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I posted this idea in the off topic thread,
but as i think it may offer some quite powerfull new possibilities for doing keyframe animation
i though it warranted a separate request post.

I would like to see this, what do you think?:

- a new effect... a line FX, which would allow you to animate a simple 2 point spline line
could be very simple... just 2 keyable "coordinates points" and 4 keyable "splinehandle points"
it could also have some other animatable shapes...line, (filled)square a (filled) circle/elipse.
and some parameters like thickness, spacing, jitter...
and the option to add additional points...

Now for it to work it should be able to take whatever parameters the current drawing tool has (color, brush settings etc...) and apply those to the spline
i imagine this part is probably the trickiest to implement...? as it seems it would require either a kind of tool panel within the fx stack... or a way to have the fx stack use the current toolpanel setting.

applications:
- every case where you use the spline tool ... but want it animated.
- animating lines with keys+speed profile allows enables animators to do very subtle line movements.
- a filled elipse is a great way to create an effective shadow under a character.

Hello Peter, this could have many uses indeed. Could you maybe create a very simple animated example of what would be the result of using this FX on a simple drawing so we can have a more precise idea?
Thank you.

It looks a lot like the essence of FX Stack> Rendering > RoboTracking where you can animate splines via keyframes?
Even if this one is still a bit obscure to me, Peter suggestions would be nice for an advanced solution for applying those parameters "where we want".

It's a shame that the FX Stack is a bit underestimated, because it provides so powerful options! And at the same, some FX are quite hard to comprehend...

Dean wrote: ↑14 Mar 2025, 09:24 Hello Peter, this could have many uses indeed. Could you maybe create a very simple animated example of what would be the result of using this FX on a simple drawing so we can have a more precise idea?
Thank you.

Yes, i''ll try to do that!

mox wrote: ↑14 Mar 2025, 16:13 It looks a lot like the essence of FX Stack> Rendering > RoboTracking where you can animate splines via keyframes?

Yes! that is where i got the idea.
i used the rototrack to animate a shape... not for masking out but for a character shape...
and then i wished it was also possible to do lines like that.