >
> > >the K key will key all keyable parameters one the selected
> > object, and ALT+K all the keyable parameters on the branch
> > (the rig).
> > >
> > >
> > But the highest rig parent (GlobalSRT) does not only hold rig
> > objects,
> > it's also the parent of deformer bones for envelopping, and
> sometimes
> > envelopes. So I found a way to follow your instructions:
> > 1: Open KP/L > parameters > keyable parameters editor
> > 2: Select GlobalSRT in branch.
> > 3: MCP > select > select child nodes.
> > 4: Remove every transforms from the right side (local, constraints,
> > visibility), this will apply to all objects under GlobalSRT.
> > At this time, no objects will have keyable parameters, even the rig
> > control objects won't.
> > 5: For each control object in the rig, add the needed SRT items.
> > 6: Go to a frame, select Global SRT then ALT+K. It puts a
> key only on
> > the right SRT of the rig objects, as expected.
> > Does this workflow looks correct?
> >
> > >You'll set your Animation Editor to show Keyable parameter
> > >
> > >
> > Setting the animation editor to display key panel parameters then
> > selecting GlobalSRT in branch works well. It displays all
> > needed curves
> > in this branch. And it's better than putting a marking set in
> > the A.E.,
> > since selecting a curve will highlight its name in the
> > explorer side of
> > the A.E. (that is not working with marking sets).
> >
> > >Basically, Keyable Parameters are the parameters that you
> > work with, look at, and your case I guess export.
> > >
> >
> > Yes, by selecting GlobalSRT in branch then store > animated
> > parameters
> > fcurves, it works well.
> >
> > Thanks again
> > David
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