Perfect rotation and translation of a shape

[Genete]

During my first movie I realized that rotate and translate points applied together to a shape does not work properly,
There were a rigid solid thrown by a character that must rotate and translate at same time. If you use rotate, and translate points it is done in a linear way so a scale operation is also done.

I've found that it can be done with bones. you can bind a single bone to the entire shape and then use it to rotate and translate the shape.

Is there other solution to this issue more than use bones?

((In fact I should have solved this problem before if I had readed better the tutorial because there is a bouncing ball that uses that technique.))

So, for what the rotate points tool? If rotate you cannot perform any combined traslation if not a undesired scale is done. In which situations shoud I use rotate points. Only for static shapes???

[Rai López]

...Hey! Nice to heard that cause that linear inbetween of the point is one of the most hard fights that I am holding to get wanted results right now when I cannot use bones or layer rotation... I'm treating to find my own better solution with the available AS means, but well...

Of course the adition of more point keyframes with inbetween poses to obtain a better aproximation of the rotation can be the key, but this is generally unwanted and doesn't works (for me at least...)

Latelly I'm treating to get some advantadge of the embedded scripting to see what can I get on this, but I'm not sure about if it could really help, hmmm, we'll see...

[artfx]

Actually it does work correctly. Unfortunately the result is not what some might expect. When points are keyframed, each individual point does a linear translation to its position at the net keyframe. So selecting an entire shape and rotating t may seem like it should "rotate" the shape, but that is not the intended use of that tool.

Rotating points, whether all in a shape or just some in a shape is just a tool for speed in creating point animation, but the tool itself is not meant to "apply" that rotation in the animation. Maybe it woul dbe better to say it is not an "animation" tool, but a construction tool, to help the artist work with groups of points in better ways.

[heyvern]

I don't see how it would be possible in anyway whatsoever to tell any application that some points were "rotated" instead of "translated" when modifying points.

How would an application "know" which points were rotated and which were translated? Unless there was some incredibly complex grouping mechanism. Dozens of nested "rotate" and "translate" groups... seems overly complex to me. If you had a named group that was told to "rotate"... how would you tell it to translate another point in that group?

Bones (or even layer rotation) are the perfect solution to rotate a shape. A bone rotates the shape it controls. Rotating actual points directly are for me anyway, primarily a way to reposition points to create a specific shape, or to change the angle of a leg or arm or protruding structure. I would never try to do extreme rotations of a shape using point translation, which is all that the point rotate tool is doing anyway.

In some cases rotating points on a small scale works in animation. I prefer the bone control route more and more lately.

-vern

[Genete]

Thanks for your responses. It was that I suspected but wanted to be sure that nothing was missed. It is an important issue because it would determine your primary setup if some rotation-translation is done in the timeline.

heyvern wrote:

How would an application "know" which points were rotated and which were translated? Unless there was some incredibly complex grouping mechanism. Dozens of nested "rotate" and "translate" groups... seems overly complex to me. If you had a named group that was told to "rotate"... how would you tell it to translate another point in that group?

Well, when you use the points select tool and click inside a shape, it selects the border points, so internally they are "grouped". Why do not have a rotate and translate shape tool to avoid to use bones to do it? Really it could be a great feature that can be easy implemented in next version. (or not?).

Ramón López wrote:

...Hey! Nice to heard that cause that linear inbetween of the point is one of the most hard fights that I am holding to get wanted results right now when I cannot use bones or layer rotation...

In which situation you cannot use bones or layer rotation? (for curiosity)

-Genete

[slowtiger]

Vern is right.

The rotation tool calculates the center of all points selected and uses that as the pivot point of rotation. After the rotation is done and you have de-selected the points, that information is erased from memory immediately.

To do a rotation in movement, AS needs to know a point where to rotate around. There are two places where such an information is stored: one is the origin of a layer, for layer rotation. The other one is the origin of a bone, for bone rotation.

[Rai López]

In which situation you cannot use bones or layer rotation? (for curiosity)

Uf... in most of, believe me... Actually I treat to resolve practically all animation tasks using only, or as much as possible, point animation, yes... it's a little sad thing talking about a bone based app, but it seems that I'm not the only one that have take such a decision working with AS so maybe this aspect should give people food for thought...

Plus, and talking about the layers issue now, I always treat to use only one layer to can see all related keys in just an only one quick sight to solve that other AS limitation that don't let me see the keys that I want when I'm animating into different layers...

Well, the case is working only with points I'm feeling much more free... I have a character and it can be deformed and animated in ALL the ways and it works in ALL situations, it's diffficult to explain, and start to do it without bones was a very difficult/sad decision for me, but we are talking about 2D animation and finally I think that bones only limits something that shouldn't have any limits...

