thanks for opening this discussion!
I'm a television professional since 20 years, been working primarily with live action television shows, directing, writing, producing....
Now I'm about to take a new step in my carrier and get into animation on a professional level. (Only been a hobbyist so far, but now I recently have got some serious training under my belt as well)
My animation background is mostly 3D-based, so my workflow has a lot of influences from that style of going about it.
I'm a long time AS user (and eager 2D wanna-be), been around since Moho days and waited and waited for all those serious improvements that collaborative use (in a small studio setting) would require.
Some of them would be:
- file referencing support
- project handling system with foolproof functions when it comes to absolute/relative paths and everything else that concerns moving projects and files between systems and stations...
- a global color reference system.
these would also be important feature additions, I think:
- addition of aim constraint in the bone control menu, to make proper FKIK handling possible. (bone lock is not sufficient, AS needs to get rid of the bad reputation of the "sliding feet-problem".)
- basic raster draw layer (for sketching and thumbnailing purposes primarily)
- addition of the AS community's most favoured scripts into the default script package.
- scripting access to even more parts of the AS system (styles palette, access to all UI controls etc....) Everything that makes it easier for the user to customize AS is good! (Shortcuts to scripts! Customizable menus!)
- much improved motion graph editor (I'll come back to this one...)
I haven't myself put AS to any kind of heavy use or stress-test yet, but if this is true:
....then fixing it would of course be absolute top priority!synthsin75 wrote:Above all else, I think AS needs much better performance. Whether this means 64 bit or not, a handful of point heavy layers shouldn't effect performance.
I'd also like to show support for some of the points that Rudiger mentioned.
Rudiger wrote: 1. Ability to change layer properties and animation keys for multiple selected layers at a time.
2. Be able to create an instance of a layer from either the current or a separate document.
3. Same style options for 3D objects as there are for 2D objects, ie masking, scale compensation, alpha, gradients, brushes, etc. Also have the option to apply the gradient as a diffuse or specular shader, so you could have complete control over the toon shading (similar to jonbo's request).
6. Extend brush system to support natural media simulation. In particular, allow pen pressure to control opacity as well as line thickness. Also, add anti-aliasing to improve quality when brushes are used with small line widths.
7. Switch to construction mode using button instead of moving to frame 0 (as per Genete's request).
8. Bitmap drawing, plus onion-skin support.
9. Boolean operations for shapes and shape-based painting.
10. Change style for multiple selected shapes at a time
Rudiger also said this:
Rudiger wrote: 4. Use bezier handles to control animation curves. Would prefer them to be integrated with the main timeline window rather than the graph window, which I have never found at all useful.
YES, we need better animation curves controls, and my vote is on bezier handles too !!!
And NO, I completely disagree with the opinion that the "motion graph isn't useful". That is where you can (or should be able to) really finetune all subtleties of the animation and do fast tracking of all kinds of "uneveness" and polish your work. Every pro's most important tool for finetuning, in my opinion!
However, it needs some important development, though, before it can be used to its fullest potential.
This is is my wishlist when it comes to motion graph:
- Most important; possibility to select multiple curves for any channel from any object or layer! (Wouldn't hurt with customizable coloring to keep the curves as readable as possible.)
- improved UI control of zooming/panning/navigating in the motion graph window... the zoom and pan values should be accessible to control from mouse or pen movement, after some shortcut key press on keyboard. Simple and UI-intuitive moving and scaling of keys and groups of keys should also be implemented.
- bezier handles (or similar type of control), as already mentioned. The ease-out / in controls don't function as they should and even if they would they are not sufficient.
- full scripting interface for the timeline / motion graph windows and controls overall.
That's my list.
I'll add more stuff to it if I come to think of anything.
cheers!
