A feature called something like ONION SKIN.
Like in 2D animation programs where you can see the character some frames before on semitransparent layers.
_________________
Caronte.
"Some Day, All Will Be Digital"
http://www.nicodigital.com

Caronte wrote:

A feature called something like ONION SKIN. Like in 2D animation programs where you can see the character some frames before on semitransparent layers.

Please provide some screenshots ...also
what params are user configurable and which
are automatic? Where in the interface do you
see this fitting in?

Regards,
Chris

You can see this feature in "AURA 2" a 2D video paint software from NewTeK.

You can turn this feature on or off, and you can select how many frames can show mixed with the current frame backward and in fordward of the actual frame.

where more far from current frame, more transparent this one.


Sorry for my poor english
_________________
Caronte.
"Some Day, All Will Be Digital"
http://www.nicodigital.com

Hi Hos,

Here's a little description of how it works in Maya (known as 'ghosting'). I don't mean to say that if ever Blender got such a feature, then it should be copied from Maya's - just trying to give some background on how it's been implemented before.

Ghosting works on a per-object basis. You turn it on by selecting an object and choosing Display -> Object Display -> Ghosting. Basically, as Caronte says, it shows the before and after frames on an object's animation in the viewport so you can get a bit of an idea of the context in which the current frame is located. You could say it's a sort of similar idea to Blender's 'Draw Keys' feature, but it's not quite the same.

Here's a little example I made. I made a torus and set 4 keyframes, changing location and rotation. You can see the frame numbers in the timeline below, red line indicates there's a key set.
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_key1.png
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_key2.png
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_key3.png
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_key4.png

I then switched on ghosting for that torus object. Here's a screenshot of how the viewport looks now at frame 12:
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_on1.png

And at frame 34:
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_on2.png

Here are the preferences for displaying the ghost frames (pretty self-explanatory):
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_prefs.png

There's also a similar feature called 'Motion Trail' which plots out the location of the object over time in 3D with each frame number. It updates itself whenever new keys are set:
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_motion_trail.png

Hope that's a bit more informative

I think the blender feature "DupliFrames" can be modifyed to show only few frames surounding current frame and draw those frames with diferent transparency.
_________________
Caronte.
"Some Day, All Will Be Digital"
http://www.nicodigital.com

I would LOOVVVEEE to have that motion-trail like in messiah-animate in blender..
there, there are x's on the curve for every key and when you click on it it jumps to that frame.. very handy!!

Ghosting would be great as well!

cya henrik

Very cool idea! Good examples as well!

I take it this is a 'wireframe only' effect?

Also: do the ghosts update in realtime as you
modify objects?

The idea of varying opacity sounds neat
... I'd really like to see a screenshot of that.

Chris

Well in Maya anyway, it works in all shading modes, and seems to update in realtime (though I didn't check every possible thing you could use to modify an object, just moving a vertex). Fading out the opacity in the viewport would be a very cool way of displaying such a feature. I wonder how other packages may do it too...

Screenshots of editing/updating in realtime:
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_edit1.png
http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/onion_skin/maya_ghost_edit2.png

hos:
i know this is a big video (50mb) but there you see ghosting in
a great way. Its about sega's animation-software (which seems to be
great):
http://www.animagicnet.no/AnimaniumDemoVideo.avi
cya henrik

kaktuswasser wrote:

hos: i know this is a big video (50mb) but there you see ghosting in a great way. Its about sega's animation-software (which seems to be great): http://www.animagicnet.no/AnimaniumDemoVideo.avi cya henrik

That's very nice -- works well with the realtime
toon-style that makes it look like it's drawn on
paper.

Chris

Well...I had almost the same suggestion
early last autumn, but I was talking about MotionPaths that LW has, which many ppl wanted to have like Onionskinning, which is not the same, LW has motionpaths which displays visually when selecting either bone/skeleton that shows how the bones will move in 3D space...some wanted to have this called onionskinning, and it almost ended up like a postingwar, lucky me Lyubomir came to my rescue *hehe*

and I wonder why no one else have been meantioning this until now, as in this thread, this is almost the same kind of suggestion I made in September 2002:

here is where it all starts:
http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=42756#42756

LOL, good luck reading it

yours,

Words cannot express how helpful a feature like this would be. That is all I have to say.

Cheers,
Landis

Words cannot express how helpful a feature like this would be. That is all I have to say.

Cheers,
Landis

ztonzy wrote:

... LW has motionpaths which displays visually when selecting either bone/skeleton that shows how the bones will move in 3D space...

Nice feature as well.

BTW, don't forget the Keyframe mode, already in Blender (Press K key on a 3D window) Thi's a (some times) unknow or unused feature (don't work well with armatures indeed ).
_________________
Caronte.
"Some Day, All Will Be Digital"
http://www.nicodigital.com