I take it blender still doesnt have an expression editor
Exactly what expressions do you want to edit using Blender? It’s not a spreadsheet nor is it Mathematica.
if you meen character expressions/ fatal expressions they are created using a combination of armatures and driven shape keys.
no I meant expressions like the ones that are in maya and lightwave where you program the the armature so you dont have to keyframe everything
Like a script?
something like, im sorry i really cant explain it
In Blender they are called “actions”.
and there is an action editor
but what’s the difference between and action and any old dope sheet?
Nothing. Everything. Take your pick.
The point of an action is that you can use it to define complex and/or repetitive movements and co-opt it to make manipulating the armature and/or the total animation easier.
Search around for “action constraints” and for “action strips” in the NLA (Non-Linear Animation) Editor.
Technically, a dope sheet has a great deal more information on it than anything you’ll find in Blender (or any other 3D soft --methinks). The Timeline window is your best bet for working between a dope sheet and an animation in Blender. (Just because you have Blender doesn’t mean you shouldn’t carefully prepare a proper dope sheet.)
Hope this helps.
You mean something like this? Apparently they’ve taken care of that TO DO list item about allowing a Python expression as a driver, since it shows up in 2.45 when you press the snake icon on the Transform Properties panel. I don’t know Python, so I haven’t used the feature (although using an object as a driver works well) nor do I know how much functionality you can squeeze into a single line of Python, which seems to be a current limitation. But, if it’s got an IPO curve, you can apparently write a function to animate it.
I Think That the expression editor is one of the most powerful features of Maya.
It allows you to animates something based on a mathematical function, a random quantity, or linked to another data source.
It is kind of like Mathematica in some ways, and is incredibly useful, I’ve used it for animating precise systems based on physics/math data.
If blender had one of these, it would be so magnificently useful. (Hint Hint…)
An expression is a formula that can drive a animation channel (it’s applied to). It’s a way for the user to create custom automated animation. Very much like a motion modifier plugin will, but you write it yourself in a very concise language.
What does it have that Python doesn’t?
Well for anyone who is interested, the link Orinoco posted does do what an expression editor (I assume) does in Maya . If you have the most rudimentary knowledge of 3D math you can write a one line Python expressions to to do complex math in the form of IPO curves as drivers for that curve … Plus in the upcoming release (2.5) or in the SVN build you can actually write your own custom “Pycontraint” which will do what it will do depending on your knowledge of Python and 3D math …
If I sound a bit annoyed it is simply that the animation system in Blender is actually a LOT more intuitive then Maya from a user point of view … I mean I actually spent an hour looking at a Maya tutorial to generate a rig that I could do in Blender in five minutes (also to explain in same amount of time) …
I don’t know if you can simply paste say captured data into Maya for use in animation (which would be very useful) but I got the impression that you had to get uncomfortably knowledgeable about math and logical dependencies if you wanted to rig in Maya …
… So in short yes Blender does have an “expression editor” … It is called Python … Just like what IamInnocent said …
I must disagree about your assertions. Without starting a war, Maya’s hypergraph system makes rigging and dependencies completely intuitive, at least to me, and is one of the big differences between it and Max or the others: it is completely node based ( at a data level that is), which blender also is to a degree i believe. I also find the animation system completely intuitive.
Maya has driven keys, which is like the IPO driver system, but the expression editor is different again. You can type in basic math expressions to control animation channels.
You can also control particle systems, dynamics, fluids, shaders and many others things with it.
Bear in mind that Maya has MEL and python, and still needs an expression editor, so they can’t be that equivalent.
I also want it said that I completely adore Blender and am not trying to start a war, but merely clarifying what the expression editor is.
I think what people are trying to say is, that Blender can do the functions that the expression editor does, it just doesn’t have the unified interface that Maya has. It would be neat, though.Maybe, if you had IPO channels exposed in the node editor?
This thread has an example of using pydrivers to rotate wheels on a path.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=72162&highlight=pydriver
Granted that programming in Python isn’t very intuitive for the moment in Blender.
God knows though what will come with the event refactor since capturing the history is an inherent part of the new design: translating this into Python and into macros shouldn’t be that hard = instant python scripts. NOTE that this is pure conjecture from my part.
From what you say Deep_Thought I must underline that Maya has applied the ‘everything must be animatable’ axiom (in the Peach wish list too) and that, IMO, is one place where it is superior to Blender. Aligorith (Joshua Leung) in his animation system code refactor is looking into that.
IamInnocent you are completely correct, I have found nothing that cannot be animated, and in a number of ways, in Maya. This makes sense though, as it is an animation package (!).
If Blender can have this functionality too, that would be a major leap forward.
I miss the expression editor. The equivalent is to use a script link but the thing about Maya is that these expressions are not external files so you don’t have to worry about making a file then linking it from the script link panel. You just pop up a box, type in the expression and it works.
That system of course has the flaw that if your program code causes Blender to hang or crash, there is no way to recover from it as blender only has a binary scene description. There could maybe be a mechanism like in Flash that lets you kill a script if it hangs up for too long (maybe part of some event refactoring).
It would be nice to be able to pop up a little panel in the 3D window and that way it is easily resizable. You could maybe even have helpers for people who don’t code much so that if you wanted to change the height of an object then by bringing up a contextual menu on an object, it let you choose what element of the selected object you wanted to add code for.
At least if it’s based in the 3D window, it’s easy to see what object the expression is linking to as there could be a 3D line joined to the text popup.