[Vote for Me] New Video Describing my PhD Research for #150YOD

Blender community batsignal!   

TL,DR: Please help vote for my #150YOD video (deadline is Thursday/Friday midnight, UTC+12)! Every vote counts!


Like, Share, and Vote (link below)

Vote for my video at the following link:

https://www.thinkable.org/submission_entries/k8Way5qO

Voting Instructions (sorry, that it's a bit of a long-winded process):
1. Go to the competition website
2. Click the "Vote" button
3. Register on the site (Facebook or Email + Name + Password)
4. (If using email, check your email/spam folders, and Activate the account)
5. Back on the competition website, click the "Vote" button again.

Note: You haven't voted until the button says "Remove Vote" and your name appears on the list

POLL - Should Up/Down Arrows be changed back to Jumping 10 Frames

Last week I posted a poll on Blenderartists, but it seems to have been somewhat forgotten. So, just to give it a little bump, a little link-dumping is in order today I think...

See the thread here:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?254152-POLL-Should-Up-Down-ArrowKeys-go-back-to-Jump-10-Frames(Poll-closes-18-May)

Pose Sculpting Feedback Update

It's been a few days since I posted the announcement, so today I've just set up a Google Docs-based survey which should be easier and faster to fill out. So, take a look and help contribute to science!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHc5XzJMdW5ZTC1UYUdoTkpRbWVPd0E6MQ

Bullet Integration Todo List (Poll)

After reviewing the state of the preview I posted yesterday and comparing this against the demos posted by various people over the past 2 years (for what they've been doing and/or need), here is the set of current unsupported functionality that would need to be implemented before this is really suitable for mass consumption:

• Ability to apply rigid bodies to large arrays of objects. These are often similar in many regards, be it shape or colour, and usually need to have the same settings applied to all. E.g. bricks or blocks making up some structure.
• Ability to use rigid body constraints to define how things hold together.
• Stability and integration usability polish. This includes all kinds of book-keeping things such as ensuring that copying, deleting, and changing associations all work without any crashes or weird behaviour.  

Animator Poll - Frame Change Undo

This evening, the old issue of when (and if) frame changes should get their own entries in the Undo Stack. The key question is: Is the current approach in Blender good, or if not, what should be happening?

GSoC11 - Animator Poll #4 - Theme Colours

It's time for another poll. While I'm still working through the results from previous polls, here are some more things I'd like some feedback on, which will (depending on the result) be included on my todo-list of stuff to bunch together for a single defaults-file update.

1) Colour of Current Frame Indicator
As from the screenshots you're probably seen in previous posts of my blog, I've been trialling using a red time indicator (the traditional Blender one is green). After a while, I have to admit that it kind of grows on you. So, should we keep the old green colour, or move towards the red that I've been using?

2) Handle Colours
At the end of the day, this probably won't change to keep consistency with the 3d view, but the colours of the lines for the keyframe handles are perhaps not that clear. Thoughts on whether a new set of colours is needed here, and/or what they might be?

3) Active/Selected F-Curve in Graph Editor - do we need to highlight this better, perhaps using a white glow behind it, or go the Maya route and just highlight it in white?

GSoC11 - Sneak Peek - Strip Handles

Over the past few days, I've been working on the following feature...

Yep, handles for NLA strips.

Although not enabled (visible and usable) by default, they should make it easier to adjust strip endpoints separately if there's such a need.

Currently, more work is still needed for dealing with actually moving these handles, so this won't be available in Pepper branch yet.
Before I carry on any further, I'd just like to check: is there any interest in this, or should I move on to some other issues first, and then come back later?

GSoC11 - Animator Poll #3 - Filtering Option Defaults

Here's yet another poll, this time for more animation-orientated matters. Please keep responses here about the questions for this poll only (i.e. don't reply to a previous poll here at the same time), to make it easier for me to keep track of where things are. Cheers!

GSoC11 - Text Strip Requirements Poll #2

My recent commit of an experimental feature for the sequencer, Simple Title Cards, has generated some interesting debate over this kind of basic functionality for the sequencer. From some responses so far, it sounds like a specific "title card" strip might be too specialised to have, but rather, we should have a more general "text" strip.

This begs the questions:

1. What would you use such text strips for?
2. How much control do you want over how the text is displayed for the uses you've specified?
• a) Text placement... in just a few common places, or freely placed anywhere 
• b) Font size/styling issues - what's needed here?
• c) Text shadows/glow effects? Useful or not?
3. Anything else?

GSoC11 - ANIMATOR ALERT - Small tweaks poll #1

This is just a small poll regarding a few tweaks I'm considering making as part of my GSoC work.

DISCLAIMER: Don't be disappointed and/or start lobbying for some pet peeves just because they aren't on this list yet, as those will come later.

Ok, with that out of the way, here are the proposed changes:

1. Actions should NOT get "Fake Users" by default. If you want to create actions that have fake users (namely for creating libraries of actions in a file), then you can manually enable fake users on those actions as necessary. But for the majority of users, this will mean fewer problems with heaps of empty actions dangling around in a file.
2. Is the default behaviour of pasting keyframes in Animation Editors right? Check out the various options you have for this via Operator Properties (F6), and get back to me on which set of settings is preferred most. Hopefully there'll be a consensus on this that I can use.
3. Should borderselect select keyframe handles too in the default keymap? The current keymap assigns keyframe-only selection to BKEY (for consistency with Action Editor), and keyframe/handles selection to Ctrl-BKEY. The two different selection schemes are in place, as it's all to easy to accidentally catch overlapping handles while trying to select keyframes (using the old-style Ctrl-BKEY), hence the two different options. So, this question asks whether these hotkeys should be swapped for convenience for most animators.
4. Does anyone actually use the Time-Slide transform tool in DopeSheet (currently Shift-T in my branch, TKEY in trunk)?  Would anyone seriously miss it if I removed it, and if so, what's the man use of it?

This should be enough for one poll. More polls coming soon as necessary :)