OK, that's a lot of suggestions. Thanks. I'll try to reply below.
Coweetie wrote:I'd have some suggestions to make animating a little more handy, don't knof if someone already suggested it.
-bigger canvas size (so that if a stickfigure gets outside of it, you can move with the scrollbars left/right/up/down to it) or a zooming feature for the whole canvas.
It sometimes happen to me that I have some figures outside the stage and press ctrl+a and then scale everything bigger(for example). that way I kinda "loose" my figures outside the stage. I have a lot of figures in the file most of the time, scrolling through with the mousewheel is not a good solution,since I don't know which figure i am currently selecting with it. selecting one part of attached segments doesnt help since i cant select the whole figure then, to get it back by for example using "move to center"
-seeing the stickfigure name when selected (maybe somewhere on the bottom? or in a sort of list of figures?) would be helpful for when a figure is outside of the canvas, and also when using lots of little sticks, especially when replacing them in every frame (I do that when I need to edit something in after I made the animation)
I intend to add a status bar at the bottom of the window at some stage, like the figure builder has. It will show information about the frame and selected figure/s. That way you know what figure you have selected. At some stage I may add infinite canvas/zoom, but that will probably be in Pivot 5 or later.
Coweetie wrote:
-whole figure is marked when selecting the center joint of a combined figure (when a figure is very big and parts get out of the canvas, but are attached to the figure- or when it has alot attached figures and you have backgroundsticks there too. can be confusing to need to select all the right joints in each frame)
Nice idea. You can draw a selection rectangle around a joined figure, but I know that that may select other figures you don't want to select if you have a complex frame. Maybe Ctrl+click origin handle selects all attached figures.
Coweetie wrote:
-ability to change nodes color-would be helpful for multiple stick use)
I don't understand how this would help with multiple figures. But I intend to add the option of changing handle colours in the next version by modifying the ini file, not in the options form.
Coweetie wrote:
-lock nodes on stage (so they cant be selected or moved the time it is locked)
would be helpful when certain sticks should stay on place while moving everything else
Do you know about Ctrl+H for turning off unselected handles? Useful when you have many figures.
Coweetie wrote:
-A little display maybe for rotation and length information of the selected segment (would be VERY helpful for tinier movements and to get a segment back to original length. that autosnapping you implemented somehow doesnt work all the time, for example when the segment is much longer)
See about the status bar. Tell me more about why snapping doesn't always work?
Coweetie wrote:
it maybe would be nice to edit length and rotation directly with numbers (writing in 121° to rotate it from 120 to 121)
I think it would make the interface too complex, but the status bar could let you know what the angle is.
Coweetie wrote:-as often said, the polyfill for 3 or more nodes :D also the copy and paste from one frame to another, which I already saw you implementing.
Probably in Pivot 5. Copy and Paste selected figures is done.
Coweetie wrote:Kind of a preview of one frame, where you see the output without what is around the stage (animating mode:nodes visible, preview mode: no nodes visible, and you cant move something then). the nodes sometimes cover what I need to see. exporting to an image everytime just to see what I have is time intense.
See above about Ctrl+H. If you only see the origin of unselected figures then you'll have a much better idea of what the frame looks like. I'll have a think about this though as it would be easy to do.
Coweetie wrote:I know that you want to keep pivot simple. those are just some suggestions which could make the usage maybe a bit easier for, maybe, experienced pivot users. I find pivot a really great program, and I like the idea of it. adding stuff like the above would simplify the animating itself by reducing the time expenses.
for example:
I need half an hour for making a decent background, but only because I need to "fill" everything with segments when I want to have a color in it. I want to be creative in this program, but having to "fill" stuff like this, breaks it down enormously.. Iyes, I could use sprites, gut I want to move stuff in my backgrounds.)
Not sure what you mean about move stuff in backgrounds.
Coweetie wrote:
Having, lets say, 50 frames done and editing a new figure in takes me about 5 to 8 times longer just because I have to reposition the figure again all the time. (but as I said, it seems you already make copypaste. : D )
I need to search for the right stick too long (in my opinion) when it happened to be outside the canvas. it happens to me when accidently resizing all figures. (once deselected- not intentionally- they're kind of lost outside.)
Selecting all joints of one stick with attached segments is in my opinion just annoying when i want to resize the whole figure.
Can you not drag a selection rectangle around the figure? As I said above I may add the ability to select all attached figures.
Coweetie wrote:When I have border sticks (for decoration at the borders of the stage for example) which I dont want to resize, I need to deselect them everytime / only select those I want to resize. its no big deal, until there are more than ~30 sticks in the stage (counting in the attached segments too, because you have to select all of them separately)
Again, can you not drag a selection rectangle to select all figures inside the border figures?
Coweetie wrote:
I hope I could give you some good ideas with this. And I hope you don't think too complicated about them, those Ideas are just suggestions to make animating in pivot more attractive and handy.
Thanks a lot. I've written several ideas down so I won't forget them.
Coweetie wrote:you can copy and paste a frame from one piv to another, therefore you have the figure. you cant combine it though with previous frames (which I think peter is implementing, at least from one frame to another in one piv by now)
but if it is a figure with attached segments you still have to built it new in your previous frames, if you meant this...
Copy and paste is now done and you can copy and paste between piv files like you can with copy and paste frames. You can select a group of joined figures and they will stay joined once they're pasted.
Coweetie wrote:you already can stretch a segment with ctrl, it would be cool if oyu could stretch all attached segments of one joint with for example ctrl + alt. (just as you can do in stickfigure builder with edit mode, but directly on the stage)
Yes, this was suggested before. I'll write it down again. It won't be ctrl+alt though because that's now used in 4.2 for rotating a figure without scaling.