Magic Music Visuals

At present, the image module resizes images to fill the output window while maintaining aspect ratio. This presents problems when bringing in images for animation that have been scaled relative to each other in an external program prior to MMV. The model node has Size and Centre options, can the image node have these too?

Also scaling and rotations operate around the centre of the output window and it would be good to scale and rotate about points more appropriate to the image (or model for that matter).

Related to this are guides, grids and reference points which can all be done with plugins or polygons and scaling and translations but would be super convenient if they were properties of the output window.

Another related suggestion is to add interactivity to the output window to allow elements to be placed visually. I realise there may be several nodes that contribute to any elements position but in the simplest case of one translate node this would make certain tasks much more efficient.

There have been some great animations done in the program and, I think, these features would promote more and make many other tasks easier.

The model node has Size and Centre options, can the image node have these too?

Yes, I'm not sure why I never thought of adding a Size parameter, but it seems perfectly reasonable .

What would Center do though? An image doesn't have a position like a model does. There's no way to *not* center an image.

Also scaling and rotations operate around the centre of the output window and it would be good to scale and rotate about points more appropriate to the image (or model for that matter).

Well, for that it's really just a matter of translating before rotating/scaling... right?

Related to this are guides, grids and reference points which can all be done with plugins or polygons and scaling and translations but would be super convenient if they were properties of the output window.

Yes that does seem useful .

Another related suggestion is to add interactivity to the output window to allow elements to be placed visually. I realise there may be several nodes that contribute to any elements position but in the simplest case of one translate node this would make certain tasks much more efficient.

I thought about this for a long time when I was originally designing Magic v1.0. The problem is that the simplest case rarely exists, except maybe when you are at the beginning of creating a new scene. But after that, it gets complicated very very quickly, especially when using 2D effects that cause the original source element to be "lost" as part of a larger image.

I'll give it some further thought though.

What would Center do though?

Mmm, I seem to have something in mind at the time but now doesn't seem too logical. I was having difficulty centering concentric equilateral triangles and it occurred to me it would be easier if it would rotate about its circumcenter (or whichever centre coincides for all the triangles) - but that's a different kind of centre. Squares were easy, triangles not so much.

Well, for that it's really just a matter of translating before rotating/scaling... right?

Right, except you have to translate, rotate/scale and then -ve translate. An anchor point, especially when combined with a gizmo, would make animating dancing robots much more intuitive.

Anyway, thanks for giving it some thoughts. If you, or anyone, has some ideas about efficiently centering triangles I'd love to hear some suggestions.