Modeler/Layout8 interaction top 10 feature req game

[Ernest]

First Top 10 as of May 10
01) see REALTIME deformations/animation while modifying mesh, weightmaps and bones in restpostion (50GP)
02) Ability to animate pivot points (25GP)
03) Make bones an integral part of Modeler (25GP):
04) Object/Scene communication pause (10GP)
05) skelegons == bone rest position (10GP)
06) setup- mode for bones (with a view in object- space) in Layout (10GP)
07) Basic point/polygon- animation- features in Layout (10GP)
08) Modeler- like cloning- tools etc (10GP)
09) Weightmap- painting in Layout (10GP)
10) UV- editing in Layout (10GP)
Other requests tied at 10GP are not in list due to order of appearance.
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Since we're heading for the final laps of LW8's development, I thought we could make a final list of needed features for the developers to have a clearer idea of what we need during work. It has been discussed ad nauseum wheather modeler and layout should be integrated. That's not the point here. The idea is to present the SPECIFIC ISSUES we find while working on modeler and layout -together- that we'd like to have improved to make our work easier.

This thread is ONLY for modeler-Layout interaction.

Layout & Modeler already have many threads.

The format is a little like a game (or at least the character creation of a game). Everyone gets 50 points. You can list as many improvements as you'd like to have in modeler/layout interaction (up to 50) and assign points from your stock to each requested feature. So if you really want a feature you can assign all your 50 points to it but then you wouldn't have points to assign to anything else.

Daily or weekly, depending on the # of participants, we can have a recount and list the top 10 according to the number of points.

So again the rules: A)please don't use more than 50 points -or the entire post wouldn't be counted for the top 10, B) please don't request Modeler only or Layout only features (only features on the way they interact), C)you may add a description of your requested feaures in italics if you think they're not clear, D)and please don't request integration; that's not a feature, it's a way to achieve features. Let's concentrate on the features we need and let Newtek decide if they want to achieve them through integration or some other way.
I take for granted that there will always be a modeler and a layout, even if they were integrated into one program (ala xsi or mirai, I can't imagine anyone wanting a max-like integration) so the current nomenclature applies. That means that when you say modeler or layout you don't necessarily mean to different programs you could be referring to 2 different tabs, dna strands or whatever... If you see it different you can explain your nomenclature in italics.

[Ernest]

I'll start ;)
Ability to animate pivot points (20GP)
Save pivot point position in endomorphs so when you apply the endomorph in Layout, the new shape has the pivot in the right place.

Object/Scene communication pause (10GP)
When I'm modeling and layout is minimized and it's using 80% of the CPUs you'd wish there was a way to pause the hub and wait until I finish what I'm doing before Layout updates the scene.

skelegons == bone rest position (10GP)
You move/rotate a skelegon in modeler, press F12 and your animation with all the IK and expressions, etc. is updated to reflect the new bone rest position. (Better than skelegon-like editing in Layout because you can't "a" or "shift-a" in Layout)
Likewise press record rest position in Layout and the skelegon is updated in Modeler.

Geometrical snapshot endomorph (9GP)
For animating booleans et all

Unsaved object travel (1GP)
Being able to send an unsaved object to the scene for things like a quick surface test on a sphere or something like that.

[Elmar Moelzer]

A setup- mode for bones (with a view in object- space) in Layout. this wold make Skelgons obsolete. 10 points.
Basic point/polygon- animation- features in Layout (similar to what Xtool offers) 10 points.
Modeler- like cloning- tools etc 10 points.
Weightmap- painting in Layout 10 points.
UV- editing in Layout 10 points

[Adrian Lopez]

Make bones an integral part of Modeler (25 GP): Take bones and bone properties out of scene files and make them actual Modeler objects (but keep bone animation channels within scene files). This separates skeletal structure and bone properties, which logically belong in Modeler, from the bone's animation channels, which logically belong in Layout.

Ability to animate pivot points. (5 GP)

Unsaved object travel. (5 GP)

Unassigned (15 GP): I'm saving the remaining 15 points for later.

[ToonShady]

hmm, no one here really catched my suggestion, so I guess I plunge in one more time, and hope to find some folks that will dig the potential a little deeper. Here goes.


