Template system for Animation Nodes Addon

tonton · September 13, 2020, 4:19pm

Hi Blender-folks, here is a beta version of an Online Template system for Animation Nodes in Blender.

This Addon basically allows you to import in one click an Animation Nodes Template Tree for an online library !

The Library is a github repo where everyone can submit a new Nodetree. Its purpose is to have clean Examples, Utilities and pre-made Motion Design effects always one click away !

The library is automatically refreshed from Blender to show you lastly added examples, for now it contains a dozen of Nodetree, but i planned to extend it, and i hope people would be insterested to submit their own !

Speaking of which, the addon also have a Submission System, allowing you to send through mail the current Blend File with a few additional infos to get reviewed and added to the Library directly from Blender. The purpose of it is to make it user-friendly and easy to propose a new Example !

Here is a clean readme with more informations about the addon

Here is a quick video of the beta of the addon (slow it down if you want to see the details of the walkthrough)

The Send Submission operator is in fact kind of quick, but i had a really bad upload connection when recording this, the waiting is my upload time for 2mo

Download the addon here
And here is the Github

Giving it is the beta, don’t hesitate to give feedbacks, also try to submit nodes if you want, even dummy ones to test the stability of the submit system, it would be great !

Hoping this addon could help people diving into Animation Nodes and the crazy world of procedural animation !

Cheers !

Disclaimer :

This addon aims to bring back a template system for easier learning and presetting in Animation Nodes, but its deep purpose is to gather the AN Community to build a clean and nice Community NodeTree Library.

If you feel creative, or you have some small utility NodeTree to show, please do, share it with the rest of the community and make this Library huge, great, and really community-driven !

How awesome would it be to have hundreds of carefully crafted NodeTrees anywhere you go, just one click away ?

Tonton.

Safetyman · September 13, 2020, 5:10pm

Still learning animation nodes so this should help. Thanks!

tonton · September 13, 2020, 5:42pm

yep it could be of some help i think thanks for your interest ! and don’t hesitate to give feedbacks about ui/ux/discoverability of nodetrees… still working on all of these, Cheers !

JWise · September 13, 2020, 6:05pm

Just downloaded this and can’t thank you enough! From what I see from the video, this looks AWESOME!

tonton · September 13, 2020, 6:17pm

Thanks for the kind words ! Hope the addon will meet your expectations from the video dont hesitate to report or give feedbacks ! Cheers !

tonton · September 14, 2020, 9:01am

And btw, here is the github of the node templates library which feeds the addon,
the BA thread

And the youtube playlist of all the available NodeTrees in videos !

Cheers!

tonton · September 15, 2020, 5:13pm

Hi guys, just updated the addon to create the first proper release (v0.1.0) !

The link for download

And a clean read me

Animation Nodes Templates Addon

This Blender Addon is designed to use with Animation Nodes Addon.

Its purpose is to bring an online library of Animation Nodes NodeTree directly in blender in one click.

It is located in the side panel of the Animation Nodes Editor.

Here are its main features :

Automatic synchronization of the library

One-click Import of a NodeTree with or without its associated objects

Nodetree Organized per Category

Powerfull Tag System supporting Multiple tag search to quickly find the proper nodetree to import

Access to Image, Video Preview, and NodeTree Readme through webbrowser in one click

Filter NodeTrees by Blender Version or Animation Nodes Version to be sure to get compatible ones
Offline System to keep access to every downloaded NodeTree, even without Internet, no downloading twice

Easy-To-Use submission system to send a proposal for a new Template NodeTree directly from Blender with few Informations

Addon Update Warning with Download Link to stay Up to Date

Feel free to report any bug Here, for additional support, check the Blender Artist Thread !

Disclaimer :

This addon aims to bring back a template system for easier learning and presetting in Animation Nodes, but its deep purpose is to gather the AN Community to build a clean and nice Community NodeTree Library.

If you feel creative, or you have some small utility NodeTree to show, please do, share it with the rest of the community and make this Library huge, great, and really community-driven !

How awesome would it be to have hundreds of carefully crafted NodeTrees anywhere you go, just one click away ?

