Suggestions/questions about Relativity improvements

[Emmanuel]

Hi,

yesterday night I played a bit with relativity, and I think I am gonna love it.
There is some typical LW-annoyments though:

1.Why can I not pick scene items and have Rel pick them accordingly, or vice versa: why not let me choose the item in the Rel dropdown and automatically have LW select it "in scene"

2.When I clone a chain of bones, why won't the clones ones inherit the motion modifiers I added to the original bone chain ?
I though by using Rel's "Copy to descendants" I could easily copy the Rel settings of the root bone to its children ?

3.When adding limits via Rel to an object, let's say a null that is only allowed to move between 0 and 1 on the y-axis, why can I still move the null beyond the limits ? In Maya, the null would not move beyond or below the limits in the viewport !

[PixelNations]

Hi,
3.When adding limits via Rel to an object, let's say a null that is only allowed to move between 0 and 1 on the y-axis, why can I still move the null beyond the limits ? In Maya, the null would not move beyond or below the limits in the viewport !

I too want to interactively limit somthing with expressions like in Maya. Would make for setting up Osipa style facial controls much easier. I think that until (and I understand that this is probably in the works now for a future release) LW gets more fully nodalized and you can change where and when certain modifiers are called, we're stuck with limits that are non interactive.

I have to question the wisdom of having 3 different syntax structures for expressions in LW. It is confusing enough as it is and needs some major overhaul. As cool as Rel is, I think it should be integrated more tightly into the LW gui and not simply an after-thought plugin. I kinda feel sorry for beginners trying to make heads or tails out of all the ways one can create expressions in LW.

[Phil]

To some extent, the multiple expression system issue is a problem of NT's own making. Relativity existed long before LW had expressions. Rather than do the sensible thing, the then-developer team decided to make their own system, which was more unfriendly than a sack of snakes. I have never used it directly, always preferring Relativity.

Integration now would mean dropping the old system and breaking all those old scenes. That's got to be a major hurdle.

Depending on SDK limitations, it also may not be possible for the Relativity plugin to know about the location of the object you just moved until you move the timeline. Turning on full scene evaluation and the relativity interactive mode may help, but I cannot check at the moment.

[UnCommonGrafx]

That's it! The interactive mode. Rel has alway been interactive for me and this pondering was perplexing.

Yeah, lots of remaking the wheel at that time.