...Well, but with only point animation is not possible maintain the archs of movement in inbetweens of rotations (as we agree) and this is my fight now, so... well, cause of this I still have to use bones in some situations... Another think is that I love "Bone Dynamics" (...how I'd love "Point/Shape Dynamics"! ) and this is a very cool effect that it's only possible using bones actually, well... Cause of all this I treat to combine all and take advantage of embedded scripting to get it, but I don't know yet where it's exactly carrying to me...

[heyvern]

Ramón,

Since you have chosen to do only point translation animation, the rotate points will work this way, but you will need many key frames. You are sort of using AS as a cell, or frame by frame animation tool.

I hope at some point there is a way to see all the key frames on many layers. Until then, I couldn't give up the power of bones or layers... it's like... throwing out half the program, might as well just use Flash.

Instead, I went in the total opposite direction! I try to do ALL animation using ONLY bones as much as possible, with occasional tweaking of points as needed. I feel THIS has freed me up. Any time I need to tweak some points I just throw in a new bone and constrain it to another one. All my keys are in one place, similar solution to the key frame problem. Different strokes for different folks.

With the way AS works, and the power of using bones and layers for animation, a "rotate shape animation tool" is almost redundant.

I feel it would be easier for efrontier to add better key frame viewing than the tool you speak of. I would welcome that feature with open arms.

Good luck with your quest.

-vern

[artfx]

Instead, I went in the total opposite direction! I try to do ALL animation using ONLY bones as much as possible, with occasional tweaking of points as needed. I feel THIS has freed me up. Any time I need to tweak some points I just throw in a new bone and constrain it to another one.

I think you have the right idea vern. I am certain that in my previous test I could have done so much more with bones. I see bones and layers as the greatest strength of AS now. With nested bone layers and constraints most simple point options can be done by bones and thus become infinitely reusable.

[Rai López]

but you will need many key frames. You are sort of using AS as a cell, or frame by frame animation tool.

Nop, I hate use more keyframes than the strictely necessary so I'm searching for other solutions, let's say that I need bones, but I don't want treat directly with them...

it's like... throwing out half the program, might as well
just use Flash.

Well, the use only one layer decission involve more than this "hidden keyframes" reason, although I really think this is a very (VERY) important thing! And about the Flash issue, well, it always was (and is) a possibility to take in to account, but I never have get the desired/squishy resuts with the standad features and Action Scripting always results like a little messy every time I've try it, I dislike that timeline too...

Instead, I went in the total opposite direction! I try to do ALL animation using ONLY bones as much as possible

...Instead? Jaja, do you know you are talking to a man that someday put forward even a "...one point, one bone!" motto working with Moho? And yes, it was very exciting times with some exciting results but finally/sadly I reach a conclusion that for me was not the right way for many intricated reasons...

With the way AS works, and the power of using bones and layers for animation, a "rotate shape animation tool" is almost redundant.

And sadly I must agree... Definitely AS has his way and it's too late to change it... Cause of this I'm so on the alert for that Takeo Igarashi / UrumaDelvi Paint kind of apps that seems bet for totally new and fresh 2D software proporsals, with real 2D solutions let's say, and not treatting to copy 3D tools that don't have to work necesarely for plane animation, we are not in the real world and in most cases (and fortunately) 2D don't treat to imitate it, and this is a good thing, I think... Well at least I hope so, and you should understand my exiciting about all this, but well, really all about that is SO uncertain that, of course, I'll be here meantime only to bother

I would welcome that feature with open arms.

And I too, I too...

...GREETINGS!

[heyvern]

I think you have the right idea vern...

I think my love of bones in AS/Moho came from using Animation:Master which is a 3D program. It uses bones up the wazoo, tons and tons of wicked cool constraints to control all kinds of things.

In that program you could animate point motion only... but... YIKES! Only if you were a glutton for torture. Managing point motion in 2D is hard enough, try to keeping track of it with 3D is just crazy. You MUST use bones. But you can "tweak" points as needed.

So, using bones and constraints in AS/Moho was a breeze for me. I already had the "philosophy" down, I had years of experience. The constraints in AS were so simple compared to what I used before I learned it in 5 minutes.

This is one of the reasons I really hope that more/better bone constraints will be a future addition to AS. I would really like to be able to have more than one constraint of a specific type on a bone, have more options with constraints, being able to key frame them on and off or the strength, Have a constraint only "kick in" at a certain angle... or position etc etc etc.

Bone constraints kick arse. I love em to death.

-vern

[Rai López]

I would really like to be able to have more than one constraint of a specific type on a bone, have more options with constraints, being able to key frame them on and off or the strength, Have a constraint only "kick in" at a certain angle... or position etc etc etc.

Anyway it wouldn't mind to me ...and I've been asking for all wanted features for a long time; fortunately we have now Embedded Scripts and many things are possible, but of course this is beyond a normal user possibilities and I'd love such a features be implemented as standard features, definitely I'd still take good advantadge of it! Well, now I'd only ask that all be resolved in a less complicated/confusing way that in Animation:Master... (Please! )