Parent Switch

Harmony Harmony Feature Requests
1

Hi,

I would like to know if there is already a way allowing an element to have several parent pegs and to switch between them depending on the currents frames needs.

2

Hum, maybe you could try to clone your drawing/element as much as needed and connect it to differents pegs.
Use switch image node to switch between than

View post on imgur.com
3

I would love a peg switch node as well. It would make for easy FK/IK on limbs

Sadly an image-switch doesn’t allow for passthrough, flattening any elements involved.

Another work around is to use the lineart/colorart and overlay/underlay art layers on different drawing swaps, effectively making a switch that won’t flatten. This does limit the number of art layers you can use, and can get a bit dicey with tweens if switching between the two trees.

4

Hi Andersonomori and Marc,

Ah, you start the limb chain from the other end. :slight_smile: That’s smart!
Indeed, cloning the drawing and using an Image-Switch node is an interesting approach.

Thank you Marc, for pointing out the passthrough limitation and the lineart/colorart and overlay/underlay work around!

I could not try this out yet. It would be interesting to know if the Image-Switch is able to swap between more complexe structures, than single image nodes, with composites involved.

I think that all these thoughts could contribute to the developement of a more powerfull Image-Swith node.

But, independently from that, I think that a Parent-Switch node is still worth thinking about.
It would have the advantage that the user would not have to work with cloned drawings or more complexe cloned hierarchies.
In my example I would like to be able to switch the parent of the character’s foot (which, in my case, is more than a single drawing).
I would like to be able to choose if it follows the leg limb chain or if it will follow another peg.

In a certain way, the deformer’s Transformation-Switch is already half way to that.

And, just thinking a bit further… This switch would lead to the need of other new tools like:

  • a function or script to make the child’s position fit to the one it would have when linked to the other parent(s ),
  • an onion-skin-like preview to display the other link’s positions/transformations, allowing to visually align the element’s transformation to the one of non selected link.