zickkie / armature-graph-tools

Tools for a better Armature-oriented Animation Workflow inside the Graph Editor

Armature Graph Tools

• Overview

When you work with a really big amount of Animation Curves in Blender's Graph Editor you may want to hide some of them (which you don't need to inspect currently) in sake of making the Graph Editor workspace more clear and readable. However the presence of the FCurve at the main Sheet doesn't affect the list of the Groups in the left panel of the Graph Editor. Which means you'll need to scroll this list all the way down searching for the Groups containing those very FCurves you wanted to left visible.

Generally this add-on was inspired by this claim. It doesn't add the functionality meant in this claim (as we cannot simply subtract the Groups from the Graph Editor with Python API) but at least helps you to keep the list of the Groups in a more organized way.

The second sector of the add-on is dedicated to synchronize the visibility of the Grpah Editor's FCurves with the relevant Armature's Pose Bones in the Viewport. You can also force it to syncronize the Pose Bones visibility not with the Visible FCurves but with the Selected ones (in other words, with those which keys are selected in the Graph Editor).

⚠IMPORTANT The add-on works only for the Armature (Pose Bones) animation as it is the most popular case in character animation and often leads you to the way where you have quite a big amount of the FCurves

• Placement

After being installed the add-on will emerge in the Graph Editor's N-Panel in the Armature tab. This tab will be vivible only when your Active Object is of Armature type.

Filter Curves

• Use Case

Filter Selected

1. Select the Keyframe Points of the Animaton Channels you want to be filtered.
2. Click on Filter Selected button.
3. This operator will move all the Groups that countain Selected Fcurves to the Top of the list in the Grapf Editor.
4. The FCurves that are Selected but not groupped will be groupped under the "UNGROUPPED" label.
5. All the Groups that contain the unselected FCurves will be collapsed.

Filter Visible

1. Select the Keyframe Points of the Animaton Channels you want to leave visible and press Alt+H (or in the Menu: Channel -> Hide Unselected Curves).
2. Click on Filter Curves button.
3. This operator will move all the Groups that countain Visible Fcurves to the Top of the list in the Grapf Editor.
4. The FCurves that are Visible but not groupped will be groupped under the "UNGROUPPED" label.
5. All the Groups that contain the hidden FCurves will be collapsed.

• Additional Functions

The Filter Selected / Filter Visible operators are executed taking two additional functions (placed on the top of the button) into account:

1. Expand: all the filtered Groups will be Expanded while the others will stay Collapsed
2. Pin: all the filtered Groups will be Pinned while the others Unpinned (pinning will let you clear/change the Pose Bones selection and still have the ability to have these filtered Groups placed in the list of the Channels in the Graph Editor)

Sync Pose Bones Visibility

• Use Case

Sync Visibility

1. Select the Keyframe Points of the Animaton Channels you want to leave visible and press Alt+H (or in the Menu: Channel -> Hide Unselected Curves).
2. Click on Sync Visibility button: that will hide all the Pose Bones which animation is not among the Visible FCurves of the Graph Editor, and it will reveal all the Pose Bones which animation is visible in the Graph Editor by revealing its Layers and/or muting its "Hide" Drivers and/or just unhiding them in the Viewport if they were previously hidden.
3. After dealing with Visibility Syncronization if you would like to go to the initial Armature state (by "initial" the Add-On understands the state of Pose Bones and Armature Layers visibility as well as "Hide" Drivers muting that was present at the moment before you click on "Sync Visibility"/"Sync with Selected Curves"). In that case you will need a Restore Visibility button.

Sync with Selected Curves

1. Select the Keyframe Points of the Animaton Channels you want to sync the Pose Bones visibility with.
2. After selecting some Keyframe Points instead of hiding the other FCurves you can just click on Sync with Selected Curves: it will make those and only those Pose Bones visible which FCurves (Keyframe Points) are selected.
3. Restore Visibility to leave this mode when you need it.

• Additional Functions

1. Drivers: whether to override or not the existing Drivers that define the Pose Bone visibility. If turned on (it is by the Default) then all the Drivers that hide/unhide Pose Bones will be mute until the initial Armature state is restored.
2. Layers: same here, whether to affect Armature Layers or not. If turned on then Pose Bones at the hidden Armature Layers will become visible by making such Layers visible.

3. Freeze Layers: exclude some certain Armature Layers from any Add-On's affection. In other words, Pose Bones at these layers won't be touched no matter should they stay hidden or be revealed.
4. Freeze Bones Names: exclude Bones that contain the given string in its name from any Add-On's affection. You can use * symbol for a wildcards search (e.g. *chest will exclude both hestand CTRL-Chest controllers from the Add-On's job, *spine will exclude Spine1, Spine2, CTRL-Spine and so on). You can also turn on the Case Sensitive search.