Hi,
I want to suggest to give us some coloring options at hand to keep things sorted in crowded scenes. I really often run into situations where I don not know anymore how modules are connected and interacting. Look at the picture and You will see what I mean.
MagicColors.jpg (954.23 KiB) Viewed 6498 times
First of all I see at one glance where my sources are: 7 videofiles, 2 shaders, one image. That is a great help.
Then I can see the way each source is running. I would just right click the output of a source and choose a colour. Then the spaghetties of that source are automatically in that colour. When mixed with other source the colours alternate etc. I decided to mix a max of three colours. I think it sufficcient. But I would not mind to have more.
I respect the developer's efforts to keep the application's branded aesthetic consistent and professional. However, I believe there is a growing list of suggestions on how to improve the UI including the use of colour, even from myself (e.g. colours in annotation and status display).
For me, the objective of using colour would be to focus my performance - so the coloured connectors don't do that for me, nor the coloured title bars. I also relish the beauty of my comps with carefully placed and judiciously minimised nodes and (due to a certain amount of OCD) take great pains to make sure my streams don't cross. Colours, at least in your image, don't do that for me.
I would suggest getting a (large) 4K monitor - space is much more useful than colour in keeping comp crowding contained.
Yes, Sadler, I think you said it well. It is important that there be a consistent aesthetic. If different colors are to be supported, it has to be done cleanly. Your suggestion about having the annotation color be customizable is probably the best one so far, especially when combined with having the annotation visible when minimized.
I really often run into situations where I don not know anymore how modules are connected and interacting
I also relish the beauty of my comps with carefully placed and judiciously minimised nodes and (due to a certain amount of OCD) take great pains to make sure my streams don't cross
Hi,
let me say two things: Visuals come first, user interface has to be most ergonomic in controlling visuals. Nobody ever praised my user interface.
And if "laws" should apply like "Never cross lines" most of my scenes will n ot come to live. That can't be serious. Some of the best are pretty complex and will necessarily have one or more crossings.
Believe me I spend a lot of time and effort to keep things as clean and logical as possible. Tell me where in this scene I could improve. I don't see it. You are right it is - still - confusing and that's exactly why I ask for improvement. It already helps - in my eyes - to use colors in that simple way I did.
I am afraid but scene modules will not help me too much. I manipulate live with some 50 controllers via MIDI. Some of the controls interact very sensibly and fragile. A little too much or less here or there could bring everything to white or black. So I have to see all the modules explicitly.
I do not care how improvements are done. If colors offend aesthetics do it another way. E.g.: Clicking with a mod key onto a node or line will - whatever way - highlite the entire line from source to the next layer module. To me that is less ergonomic than colored lines since You see one logical line only at a time and it is not persistent. But it is better than nothing and it does not change the look.
Still hoping for some progress here.
Best
Reinhard
Since you asked, I think Sadler is spot on about judicious minimizing. There's a lot of real estate taken up in your file by groups of (Scale, Translate, Hue) modules that once set, can be minimized. If they are just positioning for layout, you don't really need to have all those controls exposed all the time.
When I edit, I find that after every input I always have a trifecta of (SCALE, ROTATE, TRANSFORM), and I always minimize those unless they are animated. It's amazing how much even a little blank space between chains of modules can vastly improve the readability of a file.
For working live, I rearrange and minimize everything except what needs to be adjusted, and annotate heavily.
Just a couple more things regarding midi visibility and sub-scenes:
1 whenever a sub-scene is active, its midi assignments will respond. For example, midi assigned in post processing will be active in all comps using it.
2 if you just have to have controlled values visible, plonk them in a global first then they will be visible whichever comp is being edited. For example, all midi assignments in post processing can be done through globals which are then visible in the UI all the time.
That being said, globals have a huge potential are also at risk of becoming over crowded.
in my experience it also helps a lot to use the scene input module. it greatly helps to add a higher abstract level your actual scene where really only the modules that you need exposed are visible. together with the folder view, things stay organised too.
. You can make it look a lot simpler by using Scene modules (