Hello!

I've heard that SideFX is working on new UI/UX and on new tools for animators so i wanted to add my 5 cents specially becouse they said that are listerning to users at last presentation.

My perfect dream UI for animation will combine functionality from few DCCs, First: Pixar Presto (spreadsheet on right bottom of screenshot) its used for dealing with lots of morphs i gueass. then from bottom : Maya curve editor. its kinda perfect in terms of colours. Its also standard now, so do not reinvent wheel, just copy it , then there's keyframe editor from Cascadeur, best i've seen so far with lots of feedback. At the top of them theres of cours animbot with all magic utils that can do to curves (https://animbot.ca/home/) <- check that out, lots of examplase on their site.

On the right up side is Blender's outliner wich i belive is the best ATM. even Maya one isnt that readable and clear. and finally there's pose library - where you can actually blend poses together, not just set them like it is in Houdini now. And this purple box is custom made spiners with custom shapes imported to DCC where you can link any parameter you want and have quick access for animator. It's very important! it could be vector .SVG



Zoom of Pixar's Priesto spreadsheet. (note custom made buttons at tom for selecting groups. its better and more compact than having hierarchy tree that takes half of screen)



Second mode could have philosophy close to Akeytsu UI. (https://www.nukeygara.com/) where everything is displayed in viewport. including splines, spiners and sliders wit custom shapes made by animator as he wanted them to look. Again those custom spiners could be made by importing .SVG file and then automaticly added feautures like highlighting when mouse is over etc. for nice visual feedback. here's Akeytsu screenshot:



And here are shown how animators work at Pixar using Presto, mayby it's good for inspiration i bet that Houdini will make best looking with best functionality UI for animators ever Good luck!



And what are Your ideas for new UI? wich existing software have best features and why?

oldteapot7
And here are shown how animators work at Pixar using Presto, mayby it's good for inspiratio

That's not Pixar using Presto, thats Disney using Maya.

@mestela Yeah my mistake ive link wrong file. But still animating its basicly the same. i mean, modelling is moving vertexes and animating is basicly selecting and moving controll objects and keyframes Thats why UI is so important for animators. Anyway here is one i wanted to link (its about subdivs wich Presto is using) but you can see animation workflow there (around 18:30 min) Strange its from Autodesk channel..

oldteapot7
I've heard that SideFX is working on new UI/UX and on new tools for animators

Where did you hear this?

Some of the tools look pretty good. I think for now your best bet is to submit RFEs and if you don't want to wait, to implement these using Python/Qt. I am sure most if not all can be implemented in Python. But it would take a significant amount of time and effort.

I myself implemented a fair bit. There are others who made things like this:



If I remember correctly Adam Swaab also implemented some kind of NLE animation editor.

Akeytsu is such a great little app. It's sad that they couldn't get enough funding.