Open Brush, Open Blocks, Icosa Gallery•2y ago

Object Paths Similar to Camera Paths.

So animation (from what I understand) isn't yet possible in OpenBrush. Now I'm no developer, but I think there's already a loophole within Openbrush that could allow for animation. Suppose you could assign pathways to brush strokes like you can with cameras? That feature is already present in vanilla Tiltbrush, so how hard would it be to add an option for group layered brush pathways? Just throwing out the idea in case no one has thought about that before...

6 Replies

andybak•2y ago

I'm working on some of this via the plugin scripting feature: https://docs.openbrush.app/alternate-and-experimental-builds/runtime-scripting That gives me a way to prototype a range of new features without worrying so much about how they integrate into existing functionality. Discussion is over on the #plugins-api-scripting channel

Feature: Plugin Scripting

andybak•2y ago

We've already got the ability to animate layers to follow camera paths (albeit slightly buggy at the moment). And if you're up to a bit of light scripting you can do pretty much anything to the position or rotation of a layer. (Scaling as well in theory but there's a few wrinkles to iron out there)

MurakumoVanceOP•2y ago

Sorry it took me so long to reply to this. I completely forgot to check back to this conversation thread. I've been busy with IRL stuff. Okay, so I had a look at the link you provided. I don't think the video demonstrates a feature like what I'm suggesting. Let me try to elaborate further. I used to work with Macromedia Flash 8 Professional for a long time before it was bought out by Adobe and turned into "Animate." (Terrible name for a software by the way. Makes doing Google research an absolute nightmare!) But I digress. In that software there's a popular function called a "Motion Tween." It is where you can select a placement/orientation of an object at Keyframe A and then select a different placement/orientation at keyframe B.
When you preview that on the timeline, it simulates the movement between. (I'm just explaining this for anyone who may not be familiar with the motion tween vocabulary word.) So what I'm implying with my camera path idea is that the camera already works kinda like a motion tween but with added steps. What if instead of a camera... We were setting specific brush strokes to move on a path? I know it would be a lot of work to get that feature in there, and I also know it'd be a lot of work to set up any real meaningful animation, but I already feel (as an artist) that I can operate at a MUCH faster rate in Tiltbrush than I ever could in Flash. Rigging and animating anything felt like a slog of a chore. Camera paths in Tiltbrush might be somewhat annoying, but vastly easier than typical animation (in my opinion.)

andybak•2y ago

One of the example scripts animates a layer to follow a camera path:

Parameters = {
    layerNumber={label="Layer Number", type="int", min=0, max=10, default=1},
    speed={label="Animation Speed", type="float", min=0.01, max=10, default=1},
}

function Main()
    transform = cameraPath.sample(0, app.time * speed, true, true)
    layers.setPosition(layerNumber, transform.position)
end

Parameters = {
    layerNumber={label="Layer Number", type="int", min=0, max=10, default=1},
    speed={label="Animation Speed", type="float", min=0.01, max=10, default=1},
}

function Main()
    transform = cameraPath.sample(0, app.time * speed, true, true)
    layers.setPosition(layerNumber, transform.position)
end

It's a bit buggy with scaling at the moment and doesn't handle orientation - but those are both easy too fix. Tweening is even simpler although I want to add a few helper functions

MurakumoVanceOP•2y ago

I'll be honest with you. I can't tell what that is, but I trust what you're saying! 🤣 I'm terrible with coding. But I can draw a concept or write you a story NO PROBLEM. If you have anything you want me to beta test, I'm game to do so. In fact... I have a project coming up titled; "Of Bleaks of Blood and Gold" that I aim to complete EXCLUSIVELY with Tiltbrush only. My goal was to make a motion comic web series with whatever animation I can manage. So once this featured has matured, and you feel it's ready for proper showcasing, let me know so I can give it a whirl!

andybak•2y ago

The idea is that the community writes plugins and you can download ones to suit your needs. It's a good way to handle features that are outside the core focus of Open Brush (or new features when we haven't had time to integrate them properly into the UI) For instance - adding the ability to animate layers via plugins was many times easier than adding layer animation as a "proper" feature of the app. I can get features out the door a lot faster and get feedback as to what's useful.

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Object Paths Similar to Camera Paths.