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A couple of UX remarks
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Nico Rehberg
Jan 29, 2025, 10:47:24 AMJan 29
to gaffer-dev
Hi,
I just finished a small teaser project here using Gaffer/Arnold and there were a couple of minor UX things that seemed weird or missing to me. I guess half of it is just me doing something wrong, but I wanted to bring them forward in a small list here. If you prefer me to split this into individual topics please let me know.
This is all Gaffer 1.5.1.0 on Rocky Linux
1.) There is no horizontal scroll possible on "text boxes" like the Arnold Log or the trace output in the error popup. So sometimes you have to resize the whole editor to see the full message.
2.) The file picker in SceneReader or ImageReader always sends me to my Python binary folder. Could it get a memory of the last used path? I know there is the Bookmarks/Recent menu. It still feels weird.
3.) The color wheel could use some kind of history. That's really neat in Maya. It remembers the last 10 colors and shows them as little swatches. Great for going back when testing colors or to copy colors between lights etc. How would you copy color values from one light to another light? At the moment I have to copy the rgb values individually. Also, is there some color picker available?
4.) What about a shortcut for Show Contents on Boxes? I'm really used to the Ctrl+Enter from Nuke. I think that would fit here perfectly too. I know there is arrow down/up to go in and out boxes. But I like the idea of having some of them in tabs.
5.) A better visual representation of locked nodes in the Graph Editor could be nice. Like a lock icon on the node? Even though the fields in the Node Editor are a darker grey I always need some time until I realize the node/box I'm in is locked and thus rejects my inputs.
6.) Could you store the playback range in the Script? It always resets to the script's frame range when re-opening a file.
7.) Is it possible to hide USD/Arnold lights by default just like we can hide Cycles lights? I can see lighters mixing Arnold and USD lights without noticing at first. I'd like to use either one or the other.
8.) Is it possible to add drag and drop functionality for looking through spot lights (and cameras)? Like Maya does? So you just drag a light from the Hierarchy view or Light Editor into the Viewer to look through them?
9.) When looking through lights in the viewer it would be nice if the pivot and camera setup of the virtual camera used could be saved in the script. It seems stable as long as the script is open, but after reopening all lights tumble around the origin again.
10.) Could the set attribute on lights be added to the light editor?
11.) When dragging a node into a textfield (linked lights etc.) is there a way to add or subtract from the existing content? At the moment it overrides the whole content of the field. Just like Shift/Ctrl dragging onto a pathfilter? I realize subtracting is tricky, since the field may use wildcards, but just appending at the end should be doable.
12.) Clicking/modifying an attribute in the Light Editor deselects the light. Is that intentional? Feels weird.
Well. That looks like a lot of stuff. But it's all just minor things. I again had a lot of fun with Gaffer and hope I can make it our lighting tool in one of our up-coming feature film projects.
Thanks,
Nico
I just finished a small teaser project here using Gaffer/Arnold and there were a couple of minor UX things that seemed weird or missing to me. I guess half of it is just me doing something wrong, but I wanted to bring them forward in a small list here. If you prefer me to split this into individual topics please let me know.
This is all Gaffer 1.5.1.0 on Rocky Linux
1.) There is no horizontal scroll possible on "text boxes" like the Arnold Log or the trace output in the error popup. So sometimes you have to resize the whole editor to see the full message.
2.) The file picker in SceneReader or ImageReader always sends me to my Python binary folder. Could it get a memory of the last used path? I know there is the Bookmarks/Recent menu. It still feels weird.
3.) The color wheel could use some kind of history. That's really neat in Maya. It remembers the last 10 colors and shows them as little swatches. Great for going back when testing colors or to copy colors between lights etc. How would you copy color values from one light to another light? At the moment I have to copy the rgb values individually. Also, is there some color picker available?
4.) What about a shortcut for Show Contents on Boxes? I'm really used to the Ctrl+Enter from Nuke. I think that would fit here perfectly too. I know there is arrow down/up to go in and out boxes. But I like the idea of having some of them in tabs.
5.) A better visual representation of locked nodes in the Graph Editor could be nice. Like a lock icon on the node? Even though the fields in the Node Editor are a darker grey I always need some time until I realize the node/box I'm in is locked and thus rejects my inputs.
6.) Could you store the playback range in the Script? It always resets to the script's frame range when re-opening a file.
7.) Is it possible to hide USD/Arnold lights by default just like we can hide Cycles lights? I can see lighters mixing Arnold and USD lights without noticing at first. I'd like to use either one or the other.
8.) Is it possible to add drag and drop functionality for looking through spot lights (and cameras)? Like Maya does? So you just drag a light from the Hierarchy view or Light Editor into the Viewer to look through them?
9.) When looking through lights in the viewer it would be nice if the pivot and camera setup of the virtual camera used could be saved in the script. It seems stable as long as the script is open, but after reopening all lights tumble around the origin again.
10.) Could the set attribute on lights be added to the light editor?
11.) When dragging a node into a textfield (linked lights etc.) is there a way to add or subtract from the existing content? At the moment it overrides the whole content of the field. Just like Shift/Ctrl dragging onto a pathfilter? I realize subtracting is tricky, since the field may use wildcards, but just appending at the end should be doable.
12.) Clicking/modifying an attribute in the Light Editor deselects the light. Is that intentional? Feels weird.
Well. That looks like a lot of stuff. But it's all just minor things. I again had a lot of fun with Gaffer and hope I can make it our lighting tool in one of our up-coming feature film projects.
Thanks,
Nico
Murray Stevenson
Jan 29, 2025, 8:58:57 PMJan 29
to gaffer-dev
Hey Nico,
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad to hear you're having fun with Gaffer!
Will need a bit of time to digest your points in detail, but #1 sounds like a definite bug, so I've put up a potential fix to close out my day. With any luck it'll be in a release within the week. https://github.com/GafferHQ/gaffer/pull/6245
Cheers,
Murray
John Haddon
Feb 3, 2025, 12:00:32 PMFeb 3
to gaffe...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 3:47 PM Nico Rehberg <nicor...@gmail.com> wrote:
8.) Is it possible to add drag and drop functionality for looking through spot lights (and cameras)? Like Maya does? So you just drag a light from the Hierarchy view or Light Editor into the Viewer to look through them?
It's worth mentioning quickly that this is already possible, but you need to drag onto the camera icon in the Viewer toolbar.
As for your other points, they all seem pretty reasonable to me. Might be best to open issues for them on GitHub and follow up there (please check first that there aren't any duplicates already).
Cheers...
John
Nico Rehberg
Feb 4, 2025, 10:09:06 AMFeb 4
to gaffer-dev
Ah cool about the dragging. I didn't know that.
I will create some issues later.
Thanks,
Nico
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