"K. Lasse" wrote:
> 
> Xander and AnimPlugin crew,
> 
> Firstly, thanks for a really cool animation tool! I just have a quick plea
> for the future... and maybe some discussion/dialog from the newsgroup
> readers...

I will take any an all feature requests - when/whether they get done is
another matter...

> 
> Is there a way to add the ability to view the path(s) taken by cameras or
> objects over the course of an animation within the four views of Moray? I
> remember playing around with an old Release 1 of 3D Studio for DOS and it
> would let you click on an object and display the path taken by that object
> over the animation's run, including nodes representing frames and
> highlighted nodes for keyframes. This was a VERY hand feature as it gave you
> an instant view of how the path looked and if/where it needed tweaking. I've
> not seen any recent releases of MAX, so I don't know if it is still a
> feature or not...

I think I understand just what you want.  I have tried a couple of
different approaches to this.  The first approach was coded, but never
visible in a beta.  I drew a spline that passed through the origin of
the object at each keyframe.  The second approach, which isn't really
working uses a spline object that is directly edited.

To make a clean interface with Moray, and reproduce they way
splines/fcurves work in most animation packages, I still need to do
several things.  There are also a couple of things it would be nice to
have added to Moray to make the interface work easily.

Something wanted/needed from Moray...  I really want to be able to add
my own stuff to the dialog for objects.  Right now I only have control
over plugin object that I build.  The idea here is like the "modifier
stack" in Max.  I could use that to control turning on/off the display
of the spline (as well as other modifications that would only make sense
to an animation).  [Lutz knows about this and we have had discussions
about priority of this versus other things that have to get done for
Moray that really are more important.]

Where it gets more interesting is the actual display of the spline. 
What I want to be able to do is to have the spline editable in the
timeline/function view as well as in the main Moray editing windows. 
But what you are asking for is just one spline that could be associated
with an object (the Translation).  There can be quite a few splines
associated with an object (Scale, Rotate, radius, camera field of view,
...).

So, I sorta decided for an editable path it would be best to be able to
build splines graphically, and then attach them to characteristics of an
object (like translation).  It really only makes sense to show
translation splines in the Moray edit windows.  But for the other
splines/fcurves, I need my own editing screens.  Of course, this all
takes some time and thought to make it work cleanly.

Xander

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