2024-09-26 Animation & Rigging module meeting

[sybren]

The meeting will be on 2024-09-26T16:00:00Z. It is open for everybody interested to join the video call (link below).

Present: Christoph Lendenfeld, David W, Luciano Muñoz, MohammadHossein Jamshidi, Nate Rupsis, Nathan Vegdahl, Sybren Stüvel

People present are referred to by first name for brevity. Others are referred to by full name.

Links

• Video Call. Note that there are no recordings of the meeting. This way everybody is free to say or show anything.
• A&R Module Meetings calendar for inclusion in your own calendar
• Previous meeting notes
• Issues & Pull Requests
• #module-animation chat channel
• Draft agenda for any upcoming meetings

Since the Last Meeting / Announcements

• Last week of development work on the Slotted Actions project.
  • Wednesday Blender 4.3 will go to beta phase, which means that the main branch will be 4.4-alpha.
  • After that we can remove the experimental flag for Slotted Actions.
  • This means that in 4.4-alpha, all Actions will be automatically versioned to Slotted Actions!
  • For clarity: Layered Actions and Slotted Actions are the exact same thing, just focusing on different aspects of the new-style Actions. The slots are there to support layered animation, and the data structure for layers & strips is already in place. Blender 4.4 will have the slots exposed to the UI, but neither layers nor strips.
  • Christoph & Nathan will handle the fallout of the switchover.
• Starting next week, Sybren’s coding time will go to the Online Asset Repositories project.
  • Sybren will still be project lead for Slotted Actions.

Landed

Names are from the Git log. This list is limited to functional improvements & bugfixes.

Blender

• 2ba69519a8b: Fix #127678: Auto-Save Preferences does not work for few anim properties (Pratik Borhade)
• b58f61a91ad: Fix: inconsistent bone selection after hiding or changing selectability (Philipp Oeser)
• 12fe0dd0cf9: Anim: make action/slot assignment code more generic (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 4b642637b9f: UI: fix nullptr access in slider drawing code (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• e0d5379ef8d: Anim: change how action strip data is stored (Nathan Vegdahl)
• 38e15412dd8: Fix #127755: 4.3 regression: Some rigged meshes do not load properly (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 02d0c258d91: Anim: define RNA subtypes of ActionStrip, and refine to those types (Nathan Vegdahl)
• 6ebe7a39850: Anim: don’t evaluate the Action constraint if it has no Action (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• fe681909231: Anim: fix group name check in Action constraint (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 615cb464128: Anim: add Action Slot selector to Action Constraint (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• b200d1f9754: Anim: remove strip data as well when an action strip is removed (Nathan Vegdahl)
• 26379c2b014: Anim: Update Action Slot selectors in the UI (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 34a18c7608b: Anim: Merge Animation operator (Christoph Lendenfeld)
• ee2d8ec8dbb: Anim: add slotted Action support to animdata_copy_id_action (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• cd1c7039ac9: Anim: correctly assign Action in id_action_ensure() (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 6115132998d: Anim: migrate Action assignments to the new API (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 4bfa0de388c: Anim: update some uses of listbases of fcurves (Nathan Vegdahl)
• 6d8e3959b07: Anim: Fix legacy/layered choice in action_fcurve_ensure() (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 22868682988: Anim: support layered Actions when symmetrizing Action Constraint (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 6ea0b8cdb20: Fix #127758: Resorting keys in the Graph Editor with multiple actions failed (Christoph Lendenfeld)
• 0c9ef75df85: Fix #127976: Actions created via Python can’t be used in action constraints (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 3b878592041: Anim: Convert Grease Pencil conversion code to new Action API (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 629b3ccd422: Anim: update collada export code for slotted actions (Nathan Vegdahl)
• 5524a060384: Anim: support layered Actions in BKE get/set active actiongroup functions (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 4159f60e46e: Anim: Layered Action support in group handling in action_mirror.cc (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 02ebab57da1: Anim: add layered Action support to BKE_animdata_transfer_by_basepath (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• fae19d7c927: Anim: Eyedropper for bone properties (Christoph Lendenfeld)
• 9eae533e899: Fix #127908: Layered Action - slot users doesn’t include action constraint (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 45085b2b0e1: Fix: cannot assign actions to IDs without animdata (Nathan Vegdahl)
• 124bae5a4d5: Fix: use action_treat_as_legacy() where appropriate (Nathan Vegdahl)
• 147d8aad54a: Anim: Show Action Slot type in panel + change type icon RNA prop (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• bcd0d14943d: Versioning for layered actions (Christoph Lendenfeld)

Technical Documentation

• 48903d8f: Anim: move ‘project Baklava’ to ‘Layered Animation’ + better explanation (Sybren A. Stüvel)

User Manual

Ongoing Work

• High Prio bugs:
  • #127758: Keys deleting when moving key(s) in Graph Editor with shared animation across multiple objects (fixed)
• Christoph:
  • Christoph’s weekly report
  • #128171: Anim: operator to move Slots to new action
  • started work on an operator to “explode” an action
• Nathan:
  • Nathan’s weekly report
  • Helping update code that directly loops over fcurve listbase to also support slotted actions.
  • In theory will be working on updating pose library code for slotted actions as well, but…
  • In practice I’ve gotten pulled into fixing a variety of bugs.
• Sybren:
  • Sybren’s weekly report
  • Julian Eisel made this for our slot selectors: #127751: UI: Allow label for search template (respecting property split layout)
  • #127904: Anim UI: Labels for Action/Slot selectors or not, in the Properties Editor?
    • Nathan: in favour of labels. Let’s make it a rule that vertical placement means having labels.
    • Christoph: labels take space away from the Action/Slot names. I know it’s an Action. The icon also shows. Sybren: yeah, this is why I initially didn’t put the labels there.
    • Sybren: in 4.4 people won’t know the icon for Action Slots yet.
    • Nathan: in the properties editor, all properties (in similar sections) have those labels. So without labels it looks a bit inconsistent. Also agrees with Christoph’s points.
  • Bastien Montagne has PR for various issues with the Action’s idtype property (#128129). Most notably, we have to be careful when reading/writing such idtype properties, and have to adjust this in the Slots read/write code.

Patches: Review & Decision Time

• #124412: UI: Frame Specific Axes
  • Module: agrees this is good idea.
• #127826: Link Animation Data does not update self-referencing drivers
  • Sybren: fix this by detecting self-targeting drivers, and modifying them on the copy? Or add another driver value that says “Current Object”, which will remain valid?
  • Nathan: in favour of the latter, as it is more explicit and will keep workflows working that depend on the current behaviour.
  • Module agrees the latter is the better solution.

Blender Conference

We need to prepare a presentation for Blender Conference.

Sybren will set up git repository for revealjs presentation, and start a HackMD document for the first drafts of the presentation.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on Thursday 2024-10-03T16:00:00Z. Again it will be open for everybody who’s interested. The provisionary meeting agenda will be updated before the meeting.