Visibility range visually not clear

[samytichadou]

This is a kind of feature request.

I like the ability in friction to set or not a visibility range to a layer, but i find the visual representation unclear

In the image above, i'm totally unable to know if the first layer ("no range") has a visibility range which is outside the viewed timeline on screen, or do not have one.

In addition, it is not clear to new comers (ae users for example) that a layer with nothing in the timeline to represent it is in fact a layer always shown

[pgilfernandez]

In the image above, i'm totally unable to know if the first layer ("no range") has a visibility range which is outside the viewed timeline on screen, or do not have one.

Yes, it could confuse users... what solution would you suggest?

In addition, it is not clear to new comers (ae users for example) that a layer with nothing in the timeline to represent it is in fact a layer always shown

Well, this is kind of a obvious thing when you know the basics of timelines, keyframes, etc. as if there is "nothing in the timeline" it mean that there are no keyframes or animation of that parameter... BTW, what would you suggest here or how is this handled in AE?

[samytichadou]

Yes, it could confuse users... what solution would you suggest?

I guess something like that could do the trick, if a layer is shown, on the timeline, a color block always represents it.

If it does have a limited visibility range, it is only present at full color level within the range obviously, and at a lower color level outside the range.

If it does not have limited visibility range, the color block is always present with a color variation (on the mockup, i put a grey bar in the middle).

This allows user to quickly know if the playhead is in or out the range, and that this layer has a limited visibility range. And we can still use layer color blocks from the timeline as visual cue (friction could allow user to change these colors in the future to help with complex scene)

What do you think ?

Well, this is kind of a obvious thing when you know the basics of timelines, keyframes, etc. as if there is "nothing in the timeline" it mean that there are no keyframes or animation of that parameter... BTW, what would you suggest here or how is this handled in AE?

No it is not obvious, i was talking about the "color block", not the keyframes

In this image the rectangle 0 is shown for a limited time, and the rectangle is always shown. This is not clear, even when knowing about timeline and animations. To me, it seems that i'm only looking at rectangle 0

AE does not deal with that because everything has a limited visibility range in it. This friction's feature is awesome in fact, to be able to have "infinite layers". But i think it should be clearer.

[rodlie]

The visibility range is not a core feature, more like an afterthought. Should probably only be used to limit the visibility of a layer/group, or for adjusting audio/video clips.

It might need some work, and as you say might confuse users(?), not been a priority on my side since I only use it for audio/video clips.

[rodlie]

Also note that my background is node based compositors (Shake, Nuke, Natron, Fusion), not AE, so my views on how things work might not always be the best 😃

[pgilfernandez]

I don't remember if I asked it before or not but here is my point:

• I don't really find why this feature is useful as you can always animate opacity and get a similar result
• visibility range doesn't allow you to have several ranges, just one and if you need it it "splits" into 2 different objects...
• it might be useful for audio/video clips, if then, it could maybe be a feature for just this kind of assets...

[samytichadou]

my background is node based compositors

Yes i understood, and clearly in node based software, the logic about that is totally different. But i think you are really close to something totally clear/usable, it might "just" be some UI/naming thingies

not been a priority on my side since I only use it for audio/video clips

I understand that, but take a look at this AE screenshot (not saying everything should be copied from this devilish company, this is just as a reference :) )

The timeline is kind of crowded/complicated, and even motion design element have visibility range to be able to check in a glimpse where we at in the animation

In opposition, here is a timeline of a logo anim i made in friction

I let "unlimited visibility range" when i did not needed to have it, and the visual result is way less clear than AE screenshot to me, visibility ranges play a big part in that for me.

[samytichadou]

Oh and another thing, with visibility range toggled on, you can move all keyframes quickly, by drag and dropping the range itself.
Without visibility range, you cannot, this should be a feature available in both cases according to me

[pgilfernandez]

Oh and another thing, with visibility range toggled on, you can move all keyframes quickly, by drag and dropping the range itself. Without visibility range, you cannot, this should be a feature available in both cases according to me

Yes! I knew it and to me it's the best feature it has, hehehe

[samytichadou]

I don't remember if I asked it before or not but here is my point:

* I don't really find why this feature is useful as you can always animate `opacity` and get a similar result

* `visibility range` doesn't allow you to have several ranges, just one and if you need it it "splits" into 2 different objects...

* it might be useful for audio/video clips, if then, it could maybe be a feature for just this kind of assets...

The visibility range feature is useful to me as long as it does not make a timeline messy.

Real life example :

I have a lower third text to present someone in a tv show to export as a separate asset.
The tv show also have a "bug" (a logo in a corner wich is always shown).
The live graphic operator wants the title asset to include this bug (easier to him/her). I had this situation in real life a bunch of times
So you'll have to export the logo (which does not move) with the title (which is animated).
You'll use the visibility range in the title animation, because it is easier to see what is display or not in a glimpse, and some elements disappear during the animation.
But the logo would be an unlimited visibility range -> you do not have to worry about its duration, even if you change your scene/composition duration.

I had a lot of situations were a layer duration was not right in AE, because comp duration was changed after the animation was created, and we had to export it again. The unlimited visibility range is a good way to fix that !

Maybe another way of "deconfusing" newcomers would be to have limited visibility range by default, and unlimited as an option, like in other layer based software ?

And about animating the opacity, you can imagine in a 200 layers scene how a mess it could quickly become... to me this could not work as a replacement of limited visibility range

visibility range doesn't allow you to have several ranges, just one and if you need it it "splits" into 2 different objects...

Having several visibility ranges though could be something, and visually clear, but the ui/ux to use that would be really important

[LPS-github]

"Maybe another way of "deconfusing" newcomers would be to have limited visibility range by default, and unlimited as an option, like in other layer based software ?"

As someone coming from After Effects this would have been very helpful to get me started. When there was no indication of the layer (visibility) and only frame numbers, it was difficult to know if I was even actually affecting the correct element.

As it was said samytichadou in the previous comment, this is not to simply copy features from the bad company, but since it resembles it and it is layer based, it would be reasonable to expect similar behaviour.

I personally tried enve, fricition several times, dropped it, then came back to it only after I saw the tip videos on peertube.

To be clear I would prefer that any element that was static, such as a graphic element would be represented by a layer line that spans the duration of the scene, and anything with a fixed duration, such as audio or video would have visibility of only what content is available.

And yes, the ability to move around "layers" and retain the position of existing keyframes is critical, as in AE, since it allows for easy adjustments of timing.