Some suggestions for Blender character animation related systems:including redesign,feature additions,extensions,and improvment

I have many years of experience in animation, binding, and scripting in other software. Based on my experience and research on blender, I have compiled some suggestions.I really love Blender.

As suggested, This topic has been distributed to multiple topics.

1.Bone should be more open, and bones and objects should be more consistent (4 stars is important, it will not increase the burden on existing users, it will only be more comfortable, and it will likely facilitate the development of other related projects) single Subject Address

• The switching of the three modes of bones should be canceled. I guess this design is to facilitate the resetting of bones, save the loading animation, and facilitate the production of actions.

  But in fact, there is do not for this mode switching, and related functions can also be implemented in an uncomplicated way, and the mode switching brings a lot of binding and animation burden. the problem now is that :

1. Repeated switching is required to set the binding
2. You cannot pick bones when you pick a constraint. You can only select bones when you pick a skeleton. Of course, you can select a target bone and a constraint bone and then press Ctrl + Shift + C to quickly add constraints, but when you need to constrain the bone with an object , The skeleton cannot be selected together with the object;
3. bone constraints and object constraints are not unified, and they should be the same
4. Skeleton‘s bones are not suitable for batch renaming. Ctrl + F2 is only useful for objects. To reduce the naming work, you must develop another script.
5. Complex levels and modes increase the workload of making skeletal animation aids.
6. Cannot modify multiple skeletons at the same time.
7. To adjust in edit mode, then constrain in pose mode. Minor changes need to be repeated operating.
8. It often takes a lot of time to make custom graphics, and you also need to consider pivot points and orientation.
9. When creating a custom graphic, you need to create it in the object mode, modify it in the editing mode of the graphic object, then exit to the object mode to select the skeleton, then switch to the pose mode to select the bone, then open the view display panel to pick the graphic, and then adjust the size Parameters, then return to the object mode to select the graphic object, and then enter the editing mode of the graphic object to modify.

It is also difficult to align the two. You need to modify the shape while observing the shape of the shape on the bone. These operations are usually repeated at least a dozen times. Sometimes it takes about the same amount of time to create a custom graphic as to create a binding. . . Now, if it's not very complicated binding, I will use the bones directly. But it's the complex bindings that make me even less want to use custom graphics. . .

• It should even be designed so that any object can serve as a bone.

The "any object" driver is uniform, Will be very easy to learn and use, which may also facilitate the implementation of node binding in the future, and it will also be easier to implement the editable motion trajectory of "any object" , and it will be easier to implement the animation layer will also make it easier for bones to participate in physics calculations.Of course, there is no need to make custom graphics and pick them up again, because "all objects" are What you see is what you get.

• Each object can be selecting for “deformation” option, and there is a selection option “as bone”.
• Finally, you can add a "container" similar to a group， and add all the objects in the binding to achieve the skeleton some of the original features.

2.Editable motion track (4 stars important) single Subject Address

Editable Motion Tracks by Disney

• Display the motion track and key frame markers in the viewport. You can adjust the motion track like a curve by adjusting the handle, and the adjustments made to the track will be fed back to the object / skeletal animation (equivalent to inverse curve calculation by the handle of the track key frame Handle in the device)
• With keyframe handles (for controlling the curve) and curve handles (for controlling the rhythm)
• Compatible with constraints (such as position constraints with offsets).
• For incompatible parts, the track can be displayed normally, but there are color hints.

3.Infinite animation layers that can be targeted at some objects and bones (5 stars are important, especially for game animators) single Subject Address

• Layers can collapsing
• Add only necessary frames when collapsing.
• Editable motion tracks to interact with the current operating layer
• For the calculation of rotation, you may need more optimization,maybe or can only apply the curve handle automatically for convenience (such as quaternion calculation, and then press Euler to return to the key frame, apply the automatic handle)

4 .Built-in ghosting / onion skin tools (3 stars are important, there are currently good alternatives, but this should really be an internal function) single Subject Address

A good alternative blendermarket.com/products/onion-skin-tools

• Ghost / onion skin (low overhead) that does not significantly affect memory and performance
• Can be displayed in front-to-back range (can confuse viewports but is sometimes required)
• A fixed one can be created for a certain frame (the frame should be recorded and automatically updated after the animation is modified)
• Provide a button to snapshot the object at the current frame and create a deformed model.(Additional features, extensions of the above, are usually useless, but useful when animators want to create some stylized ghosting)

5. shape key can update automatically from other object (4 stars are important, many people may not have used it, but once you use it, everyone will love it) single Subject Address

• When an object or multiple objects are deformed in any way, it can affect the deformation of another object with the same vertex number in real time (just like the dynamic shape key)
• Imagine that this is equivalent to driving the morphological keys with bones externally and finally feeding them back to the object! Or an object can be affected by multiple sets of different bindings at the same time without any weird problems. (This behavior can make a lot of unexpectedly good deformation control)

6. Allows the sum of weights to exceed 100% (not important, many users cannot control it, and it is not supported by most platforms, and can be implemented softly using recommendation 4) (Since this requirement is too weird, I did not post it separately, just mention it here.)

• create some excellent expression skinning
• However, weighting over 100% may have twice the impact on the initial shape and should be optimized by calculation.

Finally, I want to say sorry, I just started learning English recently, so this article is still done by translation software. I'm a gentle person. If something isn't right, it must be the fault of the software. ：）