Hi all,

Firstly, thanks for everyone that took part in the discussion and voting, the response has been fantastic.

Without further ado, the winners:

Widgets:

Job Reordering (Renderama)
Lets users reorder the list of jobs by dragging them to a new location in the list.

File Names (Renderama)
Displays the name of the rendered file next to the job name.

Center with C-click improvement (Animator)
The “C Click” to center command could be improved by zooming to fill the widow with the selected object through the use of an Option-C.

Remove From Set (Animator)
As an addition to “add to selection set” - “remove from selection set”.

Green Triangle to “off” by default (Animator)
Default of all channels should be to “off” - not only for the object, but also for the animation channels. Added as a preference or toggle.

Direct Shader Opening (Animator)
A keyboard/mouse click combo option when clicking on a shader in a texture list to go straight to the shader interface

Normal Mapping (Camera)
Allow normal mapping via Camera Mapping.

Remote Folders (Camera)
Makes Camera (on remote rendering) Subfolder aware, so that one can use folders of shaders and sockets inside of the EI sockets and EI shaders folders.

Re-import on export (Animator)
A ‘re-import on export’ Fact check box. Useful for Encage, Dicer, Antiqua, Bebel etc., etc.

Improved aspect lock for textures (Animator)
Utilise “Aspect Lock” popup menu (Texture Dialogue) for auto-scale purposes as well - it would work in a similar way to Auto YZ in the Group info window.

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Brown Features:

Strength map tool
Ability to load, save and re-apply wmap, combine wmaps together

Strength map blur/contrast tool
Self explanatory, effectively clicking blur ‘n’ times would give you a smooth gradient.

Strength map mirror tool
Self explanatory.

Strength map unfold tool
Save the Wmap as a grayscale img, UV coordinates required.

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I will keep you up to date as these features are programmed, letting you know the status of each feature as we go along.

Thanks again to all who took part,
Ian

Hi everyone,

I’ll explain a little more about the Strength Map tools here:

These features are really too big to be in the User Pack, so, why are they here? Simply because, 4 years ago a Plug-in was written called “Weight Mapper”; this was done at the request of Tomas, Gustavo and Malcolm. After initial programming, this plug-in was never released — editing strength maps in a plug-in was, shall we say, a less then ideal workflow. However, this code still exists, and will be integrated into the Strength Map windows in Animator. It is for this reason that we are able to bring these features to you via the User Pack.

All the best,
Ian

Great news, Ian.
Thank you.
JimM

Ian,
Thanks for all the hard work, and helping show democracy in action.  It’s a very exciting time for EIAS.  Now if only the Democratic convention, here in Denver, will go as smoothly.  A lot of helicopters seem necessary for this kind of democracy

Keep up the good work,
Yon

Ian - 25 August 2008 03:51 AM

Hi everyone,

I’ll explain a little more about the Strength Map tools here:

These features are really too big to be in the User Pack, so, why are they here? Simply because, 4 years ago a Plug-in was written called “Weight Mapper”; this was done at the request of Tomas, Gustavo and Malcolm. After initial programming, this plug-in was never released — editing strength maps in a plug-in was, shall we say, a less then ideal workflow. However, this code still exists, and will be integrated into the Strength Map windows in Animator. It is for this reason that we are able to bring these features to you via the User Pack.

All the best,
Ian

I had only heard brief snippets about Weight Mapper just a few weeks ago on the Platter. I never even knew it existed. No wonder folks are touchy about this subject. 4 years is a long time.  Is there any documentation on this plug-in? It would be a good place to start reviewing if its going to be the foundation of the code going into Animator.

There is no documentation yet. The plug-in was developed independently of EITG.

Best,
Ian

Ok.. cool. Thanks for the info. At least a foundation exists.

Ooookay

I admit to being totally perplexed.

I used WeightMapper a *lot*

I tried to fix every ultimately hopeless skin job with it, especially THE GIANT, my final EI character rig.

It’s a great little tool for blurring, contrasting, and manipulating weight maps.

But it doesn’t FIX anything.  All it does is make it easier to manipulate weight maps, which still can’t work, because bone-fall off doesn’t work at a basic level.

WeightMapper doesn’t do ANYTHING that you can’t do now, by hand; it just makes it easier to fiddle around.

If WeightMapper helped the problems in any way, shape, or form, I might still be using EIA.

Sorry, but this looks like somebody’s going to say ‘hey, look, we’re fixing it’ and it’s not going to help one bit, but people will shut up for awhile because they mistakenly think the problem has been addressed in some way, when it hasn’t.

Now, if the actual plan is to FIX bone fall off, and then add WeightMapper as a manipulation tool as a bonus, go for it.

But please, nobody make the mistake of thinking simply including WeightMapper will fix the broken bone fall-off problems in any way, because it just plain won’t.

Fred,

These tools do exactly what they say on the tin. They make it easier to work with strength maps. They are not supposed to change the functionality of any tool, only give people better access to existing functionality. At no point did anyone (to my knowledge) say anything different.

Please send bug projects demonstrating ‘broken skins’ and ‘bone falloff’ problems with a list of steps to reproduce the problem, if there is a bug, we’ll try our best to fix it. We’re going to open a new sub-forum to discuss Character Animation and what way is best to go about improving it.

Ian

Actually Ian, Fred has posted details of the problem, many many times. Here there and everywhere, particularly on the beta test site.
Fred is a highly experienced, professional animator contributing detailed feedback to EI for many years.

I know who Fred is

Though you are right, a better way of putting it would have been: Please point me to the bug projects you have already posted.

Best,
Ian