Control Influence of operators by Curve (ease in/out)

[Alexx31]

I would like to propose a simplified feature suggestion, of something I suggested once before:

I'm still missing the option, to control the overall influence of an operator, if I want its effect to fade in or fade out softly.
(typical ease in/out in animation)

We have the Interpolation as a workaround to let the influence increase in certain situations.
But "Interpolation" is only working in one direction, and it's limited.
(and I know, some smart people will suggest complicated workarounds, which force to leave the event and unnecessarily blow up the flow).

This is about simplicity and intuitivity and a non-flow-destructive workflow, about an ease-to-read flow with easy control.
And this is about a simple non-destructive control method, which everybody knows from every animation software:

It would be great to have a curve, that gives control to increase the influence of an operator (within a given time range)
and another curve to decrease the influence (within a given time range).
Not only frame or event numbers in combination with randomness, and not timetests.
And explicitly for the purpose of getting the effect of any operator faded in and out.

This sounds like a small thing, but has huge impact on possibilities to get control,
and in more intuitive working (a curve gives a clear visualization)
and helps in combination with animation workflows (which need clear timings and not testing with simulation).

Thanks for considering.

Thanks

[tyFlow]

This suggestion isn't as simple or straight forward as it sounds...

For many operators, ease-in/ease-out doesn't make sense at a fundamental level. For example, what does ease-in/ease-out do in a Voronoi Fracture operator? Or a Resample operator? Or a Set Target operator? Ok fair enough...we rule out any operators which don't simply apply forces to particles. But ease-in/ease-out could mean many things for force-based operators. For example, in a Force operator that applies a wind force to particles...should ease-out mean that particles come to a stop at the end? Or just have the applied wind force amount be lowered to zero? 'Ease-out' would probably imply the former to users at first glance, even though the latter is the only option that would really make sense, otherwise it's not simply easing out...it's also applying a negative damping force as well.

Not to mention that many operators already have keyframe sync options (in their 'Keyframes' rollout)...which allows users to control values with curves that can be synchronized to particle age and such (so in the wind force example, you can already control influence with a curve, by setting keyframes on the 'multiplier %' parameters of the operator)...this is the closest thing to ease-in/ease-out that I can think would be useful to implement. And v1.009 will also have interpolation curves for extra interpolation control (in operators that support interpolation).

So yea, easing is a common concept in animation, yes, but it can't be easily applied as a universal option in the type of history-dependent system that tyFlow is...beyond what options (keyframe sync and interpolation curves) are already implemented.

[Alexx31]

Thanks for your reply!
Yes I‘m thinking mainly about scale/rotation, speed and forces etc. – things that come into play with crowd simulation and single actors.
But also destruction processes (e.g. lowering binding between particles).
And Voronoi would start at zero cuts and end at the the full amount of cuts.

The idea is, that „zero“ means the same as if there was no operator and 100% is the standard.
Just like the transparency of an effect layer in aftereffects can be lowered and animated (but in this case only for the ease in/out). 
Maybe this makes sense for all animation related operators.

I have a lot to do with animation and there is of course always a gap between simulation (extreme testing with values to see what happens) and animation with keyframes.
I have used all settings in Tyflow, also in exchange with others.
I have also heard in paid tutorials from „mega“-experts, that this part is limited („interpolation“, „we are forced to leave the event with a time test“ etc.)
It’s not just my perception.

The great outstanding strength of Tyflow is, that it gives something between simulation and animation.
If you provide a bit more controls for animators, it would lead to new possibilities of integration.

And yes you can always use this cumbersome 3dsMax curve editor, but all readability of the flow is gone.
And as a Maya (since 3 years in Max, too) user I can’t use it really, it’s so bad in Max. (that’s another topic, but I know several Maya users who seitched only for Tyflow to Max, and believe it or not, I’m mostly better in Max than they are).

Maybe you just have this feedback in mind
Sometimes there are tools, you didn’t know you need them until they were there
I just remember a decade of discussion in zBrush, whether a Gizmo is needed for professional people. And now it’s there and unthinkable to have it not.