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Garry's Mod >  Workshop > Winded's Workshop > Stop Motion Helper > Discussions
Stop Motion Helper
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Alex 22 Oct, 2023 @ 4:42am
Additive Manipulation for Timelines?
Hey, I'm digging the multi-timeline system. It makes my job way easier for a lot of things. If there's one thing I would suggest for it, though, it'd be additive manipulation.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I was trying to animate a model with SMH and noticed that I can't use the same things on different timelines. If you check one, it unchecks the other. I was wanting to animate one set of bones on a model using one timeline, and animate another set on the same model with another timeline. So what it'd do is compare the differences of the timelines and add them together.

Say you move a limb using Advanced Bone Tool, and rotate it like 5 degrees. Then in another timeline you move it 2 degrees. The differences would get compared and they would be added together, moving it 7 degrees. Or if you have a timeline for one set of flexes (such as eyebrows), and another for another set (such as the mouth). One timeline would see the eyebrows are being moved while the other flexes are 0, and the other timeline would see the face being moved while the eyebrow flexes are 0. When added together, the 0's don't do anything as they don't add/remove from each other.

This would allow me to be able to use two different timelines that have different frames and different easing from each other on the same system. I figured this would be used for mostly just physics bone position/rotation/scale, non-physics bone position/rotation/scale, and facial flexes.

I especially wanted this because I was using Advanced Bone Tool on a model with a bunch of individual things, and I wanted certain bones to be affected by one timeline but be separate from the other set that's using different frames and easing.
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Showing 1-5 of 5 comments
PenolAkushari  [developer] 22 Oct, 2023 @ 5:30am 
Technically allowing same modifier to be present on multiple timelines shouldn't be too hard as it was a limitation I've put myself there, probably as to not make it so people would get too lost in case if they've made some messy timelines. Being able to separate stuff into separate bone/flex recordings is something people wanted to have for quite a while, and I was planning to look into implementing that, actually
#1
Alex 22 Oct, 2023 @ 5:37am 
Could make it an option off by default so that people don't break stuff unless they know what they're doing. I dunno. Would the whole "additive" thing work though? Like for some reason if you had one timeline with a flex of 1 and another with the same flex at 0, it combines to be 0.5, or things like that with bone angle/pos/scale?

Or actually, that might not work the way I thought it would... at least with the flex thing.
Last edited by Alex; 22 Oct, 2023 @ 5:40am
#2
PenolAkushari  [developer] 22 Oct, 2023 @ 5:40am 
This one sounds too complicated than it needs to be I guess. Current timelines work in a way that you set up keyframes that you'll see and work with, so if you'd enable same modifier on 2 timelines, you'll be working with same keyframes anyway, in theory. I was thinking to do a rework with the timelines so how they work will be rather different, but perhaps allow better flexibility
#3
Alex 22 Oct, 2023 @ 5:42am 
Yeah it doesn't make as much sense as I thought it would in my head. Because if that was the case a value of 0 on a flex would compare the other flex's value and half it instead of leaving it at 1.

This stuff should theoretically work for bones and stuff just fine, but with flexes it'd have to be, say, -1 instead of 0, if you want to decrease the 1. So you'd add a negative flex value to decrease and 0 does nothing. Or maybe that'd have to be the case with bones too.
Last edited by Alex; 22 Oct, 2023 @ 5:43am
#4
Alex 22 Oct, 2023 @ 5:50am 
Okay, sorry I'm like sleep-deprived and I'm thinking on a whim here.

So for anything, you have zero for a value, it does nothing. Do negative or positive value and it compares to the other.

If you move a non-physics joint to like 40 degrees on one timeline and it's 0 on another, nothing happens. 40 again doubles to 80, -40 resets to 0. Same thing with physics bones.

As for flexes, I don't know if Gmod can store negative flexes. PAC3 can't do negatives, but Advanced Face Poser can.

So I guess I was on the right track in the beginning, but just... thinking strangely about it. When I create another timeline it usually copies the frames from the previous timeline, I usually delete all of them and start new frames from scratch for that timeline specifically. So if I edited joints on one timeline (like I rotated a non-physics joint), and wanted to do something else on another (position a non-physics joint) with different frames, I'd just have to go in with Advanced Bone Tool and reset all my bones back to 0.
Last edited by Alex; 22 Oct, 2023 @ 5:50am
#5
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