Pierre Dumuid wrote:
What really annoys me is at the moment, the ranges of the all
automation curves (that control floating point variables) are
currently shared, (i.e. the range for an audio track, typically need
values from -80 to 6 dB), projector / camera zoom ranges are ALWAYS
positive, and generally go from .0001 to 10, and projector / camera
translation control are generally of the order of -1024 to 1024
(depending on your image size).
...
This I consider is the most annoying feature about automation curves
and the one that should be tackled first. My proposed solution is as
follows:
...
dropdown text box button
[type] [ -100 to 100][log/lin]
With this idea, each curve is of a type (zoom, translation,
audiofade), and the range used on the track depends on the type.
I completely agree with you this is very annoying behaviour; basically
it hinders gaining any profit of the fact that several overlay curves
are sharing the same screen real estate: most of the time their scales
don't match and we are forced to display only one curve at a time.
But I'm rather sceptical if your poposal will make things better. Having
to navigate with the mouse down to the statusbar and selecting a type
and entering Values into the text box can be cumbersome as well.
The selection of type, and entering of values shouldn't need to be done
that often.
Be aware that the selection of type only changes what is displayed and
modified by
the text-box. And different ranges are used for each type.
In a typical session I would initially set up the fades as:
1. Select the Audio type
2. Set the range (for the audio type) from -40 dB to 6 dB
3. Select the Video fade type
4. Set the range (for the Video fade type) from 0 to 100
5. Select the Zoom fade type
6. Set the range (for the Zoom fade type) from 0.005 to 4
7. Select the translation type
8 Set the range (for the Zoom fade type) from -200 to 200
Then that's it, each of the fade curves has an appropriate range
for most jobs that I do. If I move an "audio fade" type curve from top
to bottom,
the range should be from -40 dB to 6 dB. If I move a "video fade type"
from the top
to bottom of the track should vary the value from 0 to 100. This is
regardless of
the state of the list-box. The list box is only there to select the
range that is
being adjusted / displayed in the text-box (similar to how the listbox
in the preferences
window selects which preferences you actually want to adjust). An
alternative to the
list box and 1 textbox would be to have 4-text-boxes, one for each
automation-type, but
this takes up a fair bit of desktop real-estate.
The only time you should need to move the mouse down to adjust the range
is if you have
a particular section of video that is really dark, or audio that is
really quiet or a translation
that is rather large, etc.. Which shouldn't be that often.
To save having to select the "automation type" range you want to change,
you could add some code, so that
as soon as you adjust a curve, or toggle curves off, both the text-box
and list-box switch to show the range
that is being adjusted, or is still visible. Thus if you start moving
the audio fade up to 6 dB, and find it's still
not loud enough, you'll see the range list-box / text-box has switched
to show the audio-range simply cause it was the last thing you were
adjusting, and there is no extra work of clicking a list box to adjust
the audio range. You just edit the value in the text-box, and voila, an
extra ?? dB to push the signal up..
Even the current solution seems more steamlined: We have the "overlays"
window with checkboxes for every overlay type and we have keybindings
for toggeling the most common curves. And we have the ALT-f key, which
even works in conjunction with the current selection in a track, i.e.
it bases the new automation vertical zoom range on the current visible
curves within the selection of the first armed track.
I don't know how this is more streamlined especially for those
proficient with the short-cut keys, (not me).
This method seems to involve turning off all the curves except the one
you want to make the range correct for and pressing ALT-f, and hoping
(fingers crossed) that cinelerra gives you an appropriate range.
It also assumes that user understands the quirky nature of cinelerra,
and uses that rather than implement something
clearly understandable by many newby users.
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