Animation mixing UI

[Jeff]

Hey guys, I'm working on some new changes to the animation editor. Now you can have multiple animations and mix them together. Still a work in progress, but feedback is welcome. Make sure to resize your window appropriately.

We are targeting WebKit and I used many WebKit-only features, so be sure to use the latest version of Chrome or Safari (or better yet, a WebKit nightly) to test it out!

http://www.wolfire.com/ui/animationeditor2/editor.html

[tekn04]

Very nice. It does take up a lot of space though.

[TheBigCheese]

Can we see a video of this in action? I'm sort of at a loss for exactly what it's supposed to be doing (other than multiple timelines).

[Silverfish]

Seems to work nicely, stuff I noticed:

* I don't want to be able to drag the layers in any other place than the designated dragging area to the left of the name of the layer.
* You can remove all layers unabling you to add any layers at all.
* It seems the add/remove layers buttons are a bit too close together while at the same time looking very much the same, we don't want to remove a layer on accident.

[Jeff]

Can we see a video of this in action? I'm sort of at a loss for exactly what it's supposed to be doing (other than multiple timelines).

Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLvIbizPnTo&hd=1

[Zhukov]

Can we see a video of this in action? I'm sort of at a loss for exactly what it's supposed to be doing (other than multiple timelines).

Ditto sez I

[TheBigCheese]

It seems to me like having a "+" button on every layer is a bit redundant when they all accomplish the same task. Probably better to put a single "add layer" button somewhere else.

[Eagle0600]

Seen the video, but that doesn't tell me what it actually does. How does it "mix" the animations?

[TheBigCheese]

What I'm assuming is that you would be able to combine different animations together. One might be a walking, and one might be a talking animation. Combining them together would produce a walking and talking character.


It occurs to me though, the animation editor is way too simple to be able to handle linking the animations to in-game actions. It'd work for scripted animations, but how would you be able to tie the animation to a combat move? Or tieing it to IK?

Also, it looks like you'll need a separate bone armature for the face in addition to the body. Otherwise, the face would be simulated with ragdoll physics when they are killed, which might be hard to pull off. Though thinking about it now, if we can have jaws that fall open with ragdolls, that would be crazy awesome!

[camino1961]

What I'm assuming is that you would be able to combine different animations together. One might be a walking, and one might be a talking animation. Combining them together would produce a walking and talking character.

Sounds like a easier version of non linear editing. If you can pull-this-off, it will be great because it will save us from creating poses files.

Exciting times, exciting times indeed.
camino1961.com

[Jeff]

Seen the video, but that doesn't tell me what it actually does. How does it "mix" the animations?

This is just the UI, haven't made the other part yet.

[Eagle0600]

Hrm. Then I shall suppress my curiosity and wait.

[motion-mechanic]

Maybe this is coming soon too, but I am eager to learn.

Scince I stumbled across Wolfire games, I have been reading about Webkit, Awesomium, CSS, HTML5 etc...

I am a traditional C++ programmer, not well versed in Javascript, and I wonder how you interface between the JavaScript and your C++ engine?

Looking at the code, there is a line...
var Client = {}
// Animation API, UI -> engine

When the 'Play' button is pressed, then you need to invoke the 'Play' function in your engine somehow. Is the Client.play(); call invoking this function? If so, I have no idea how. Are the bindings in another file?

If there is some reading that I could do to get myself up to speed, please point me in the right direction.

Thanks
Phil

[motion-mechanic]

ok, so I have discovered 'V8', the JScriptEngine that Chromium is built on.

Now I just need to figure out how values get passed back and forth.

Are you guys using V8? Just out of curiosity?

[Jeff]

Yup You figured it out. We use Client.play() or other similar functions to communicate between the two layers.