Re: [CinCVS] Re: Fixing the faders and automation lines
Hello,sorry for the delay.Rafael was in Spain, and now that he is back we can start working on this. Pierre. You got it right my plan B. I meant the track panel and I meant that you would only see one automation at a time. I also like to see few automations at once, but not in the way that it is today (if one line is over another you only the one at the top... this is only one of the problems...) Thats why I like the alternative of having a specific track for each automation (like ardour). anyway. Rafael should join the conversation now. I think he should study the code to see whats possible to do with the time we have. Then we discuss what is the best solution. What do you think?Leo,, On 7/20/06, Pierre Dumuid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Leo germani wrote:> Pierre,>> 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 really don't get the "Plan B"... by the "left panel" I assume you mean the "track panel", and thus you are talking about selecting whichautomation curves to see for each track still. In your case, it seemsplan B want to restrict the user to seeing only 1 curve at a time, which I would hate (when trying to simultaneiously fade, and re-position aprojection, and having both of these syncronised!> 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 you are still confused. please re-read my discussion, ( I don't know how to be any more clearer than what I'v already said!)> 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. Remember, some people (myself included) like to see a few automationcurves at once.
Re: [CinCVS] Re: Fixing the faders and automation lines
Leo germani wrote: Pierre, 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 really don't get the "Plan B"... by the "left panel" I assume you mean the "track panel", and thus you are talking about selecting which automation curves to see for each track still. In your case, it seems plan B want to restrict the user to seeing only 1 curve at a time, which I would hate (when trying to simultaneiously fade, and re-position a projection, and having both of these syncronised! 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 you are still confused. please re-read my discussion, ( I don't know how to be any more clearer than what I'v already said!) 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. Remember, some people (myself included) like to see a few automation curves at once. begin:vcard fn:Pierre Dumuid n:Dumuid;Pierre org:The University of Adelaide;Mechanical Engineering adr:;;;Adelaide;South Australia;5005;Australia email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Postgraduate Student tel;work:8303 3847 tel;home:8388 5727 tel;cell:0407570263 note:CRICOS Provider Number 00123M x-mozilla-html:TRUE url:http://www.adelaide.edu.au version:2.1 end:vcard
[CinCVS] Re: Fixing the faders and automation lines
Leo germani wrote: 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. Hi Leo, wouldn't it be better to hook this into the "overlays" window, which alredy has a checkbox for every possible automation type and basically does the same as selecting View > Camera X (etc) ? One has to think what happens if the user selects a combination of several automation types though... but in this case it could simply be left alone. So, when the user toggles one or several buttons in the overlay window and the current selection is of one type (fade, audio, camera), then the dropdown proposed by Pierre will update and the range re-adjusted accordingly I liked the contributions of Hermann, and will try to understand better what the "bezier automation" is. I was a bit sloppy with the terms... basically, there is: Automation | +FloatAutomation +IntAutomation +ModeAutomation +MaskAutomation +Keyframes FloatAutomation and IntAutomation can be showed as automation curves as overlay on top of the track. IntAutomation are toggles, e.g. the "mute"-toggle of the track. ModeAutomation is the Mask/Alpha-Addition-Mode of the track, eg. "Normal", "Additive", "Subtractive", "Multiply", "Divide", or "Replace" For FloatAutomation, every automation node has a "value" (a float). The corresponging cuves are bezier curves, i.e. every node has tangents on both sides and the curve is smooth and bends as you drag the tangents (=control points of the bezier curve). In-between values are interploated using this bezier curve. One could think this is almost the same as for the plugin parameters, but it isn't. Plugin parameters /could/ be float values, but it is up to the specific plugin to interpolate values between the automation nodes (called keyframes here). Most plugins do only linear interpolation and there is no way to modify/control this via gui Cheers, Hermann signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [CinCVS] Re: Fixing the faders and automation lines
