Copyright (C) 2017 Alan Odom [email protected]
Created by Alan Odom
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
The initial reason behind developing these nodes was to provide a system to read MIDI files and produce animations from them, rather than having to keyframe everything - a long and labour intensive process.
From there, I have developed other nodes that take complex tasks, with standard nodes, and turn them into easily achievable node trees. Everything these nodes do can be done with either script nodes, or expression nodes, but that requires a great deal of knowledge of Python and Blender structures, so these nodes take all that away.
I also added a "Bone" socket to allow for easy manipulation of bones in AN. I know this can be done without the new socket and nodes built around it. However, the collection of bone nodes make it easier to animate bones without having to use script, or expression nodes.
Some of the nodes are very "niche" in what they do, but they make my life as an animator easier, in that they take away the need to develop complex python code in script nodes each time I want to do something out of the ordinary (this happens a lot!).
Some nodes, particularly the DAW ones, may be "experimental" and are included for collaboration purposes, they are not yet ready for full production. On-going experimentation has always been part of my IT objectives and I am quite happy to share this code here and open it up to critique and comment.
If you would like to help with development, or suggest more nodes you would find useful, please contact me via email.
These nodes are to add to Version 2.0 or Animation Nodes, which requires official releases from Blender, i.e. NOT Buildbot versions!
They come with no warranty, but have been extensively tested. I will produce a help file later, as time permits.
The bone.py file should go in this directory:
.../Blender/[version number]/scripts/addons/animation_nodes/sockets
The node_menu.py should go in this directory:
.../Blender/[version number]/scripts/addons/animation_nodes/ui
to replace the one that is already there - keep a backup copy of the original in a safe place somewhere else.
The other files should go into a new folder in this directory:
.../Blender/[version number]/scripts/addons/animation_nodes/nodes
That new directory should contain an empty file named __init__.py - create this with any text editor or copy one from another AN directory. This can be downloaed from the top level directory as an option.
Have fun and mail me [email protected] with any questions. Operation is fairly intuitive, but be aware that the MIDI nodes require MIDI files in CSV format, not generic MIDI - search the web for a good converter - there are several out there, but this is the one I use:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/midicsv/
Comments will be gratefully received, along with improvement/enhancement suggestions.
I have added the Materials nodes, Input and Output, don't forget that if you only want one or two of these, just load these into an empty folder in animation_nodes/nodes directory and don't forget the empty __init__.py file in the folder, or they won't work.
Some updates may not be included in the latest release, the code can be obtained from the idividual files if required. All updates have a date when they were uploaded.
Updated the repo with the latest nodes today. MIDI nodes have been altered to reflect increased knowledge by myself and better working methods. MIDI/AUDO Live nodes are now loaded for user testing, these nodes are designed to take input from MIDI devices and sound input to drive animations.
DAW nodes are new and VERY EXPERIMENTAL, i.e. not ready for use, they are here for collaboration purposes just now and require a great deal more work.
Menu has been altered to separate the "Clockworx" and "ZeeCee MIDI" sections, DAW nodes are not in the menu yet.
I have not included a relaease at this stage, nor have I updated the manual pages on my website yet.
I need to make the Live MIDI into an Add-on at some stage, or maybe even all the nodes, but this will require more time.
My Vimeo Channel https://vimeo.com/user85352464
Major revisions and new release- 2.0.3
Changed directory structure to separate nodes, menus and sockets, searated ndoes in DAW, MIDI and General.
Added __init__.py - top be placed in any node directories containing these nodes
Moved out of date nodes to old-nodes directory, you can ignore these, but I have left them there if they are of any use to anyone. Major changes to MIDI nodes, old Bake and Control nodes combined into new node, updated working practices for this system. Common functions now moved to new python file "midi_functions.py" - this MUST be in the same directory as the MIDI nodes.
Added Sound nodes to master/nodes/daw directory, preliminary build, needs testing
Cheers, Clock.
PS. I am rebuilding my website: https://clockmender.uk but it will take some time. There will be a set of pages explaining how to use these nodes, I have started though!
PPS, there are examples of the use of these nodes in my Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfOCIvThm1sCoG0NqZkgaAg/videos?shelf_id=0&view=0&sort=dd
Or look on https://blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?16-Works-in-Progress - just search for me by name: "clockmender"