The first batch of upgrades for the animation editor are now live! There are some major changes and fixes to the editor as well as to how future bugs will be reported. The goal here is to get the editor into the hands of developers as we improve it so that bugs can be found, as well as helping new developers get into animation.
This post is updated for [size=4]V2.2[/size] of the editor.
[size=4]Getting The Editor:[/size]
This is an update to the ROBLOX Animation Editor. It is not a new plugin. If you already have the ROBLOX Animation Editor, please go to your “Manage Plugins” button under the “Plugins” tab in studio and click “Update” on the editor.
If you do not have the editor, open ROBLOX Studio and go to this link and install it. You will need to restart studio, and then the editor will be in the plugins tab.
[size=4]What’s New:[/size](Green = new in 2.2)
[ul]
[li]New theme[/li]
[li]Scrolling joints list, rather than taking up more screen space[/li]
[li]Change length button[/li]
[li]Keyframe options menu (Also can be dragged)[/li]
[li]Importing fixes[/li]
[li]Live animation lerping (disabled by default, enable in + menu)[/li]
[li]Autosave feature[/li]
[li]Ability to add and remove time, without scaling keyframes[/li]
[li]Help menu (waiting on flag to enable)[/li]
[li]Grid below rig (using extents of the rig model)[/li]
[li]World space / local space move/rotate[/li]
[li]Lerp math fixed[/li]
[li]Timeline recode, to fix dragging issues[/li]
[li]Timeline scaling (zooming and scrolling left/right)[/li]
[li]Custom timeline snap increments[/li]
[li]Settings menu[/li]
[li]Undo / Redo (Shift-Z / Alt-Shift-Z)[/li]
[li]Lerp enabled by default[/li]
[li]Invisible part selection toggle[/li]
[li]Custom move / rotate increments[/li]
[li]Persistent settings (Cursor snap, increments of drag/ticks, length)[/li]
[/ul] [size=4]Known Issues (Green = fixed in 2.2):[/size]
[ul]
[li]Grid slightly unaligned on larger custom rigs[/li]
[li]Text slightly too big/small in some buttons[/li]
[li]Play will sometimes not reset properly. [/li]
[/ul]
[size=4]Github Repository:[/size]
For users who want to upgrade the animation editor or make fixes themselves, you can now get these published to the official editor! We have added the animation editor rbxmx into the ROBLOX Studio plugins repository. Please feel free to fix bugs or implement features here! Try to keep your changes self contained so that they don’t conflict with other changes in progress, however this may not be possible in some cases.
Repository: GitHub - Roblox/Studio-Tools: Built-in ROBLOX Studio Lua plugins
[size=4]Issue Submitting & Tracking:[/size]
Using Github we can also track current issues with the editor as well as have users submit the issues. If you have an issue, please submit them here: Issues · Roblox/Studio-Tools · GitHub
Please include repro steps. Without steps to reproduce the issue, it will be very difficult to fix. So if you find a bug, try to figure out how to make it happen again!
[quote] “Help menu (waiting on flag to enable)”
Lol, out of all the things they don’t want to enable the help… Okay. [/quote]
Or maybe I only submitted the change recently, so it isn’t out yet, but I still wanted top ROBLOX developers to be able to use the editor without waiting for this change to happen
You guys should upload a plugin icon instead of using the default for such an important plugin lol
Davidii worked on it previously and is responsible for a lot of the new features mentioned in the OP, but his internship is up (probably because he had to go back to school), so now Rukiryo who is still an intern took on the project.
The “Change Length” is really small, as are the timeline numbers, and I’d imagine someone with poor eyesight might have trouble reading them.
If you look at time 0 and time 2, they clip outside of the black timeline background bar
The timeline should use the least number of significant figures in relativity to all of the numbers. If you have 0, 0.1, …, 2, you don’t need the trailing 0 at the end of the numbers. If you had 0,1,…,20, no decimals should be displayed.
I also got this error after I selected a root part (it was probably because I deselected the other dummy previously, causing the animation editor to disappear, and then opening the animation editor again might’ve caused it)
It would still be amazing to be able to play animations without running our whole game
I mentioned in the OP that I’d be rewriting the timeline. That will deal with all dragging, timelabel, etc issues. The change length can be resized. Play/Reset will be added to known issues for sure. That needs fixing. For the meantime, lerp works great to preview.
Davidii was going to work on animation tweening or whatever it’s called where you could have an elastic animation for example where it’d overshoot the next keyframe a bit and then slide back to where it’s supposed to be (if it were inverted elastic). I don’t see that in the OP anywhere. Is that still going to be a thing?
That change requires me changing animations as an object, not just the editor. That sort of change would require that it be approved. That’s not my decision but if I’m told to implement it then I can add that!
Did you read the part in the OP about how users can now submit changes? That’s right, you can fix that and submit it
Just be sure to test it first.
I’ve never used github before so that’s why I didn’t submit a modified version and instead asked you to do a quick fix-it. If it’s that big of a deal though I’ll figure out how to do it.
Edit: Apparently I’m not supposed to copy/paste out of the Animation Editor page (I was wondering why there wasn’t a “Select All” button) and instead am supposed to download all of the studio tools in a zip and then open the animation editor separately.
The entire point of the github repository is so that people can fix things that bug them instead of waiting for it to be fixed. Making rigs build faster isn’t high on my list of priorities, and I like watching the rig build itself because it lets me find it when it spawns, as well as the effect. These waits also serve to ensure the rig is set up properly!
Edit: Apparently I’m not supposed to copy/paste out of the Animation Editor page (I was wondering why there wasn’t a “Select All” button) and instead am supposed to download all of the studio tools in a zip and then open the animation editor separately. [/quote]
That’s because you’re directly editing the place file. Download the file and upload it back with the changes you’ve made.
[quote] Er… The code has all of this weird XML syntax throughout it:
Edit: Apparently I’m not supposed to copy/paste out of the Animation Editor page (I was wondering why there wasn’t a “Select All” button) and instead am supposed to download all of the studio tools in a zip and then open the animation editor separately. [/quote]
Yes, that is how a rbxmx file works. Hence the “x” for XML. The point of this file format is to allow users to collaborate and diff between file versions. It’s really cool and underused. When you commit to the repository, it will show what lines you changed so we can approve / deny a change.
Love the new animation editor. Not sure if it’s just me, but my entire ROBLOX Studio seems to be faster, not to mention playing and exporting animations is a lot smoother. Keep up the great work guys!
Okay, I removed the waits and I think I created a pull request properly. Does it look like I messed anything up with the pull request (well, first, did it even go through?)
Did you thoroughly test it? Those waits were in place to make sure nothing welded incorrectly. Because studio isn’t a running game, sometimes weird stuff can happen.