Tonton.

tonton · September 18, 2020, 1:39pm

Hi guys just updated the addon with a few hotfix, if using it, you should see something like this in the utilities panel

Click download to get it, then install after removing the previous version and you will be good to go (no auto update for the time being, too tedious to make it works without bug depending on os… so just this kind of handy warning and direct link)
cheers !

tonton · September 28, 2020, 4:02pm

Added a few new nodetree into the online library :

Offset Mesh Polygons Along Normals (submitted by faaaaarck)
Procedural Animated Camera (submitted by faaaaarck)
Convert Frames to Timecode
Invert Negative Numbers

A big thank to faaaaarck for his great submissions !

here’s a few pics of the nodetrees :

Cheers !

tonton · October 7, 2020, 3:40pm

SRT Generator was added to the AN Templates library !
Directly format some text from Sequencer Timeline into srt format, just save the resulting text block to a .srt file and play it in any classic media player !

Get the AN Templates addon to have access to these templates directly in Blender

tonton · October 11, 2020, 7:33pm

New version of the addon, a bunch of fixes and better submission guidelines in the submission panel ! Download it here !!!

JWise · October 18, 2020, 4:43am

Just getting back to the Template addon and my Templates window in the N panel is empty. Checking in the C:\Users…Blender\2.91\datafiles\an_templates directory, it is empty. I’ve tried updating the addon, checking for updates, etc. Any thoughts?

I’m on Windows 10, nightly version of Blender 2.91 alpha and the 0.2.0 version of the addon.

Tried reinstalling v0.1.0 and it makes the internet connection which v0.2.0 doesn’t but nothing is installed into the an_templates directory and the templates window is still empty.

tonton · October 18, 2020, 9:53am

Hi, can you tell me if you have additionnal informations in the blender console on startup ? There are a few messages from the addon normally describing what it is doing. Sorry for the inconvenience !

PierreSchiller · October 18, 2020, 1:49pm

Thank you! So I need to have a pre installed the AN addon, right?

dimitribastos · October 18, 2020, 1:58pm

This only works with GitHub repository? Can I share with my friends a template without uploading to GitHub?

tonton · October 18, 2020, 2:10pm

you’re welcome, yep the addon panel will only shows in Animation nodes area

JWise · October 18, 2020, 2:14pm

The first reference to AN Template is Blender starting up with version 0.1.1 that I tried yesterday. That didn’t work. Then I installed the latest version and tried Refreshing Templates in the addon panel. It says it was successful but you can see just below that the an_templates directory is empty. BTW, no inconvenience at all, your warning that this is BETA means some of us are out here to try and help you resolve situations just like this…even if it’s the user creating an issue

tonton · October 18, 2020, 2:15pm

The addon currently works mainly with its “official” github repository. You can also set the addon to work with a custom github (or any cloud/hosting service which can provide access to raw files in a public manner (no credentials needed)) but i didn’t really documented the procedure for now, and some steps are tedious if you are not familiar with json/python.
But you can submit your nodetree to be available in the official library through submission panel (pretty simple, just follow the guidelines). If the question is about sharing nodetree with friends in a private way, the addon is not designed for that, sorry. Does it answer your question ? cheers!

tonton · October 18, 2020, 2:19pm

thanks for the kind words and the details ! i’ll take a look at this asap, i changed the internet connection check code recently, seems to be the problem for 0.2.0 version ! Just for info, could you test these 2 versions with 2.83.x versions of blender (if you have some spare time ? ) and tell me if the problems of empty dir is still here ? cheers !

JWise · October 18, 2020, 3:40pm

I tried 2.83.7 of Blender with 0.1.0, 0.1.1, and 0.2.0.

With 0.1.0 and 0.1.1 the Templates window in the side panel can be seen. With 0.2.0 the Templates window is NOT visible and only has a warning symbol and “No Available Templates” shown.

With the 2.83.7 version, I used Default Factory Settings with no other addons enabled.

I’m puzzled because my first experience with Blender 2.91 alpha a few weeks ago and 0.1.0 of your addon, I had everything working. I might expect that there was a change in 2.91 that would create a problem but not 2.83. I’ll try 2.90 next.