i think you exactly nailed it Mike. the basic ideas and
functionalities of the mixer are looking very promising, but when
tried out in action too many obstacles and workflow breakes appear, so
that it doesnt make sense to use it in first hand. for standard
character animation i might add.
there is one way to set this action key (never tried it) but i thought
while reading about it in the manuals, that it kinda lets you keyframe
on top of the clip. thats, if it works like i think, is indeed a big
step in the right direction, because i didnt saw that in the max
mixer. there its even more restricted. mixer or not is there the
question. when you use it, there is no way to have any other animation
somewhere else.
with shape animation xsi already works a bit like this, right? you
automatically get shape tracks generated and the keys get placed there
and then you basically animate them in the mixer all the time.
with normal fcurve animation its a bit more tricky, because you need
to tell it what actually belongs in one clip and what in another. but
thats nothing else than a marking set!
so i think you got some great ideas here, though the traditional
keyframing cant be thrown out. its like selling cars with joysticks
instead of steering wheels... it might be more modern, but because
nobody knows it the usability is quite low ;)
ciao
franky
Thursday, January 26, 2006, 8:57:36 PM, you wrote:
>>When setting a keyframe on an object, XSI would automatically start
gl> creating a clip on a track in the timeline.
gl> It looks like Animation Mixer 2.0 :-). I hope Softimage will update it one
gl> day ! There is a mixer in all other big 3d applications now but none gives a
gl> good workflow (and the xsi one is just the best at the moment I think :-p ).
gl> My 1/2 clip
gl> Cheers
gl> Guillaume Laforge
gl> 2006/1/26, Mike Werckle <stumbly(at)gmail.com>:
>>
>> There was a thread recently about using the mixer for animation, and it
>> got me thinking of a question I've had about XSI for some time.
>>
>> Why is there a distinction between animation existing "out in the world"
>> (or on the timeline I guess), and animation existing "in a clip?" For that
>> matter, why does "out in the world" even exist, other than it's just the way
>> that people are used to working?
>>
>> Why can't animation exist both on the timeline and in a clip?
>>
>> In my work as a character animator, I have fallen in love with some of the
>> functionality of the mixer, but the work flow seems a little stodgy. You
>> have to animate, then save a clip and remove the animation from the
>> character, then re-apply the animation, so on and so forth.
>>
>> It seems to me it would solve some workflow problems if there was no such
>> thing as "out in the world," only clips on tracks. When setting a keyframe
>> on an object, XSI would automatically start creating a clip on a track in
>> the timeline. You could then duplicate and trim and mix the clip, isolate
>> loops, whatever, then open the clip and edit the keyframes with the same
>> ease you have as when they are in the world. (You can open the clip and
>> edit individual keyframes in the current setup, but the curves are all
>> lumped together and not neatly arranged on nodes anymore.)
>>
>> I realize that "in the world" probably isn't going to go away, but what do
>> people think about the idea of being able to animate directly into a clip,
>> and see immidiatley how it's going to "mix" in? What would some of the
>> issues/problems be with that way of doing things?
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
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