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Bone visibility check box

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:33 pm
by heyvern
A simple check box that would hide a bone on ANY frame regardless of constraints.

Of late I have been adding a rotation constraint to bones just to keep them hidden during animation (hide controlled bones).

However hiding controlled bones is not good if a bone has a translatiion constraint but NOT a rotation constraint... or visa versa.

You would want to see the bone to rotate it, but it's translation is controlled by a constraint so it is hidden.

This could be solved by having a check box to "hide" or "show" a bone. This property doesn't need to be keyable.

I need this desperately. I have to add extra bones in some cases to override this problem.

A parent bone is "hidden" by a translation constraint. A child bone controls rotation of the mesh and is visible because it has no constraint. It's translation is controlled by the parent, the user controls rotation using the visible bone. Requires an extra bone when hiding controlled bones.

p.s. Great idea using polls for feature requests Genete!

-vern

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:44 pm
by Rasheed
This is actually a very good idea to hide the complexity of a bone rig, especially of constraint bones, Vern.

I can see several implementations (which needn't be exclusive):
  • via the preference menu (hide constraint bones)
  • hard coded outside frame zero
  • soft coded via an animation channel in the Timeline

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 6:03 pm
by heyvern
It would be very nice if the visibility of bones would "stick" with the file.

Currently every time you open a file the controlled bones are visible by default.

I think visibility of a bone should be a savable property of the document not a preference of the application.

-vern

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:07 pm
by jahnocli
It's a great idea. So simple -- I wonder why no-one else thought of it? (I guess this is the mark of a great idea!)

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:12 pm
by Genete
I vote for this also.
heyvern wrote:p.s. Great idea using polls for feature requests Genete!
Yeah!. This section is growing to be hot now!!!.

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:31 pm
by CartoonM!ke
One more vote for the bone visibility checkbox!

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:17 am
by rylleman
jahnocli wrote:...I wonder why no-one else thought of it? (I guess this is the mark of a great idea!)...
I sort of did...
http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtop ... ight=bones

Anyway, I agree and put my vote for this request.

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:46 am
by ulrik
Great idea!

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:39 pm
by heyvern
I have not looked into this yet, but I was going to try to "hide" bones using a script.

Or even "draw" a unique shape for certain bones for my face rig so they stand out more. I don't even know if this is possible. I have never used those scripting... draw... things.

-vern