steve3d Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 First of all, I have to say, the Tracker system is a very good tool to create animation, but after a few days of usage, I have to say, this animation tools is most inconvenient tools I had ever used.(not one of... it is the most) so I want to make some suggestion about this Tracker system: make create snapshot button always available. I really don't understand why tracker needs some modification to enable the snapshot button. for example I want to create a car animation that need car fully stop for a while, then I need to first place time line to another time and move car a little then I can create a snapshot of position. But you know in any dcc tools, like 3dsmax, maya, softimage, houdini, you can create animation key at any time you want, no mater the animated parameter is modified or not. I think this is most inconvenient aspect of tracker T button problem, I think many of us have ever used a animation graph editor in dcc tools, if you selected many animated objects and show it's curve in animation graph editor, it will only show current selected parameter's graph, if you don't want see the graph, just deselect it. then why tracker need to specifically enable or disable the graph by click the T button. If I select a animated parameter, of course I want to see the graph, while those not selected, of course I don't interest of their animation graph. So I think tracker can also work like this, if objects didn't selected, then graph will not shown. instead of clicking T button again again and again. Tracker always controls the animated parameter, I think of course tracker use it's update function at each frame to make sure the animated parameter are set to the timeline's value. But anyone have ever used a dcc tools like 3dsmax/maya/softimage will know this: if a object is animated, of course it still can be set to a new value, like animated position, you can move to a new position at any time without change the time line, if changed the time, the object's position will be set to it's animated position again. I don't know 3dsmax or maya, but softimage have a feature, after move to a new position, use middle mouse to set to time to a new time, then animation will not update, then you can set a new key at that frame. I think with unigine's gui, it can do this. so I suggest tracker editor's update shouldn't update tracker set(time) at each frame, it only call set(time) when time has changed. this combined to suggestion 1, we can more quickly create animation and preview animation by dragging the time. This is much more efficient way to create animation. create a way to collapse the 3 tracker line to one single tracker line, for example I have to animate over 50 objects, each objects have animation of position, rotation. then you can know, after I created one object animation and go to another, or simply slight modification to the whole animation, I have to see each X, Y, Z track line for 300 lines.... wow.. amazing.... but if position's x, y, z can be collapsed to just one position, well that's a clear view of object list. After these days usage, over 60% of time was spend on move a little to create a key, manually set the value, click enable button, click T button... clicking E button, clicking T, clicking T........... repeat and repeat.... Annoying work with current tracker... hope these suggestion can be improved at next sdk version. this is a normal really powerful animation editor's standard feature. right? as you all can found this in almost all dcc tools like 3dsmax/maya/softimage/houdini etc... Link to comment
frustum Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 I'm gonna improve Tracker a bit in the nearest future, so will kill in mind your suggestions. Link to comment
steve.brodie Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 (edited) We were in the process of moving our systems to the tracker, but after we have tried doing some animation using it, have given up as it is not user friendly. I would like to see a video tutorial of someone making a simple camera path, with the camera looking at different things as it moved along in the x,y,z direction. I have added a video of myself trying to create a camera dummy with a rotation track parented to a dummy on a position track. As you can see the camera roll cant be controlled. Edited August 27, 2012 by steve.brodie Link to comment
Guest shane.ploenges Posted August 28, 2012 Share Posted August 28, 2012 I think i have asked this before Steve, but why does your unigine editor look so awesome? are you using a custom UI setup? Link to comment
steve3d Posted August 28, 2012 Author Share Posted August 28, 2012 I think i have asked this before Steve, but why does your unigine editor look so awesome? are you using a custom UI setup? they use a custom ui skin, as described in the manual. Link to comment
manguste Posted August 28, 2012 Share Posted August 28, 2012 We were in the process of moving our systems to the tracker, but after we have tried doing some animation using it, have given up as it is not user friendly. I would like to see a video tutorial of someone making a simple camera path, with the camera looking at different things as it moved along in the x,y,z direction. I have added a video of myself trying to create a camera dummy with a rotation track parented to a dummy on a position track. As you can see the camera roll cant be controlled. Steve, you can use a Follow mode for the dummy for it to move along the spline without any rotation. After that you can tweak position for a player. Another variant that might be of help when the rotation is wrong is changing the order of rotation from XYZ to ZYX. Link to comment
Recommended Posts