Pierre,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... cheersLeo,,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 boxbutton>> [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 donethat often.Be aware that the selection of type only changes what is displayed and modified bythe 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 type2. Set the range (for the audio type) from -40 dB to 6 dB 3. Select the Video fade type4. Set the range (for the Video fade type) from 0 to 1005. Select the Zoom fade type6. Set the range (for the Zoom fade type) from 0.005 to 47. Select the translation type 8 Set the range (for the Zoom fade type) from -200 to 200Then that's it, each of the fade curves has an appropriate rangefor most jobs that I do. If I move an "audio fade" type curve from topto bottom, the range should be from -40 dB to 6 dB. If I move a "video fade type"from the topto bottom of the track should vary the value from 0 to 100. This isregardless ofthe state of the list-box. The list box is only there to select the range that isbeing adjusted / displayed in the text-box (similar to how the listboxin the preferenceswindow selects which preferences you actually want to adjust). Analternative to thelist box and 1 textbox would be to have 4-text-boxes, one for each automation-type, butthis takes up a fair bit of desktop real-estate.The only time you should need to move the mouse down to adjust the rangeis if you havea particular section of video that is really dark, or audio that is really quiet or a translationthat 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-boxand list-box switch to show the rangethat is being adjusted, or is still visible. Thus if you start movingthe audio fade up to 6 dB, and find it's still not loud enough, you'll see the range list-box / text-box has switchedto show the audio-range simply cause it was the last thing you wereadjusting, 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, anextra ?? 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 thoseproficient with the short-c
Re: [CinCVS] Re: Fixing the faders and automation lines
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 boxbutton [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. begin:vcard fn:Pierre Dumuid n:Dumuid;Pierre org:The University of Adelaide;Mechanical Engineering adr:;;;Adelaide;South Australia;5005;Australia email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Postgraduate Student tel;work:8303 3847 tel;home:8388 5727 tel;cell:0407570263 note:CRICOS Provider Number 00123M x-mozilla-html:TRUE url:http://www.adelaide.edu.au version:2.1 end:vcard
[CinCVS] Re: Fixing the faders and automation lines
Hi Leo, Hi Pierre,
the last weeks, I spent quite some time on implementing a patch for an
issue closely related to this. So, I think it's great you want to
participate, and maybe we can join forces or at least I could assist
in understanding the code involved in rendering and manipulation of
the automation curves. :-)
To recap, I am in the middle of a large editing project and bound to
use the automation feature rather heavily, and I found it quite
cumbersome to use. It is nice we can have fades and pans, but given
professional needs, I found myself hand-editing the tangent of
almost every automation node, because some of the behaviour of them
is annoying at least. So I started a patch to improve handling of
bezier automation curves. See the Threads called "Bezier curve
alternative?" and "Bezier automation" about a month ago.
Meanwhile, I got interrupted by two sound recording jobs I had to
do, but today my patch is »almost done« and just needs some
polishing. Last week on irc, Johannes Sixt asked me if I could
port it over immediately to Cinelerra 2.1, so I didn't publish
anything new. But, of course, if there is interest, I could
produce a patch based on the "latest Version of Cin 2.0-CV"
(which is r836 in Subversion, IIRC), before the merging up
to Cinelerra 2.1 started.
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 boxbutton
> [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.
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.
Pierre Dumuid wrote:
> I do want to say, that I currently LOVE the ability to manually set
> the limits of the ranges by typing the values in.
Absolutely. This is a strength of Cinelerra not to be sacrified.
E.g in ardour, the current value of an automation node or segment
is shown as a hint while dragging, and the values are quantized to
0.1dB. Getting a segment constant to say exactly to -6dB can be
quite a challenge...
Leo germani wrote:
> Plan A:
> Build Ardour-like automation tracks: it means you would have,
> on the left panel, the option to show or hide the automation tracks
> of your choice, wich would be subTracks of the track you are working
> in. On this track all you see is the automation line of the selected
> automation (fade, CameraX, etc...). You would be able to see one or
> as many automation tracks as you like at a time. I think this is the
> best way cause also opens the door for, later on, someone add all the
> effects to this. For example, the PluginKey frames could migrate to
> the automatinoLine style. So I could automate, lets say, the HUE
> parameter of the Color Balance effect.
And we should add, the handling of the mouse wheel in conjunction
with SHIFT, ALT and CTRL is very nicely done in ardour.
But, without wanting to dilute your proposal in any way, we should note
this approach gets cumbersome rather quickly at larger projects. Given a
typical Session (classical music, medium sized orchestra, some singers),
I find myself soon scrolling up and down through tons of automation
tracks, either beeing forced to orient myself all the time ("what the
heck is the track I'm currently in here), or forced to decode which
parameter of which plugin to select and to show and hide, beeing rather
distracted from listening and working with the sound altogether.
What I am dreaming of would be sort of "View Combinations"
(similar to the free combinations of stops found on large pipe organs):
They would be freely configurable and c