25 points:
Remake layout and modeler as editors within the program LW, so it's like scene editor vs graph editor( or vs a dopesheet). What's the point? Both SE and GE (and dopesheet) present to you animation data in someway, just how they present to the user is different for different purpose. Having both modeler and layout as editors among the rest of the Lw interface, and have both of them accessing to the same .lwo file, then we wouldn't need this hub thingy. In addition, for weightmaps and corrective morphs, modeler will have a per layer connection to layout to dynamically receive layout displacement of the the mesh points. So if you are animating a character leaping a few meters into the sky and does a somersault, and you see some bad weighting issues and in the need for endomorph to do the joint correction stuff, allowing modeler to regonize layout displacement of the mesh would expose and therefore address the weighting and morph correction issue more effectively and will still keeping a distinction of the duties of modeler and layout. With this connection feature, the vertices in modeler are seeing the layout displacement relative to the layer's pivot.

25 points
More spontaneity in the areas of animation and rigging: displacement modifiers should work like history stack manner; respecting the order as you add them to the mesh, and not overwriting each other. Better navigation in layout. A dopesheet that can edit every envelope channel in the scene, be able to organize the tracks sensibly. Make it production oriented, as oppose to just for editing a bunch of nulls animated in the scene. Production friendly constraint/expression system. Current crop of constraints/expressions-system kinda falls flat on one or more of these areas: ease of use, intereactivity, versatility and consistency.

extra 10 points
Don't add new tools that're gonna do the same thing that the old tools are alreadying doing. Unless it's really a good replacement or a valid addition. Like what the heck does simple constraint serve when you got channel follower. Sure, it got a weight channel envelop, but it doesn't equate with IK. I say, just beef up channel follower instead.

[trick]

50 points:

making it possible to modify a character's mesh plus weightmaps and bones at rest position in one window, while in another window the object can be animated and thus deformed. Even better: see REALTIME deformations/animation while modifying mesh, weightmaps and bones in restpostion. And of course being able to paint weights and modify mesh and bones WHILE animating..

Simple really...

[Adrian Lopez]

Originally posted by Adrian Lopez
Make bones an integral part of Modeler (25 GP): Take bones and bone properties out of scene files and make them actual Modeler objects (but keep bone animation channels within scene files). This separates skeletal structure and bone properties, which logically belong in Modeler, from the bone's animation channels, which logically belong in Layout.By the way, the biggest advantage this would offer over skelegons is the ability to update the bone structure within Modeler without having to redo the entire animation (in most cases). You can't do that with Skelegons.

[Ernest]

Toonshady, it seems you didn't understand the game. I apologize. It's my fault. I tried to keep the instructions short and, instead, I made them insufficient.

You can't put 10 different feature requests as though they were one to give them all a lot of points. Why? Because it is NOT the idea of the game to list the features of the "perfect Lightwave". If Newtek had unlimited time and resources before 8, I'm sure they'd implement everything in this list without even our suggesting it. But they already announced it so the clock is ticking and their time is short.
The idea is that, if NT is in the final lap of development for LW8, then they have limited time to implement features. Therefore we list the features that we miss the most while working in LW, even if that means sacrificing all those other cool features that we'd also want. That way, if NT doesn't have time to implement every feature of the perfect lightwave, they'll know which features are more important for us so they'll concentrate their limited time on those.

You can't use extra points for the same reason. The idea is to put ourselves in the same position as the LW programmers. If they have limited time (just a few more months!) we should also have limited points. Every feature NT implements consumes some of their limited time. Therefore every feature we request in this game should consume from a limited number of points. Just like every feature they implement means time sacrificed from other valuable features. It is only fair that our assigning points should also be limited so that, when we assign points to our favorite features, we are also sacrificing points from other features we would also like.
Because of that sacrifice, NT would know that these features really mean so much for us. If we list everything we want and they didn't have time to implement it all, they wouldn't know which features to include and which ones to sacrifice.

That's also why we have to be specific. "make it production oriented" is not specific. "Production friendly constraint/expression system" is almost specific and acceptable. Saying "Production friendly constraint/expression system" and then explaining the specifc issue that would turn the current expressions/constraints into production friendly would be really specific.

[Chris S. (Fez)]

A layout camera in modeler so i can model and deform a model relative to a particular camera angle: 50000000000000003.2 GP.

[Zafar Iqbal]

Originally posted by Chris S. (Fez)
A layout camera in modeler so i can model and deform a model relative to a particular camera angle: 50000000000000003.2 GP.

Stop cheating! ;)