Keyframer set pivot point by Click And drag

[Svengali]

FWIW, here's a George Script experiment which uses a two step menu to reposition by dragging the pivot point, then restoring the position of the current frame's contents. But I'm not sure how generally useful it might be.
click to view...

sven

[Xavier]

Guys, I spent this morning (and a little bit more) trying to find out how to answer this request. I think that David's picture is a good summary of the demand

Default pivot point in the Keyframer is centered. The feature request is to be able to click and drag the pivot point to the desired position without changing the position of the image.

reposition the Pivot Point.jpg

However, I must say I'm a little confused about what to do. Looking at the code and the documentation, do we agree that :
- the position (X,Y,Z) values represent the center of the layer (the yellow frame) to move ?
- the pivot (X,Y,Z) values represent the origin of the 3-axis rotation ?

If the above assumptions are correct, then you're right : the pivot behaviour seems a little ackward. Especially when moving the pivot using the (X,Y,Z) input fields, it feels like the picture is moving around the pivot when it should be the opposite.

Anyway I'm not sure if the tool is wrong or if it's misused because the documentation is incomplete. It's complex to use, that's for sure, and it will be complicated to change.

[Xavier]

EDIT: I finally think that :
- position represents the origin of the XYZ rotation axis, by default the center of the layer
- pivot is a very bad name ! to me it's only XYZ shift values that offset the layer from the origin (position)

Well I guess you don't give a ***t about that, but hey I am a scientist I want to name things with their proper names

So now I understand that you'd like to freely move the origin (does it bother you if I rename position to origin ?).

[D.T. Nethery]

EDIT: I finally think that :
- position represents the origin of the XYZ rotation axis, by default the center of the layer
- pivot is a very bad name ! to me it's only XYZ shift values that offset the layer from the origin (position)

Well I guess you don't give a ***t about that, but hey I am a scientist I want to name things with their proper names

So now I understand that you'd like to freely move the origin (does it bother you if I rename position to origin ?).

Sure you can call it the origin point if you prefer. Since TVPaint has an established nomenclature referring to this as a "pivot point" , you may want to consider how much you want to confuse long-time users ...

What we are requesting is that the KeyFramer behave like the Transform Tool in this respect --- the origin point for rotating the position of an object can be quickly and easily set by clicking & dragging the origin point to where the user wants the object to rotate or "pivot" .

https://youtu.be/voAS9ArVyXI

[Xavier]

Thanks for this.

Compared to the transform tool, in the keyframer the pivot point is not the center (or the origin) of the rotation : position actually is.

Sorry, I cannot affort changing that much the interface of the keyframer. It will take too much time, I'd need reinforcements.

[D.T. Nethery]

Thanks for this.

Compared to the transform tool, in the keyframer the pivot point is not the center (or the origin) of the rotation : position actually is.

Sorry, I cannot affort changing that much the interface of the keyframer. It will take too much time, I'd need reinforcements.

An improvement to look forward to in the future, then ! (but please keep it on the To-Do List , because this is an improvement that users have been requesting for over 10 years ... maybe longer ... )

For now the workaround mentioned by Peter Wassink using a Custom Brush (with pivot origin point set to the desired position) as the Source in the KeyFramer works ok. It's an extra step, but it does what we need it to do for the time being until the Keyframer behavior can be improved. (I would suggest this trick with the Custom Brush should be added to the User Manual and/or make a complete video tutorial showing how to set the pivot origin point on the Custom Brush, then use the Custom Brush as Source image in the KeyFramer.)

------

I did a quicky tutorial (with no voiceover, only text), because no time right now to do a proper tutorial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nJ-34uQIYo



.

[D.T. Nethery]

Good to see that this long-requested function to set the KeyFramer pivot point by simple click-and-drag has finally been implemented in version 11.7.1 (Dec. 22,2022)

https://youtu.be/u9WSEWlBODk

(to view the video in Full Screen mode you must click through to watch it on YouTube)