It seems your ideia is very similar to my plan B, right? with the difference that you can edit the range of each option.
I think it is nice. But I think on this combo box we should have all the automations, and not only the types. I imagine it would get annoying having to go to View > Camera X ... and then change the range in the box... And then goining there again, hiding the camera X, showing the fader, changing the range...
I think we could have this combo, with all the possible lines, and as we change it, it makes the selected automation to be the only displayed and adjusts the range.
Id like to hear more opinions... and your opinion about the plan B.
I liked the contributions of Hermann, and will try to understand better what the "bezier automation" is. What I can say about your point is that we could simply select wich automation tracks we want to see at a time...
cheers
Leo,,
On 7/19/06, Pierre Dumuid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Pierre Dumuid wrote:
>
>> What really annoys me is at the moment, the ranges of the all
>> automation curves (that control floating point variables) are
>> currently shared, (i.e. the range for an audio track, typically need
>> values from -80 to 6 dB), projector / camera zoom ranges are ALWAYS
>> positive, and generally go from .0001 to 10, and projector / camera
>> translation control are generally of the order of -1024 to 1024
>> (depending on your image size).
>>
> ...
>
>> This I consider is the most annoying feature about automation curves
>> and the one that should be tackled first. My proposed solution is as
>> follows:
>>
> ...
>
>> dropdown text box button
>> [type] [ -100 to 100][log/lin]
>>
>> With this idea, each curve is of a type (zoom, translation,
>> audiofade), and the range used on the track depends on the type.
>>
>
> I completely agree with you this is very annoying behaviour; basically
> it hinders gaining any profit of the fact that several overlay curves
> are sharing the same screen real estate: most of the time their scales
> don't match and we are forced to display only one curve at a time.
>
> But I'm rather sceptical if your poposal will make things better. Having
> to navigate with the mouse down to the statusbar and selecting a type
> and entering Values into the text box can be cumbersome as well.
>
The selection of type, and entering of values shouldn't need to be done
that often.
Be aware that the selection of type only changes what is displayed and
modified by
the text-box. And different ranges are used for each type.
In a typical session I would initially set up the fades as:
1. Select the Audio type
2. Set the range (for the audio type) from -40 dB to 6 dB
3. Select the Video fade type
4. Set the range (for the Video fade type) from 0 to 100
5. Select the Zoom fade type
6. Set the range (for the Zoom fade type) from 0.005 to 4
7. Select the translation type
8 Set the range (for the Zoom fade type) from -200 to 200
Then that's it, each of the fade curves has an appropriate range
for most jobs that I do. If I move an "audio fade" type curve from top
to bottom,
the range should be from -40 dB to 6 dB. If I move a "video fade type"
from the top
to bottom of the track should vary the value from 0 to 100. This is
regardless of
the state of the list-box. The list box is only there to select the
range that is
being adjusted / displayed in the text-box (similar to how the listbox
in the preferences
window selects which preferences you actually want to adjust). An
alternative to the
list box and 1 textbox would be to have 4-text-boxes, one for each
automation-type, but
this takes up a fair bit of desktop real-estate.
The only time you should need to move the mouse down to adjust the range
is if you have
a particular section of video that is really dark, or audio that is
really quiet or a translation
that is rather large, etc.. Which shouldn't be that often.
To save having to select the "automation type" range you want to change,
you could add some code, so that
as soon as you adjust a curve, or toggle curves off, both the text-box
and list-box switch to show the range
that is being adjusted, or is still visible. Thus if you start moving
the audio fade up to 6 dB, and find it's still
not loud enough, you'll see the range list-box / text-box has switched
to show the audio-range simply cause it was the last thing you were
adjusting, and there is no extra work of clicking a list box to adjust
the audio range. You just edit the value in the text-box, and voila, an
extra ?? dB to push the signal up..
> Even the current solution seems more steamlined: We have the "overlays"
> window with checkboxes for every overlay type and we have keybindings
> for toggeling the most common curves. And we have the ALT-f key, which
> even works in conjunction with the current selection in a track, i.e.
> it bases the new automation vertical zoom range on the current visible
> curves within the selection of the first armed track.
>
I don't know how this is more streamlined especially for those
proficient with the short-cut keys, (not me).
This method seems to involve turning off all the curves except the one
you want to make the range correct for and pressing ALT-f, and hoping
(fingers crossed) that cinelerra gives you an appropriate range.
It also assumes that user understands the quirky nature of cinelerra,
and uses that rather than implement something
clearly understandable by many newby users.
