Hey Aligorith, I was wondering, since you are digging around in the animation/graph editor code, would it be possible to add support for non-weighted tangents? These are only found in Maya and XSI (old style “SI tangents”) as far as I know and they are what I use in Maya at work. I was initially skeptical when I first started using them but once I got used to it I realized, for me at least, it’s a much better way to animate. I was trying to animate in Blender recently and discovered that they are not supported.
BTW, I hope this is the right place to ask about this.
You mean, as a way to contact him? or were you directing me to something specific? There doesn’t seem so be any way to contact him from there unless you comment on one of his posts.
With non-weighted tangents, you can’t directly adjust the influence of bezier handles. In Maya, when you drag a non-weighted handle, the handles simply appears to rotate and not get longer, but I think what is really happening is the handles are scaling in the Y-axis, but not the X-axis. They have less functionality than weighted tangents, although I guess the benefit is that less control may reduce complexity of editing animation curves.
@ Indi_logic I would also like to hear what you find useful about non-weighted tangents. I’ve read several blog posts by animators who have been animating in maya for 10+ years who absolutely swear by them. I haven’t been able to find a workflow to incorporate them that is less work than more. Love to hear how you use them.
First off, sorry, I didn’t mean to say it was a better way to animate. It’s just that it works better for me and a lot of other people. Not better, just different. I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain non-weighted tangents and how they benefit my work flow and I’m having trouble. Really, its just what I’m used to and working with weighted tangents is a lot more work for me. I’m working on getting some images or a movie to show how they work but it’s taking me longer then I was expecting. Working… You know… It takes up most of my time.
Heres my take on non weighted tangents, although I can’t recall using them a quick search will give a fair idea.
consider the animation curve for an object, e.g. a bouncing ball, it has speed and direction.
In blender:
when you open the curve editor you have an the ability to change both by manipulating the tangent handles or changing the curve type. The problem is you can’t change one or the other, you must change both at the same time.
A non weighted tangent handle is basically a handle which has no influence on the animation speed only the direction.
So its possible to change the curve of the bouncing ball without changing the speed at which it moves.
The advantage with more complex animations, such as character animation is that you use less keyframes because you can draw your arcs with tangent handles without changing the timing.
sorry about this, but i have a couple of requests too
> individual center pivot in f-curve editor doesn’t work as expected -by me at least-
> a way to ‘type’ in/out speed or influence as in AE -handles X values don’t seem to do it-
> cosmetic: a third color -orange- for modified but not recorded data -keys I mean-
