About target location and NLA animation

Hi,

I have a couple of questions about the camera and about animating the scene. I'm using the add-on and its wonderful built-in interactivity blocks, and unfortunately I can't do any coding.

I prepared this simple example scene to illustrate my problem:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0ct7if_2_PuakhvUTVXbXJ4MTg/view?usp=sharing
(sorry, you have to download the .html file and view it in browser)

Basically, I'm doing a product presentation where the product breaks down in pieces by clicking different buttons, so that client can see inside the product and how it's made. As you can see from the example, the parts fly quite far away from the main object, and it's a bit difficult to view the parts from different angles because the camera's target location is centered to the cube. It would help a lot if I could animate the "target location" in the camera's blend4web settings, so that when I click the button, the target location would move to desired location. Then I could rotate around these specific parts (in the example, cones) and then come back to the main assembly as I press the button again.

The new version (14.11) does include "panning mode", which allows user to move the center point by hand. But that doesn't quite solve my problem, because it's easy to lose your focus point somewhere and the rotation easily becomes quite awkward when you can't get the camera to center on the main assembly again. This is purely an aesthetic problem, but it's an important one as in customer projects usability is really important…

Another problem with panning mode is that I can't make stationary billboard buttons anymore, because they move on the screen when the center point moves. If I could animate the target location, I think I could also animate the billboard buttons' locations accordingly, so that they would remain stationary on the screen.

And one more thing that I'm wondering about: is it possible to do non-linear animation with the add-on's logic blocks? I mean animation that's not fixed to the timeline. So as an example: if I wanted to do a scene where these product parts can be opened and closed independently, I wouldn't have to animate every single possible combination of opened and closed parts, but rather just animate every object independently and then have the add-on read and animate them independently as the user clicks them.

I know I could probably do these things with coding, but it would be SO much easier and faster without… And to me at least this camera target location seems like a relatively small thing, as the interface and usability is already there in the add-on. (it's possible to animate the target location in blender but the add-on doesn't recognize it)

Sorry about the long post… This add-on is really powerful and amazing, I'd just want to ensure I'm getting the most of it because it's so cool :)

Woah!

Firstly I need to ask about moving billboards: I parented a plane to the cam and it's actually following the cam everywhere and NLA script works. Can you please send .blend file with your problem?

Here is my html

And about targeting on objects and non-timeline-based NLA scripts. Well, right now it can't be done without coding But it is in our to-do list, so we will definitely make those things possible

Btw - in our developer viewer already exist possibility to center on selected object - select object and press Z button :)

Wait… parenting works in the add-on!? Wow, I always just got an error message saying "object-parent relation is not supported, please clear parent's inverse transform", and I thought it's not possible… Now I got it to work, this is awesome

Unfortunately I can't send you the original .blend, as it is a confidential project, but there's really nothing there to see. Billboards are fine (more so because parenting actually works, holy moly that makes things easier…) The problem here is animating the camera's center of rotation.

Thanks for this already, the parenting makes things so much easier! I can't believe I didn't try to clear the inverse trasformation when the error always came… Also, it's awesome that non-linear animation is coming

Ответ на сообщение пользователя Pavel Kotov
Woah!


Here is my html

If it exists, point me in the direction for a tutorial on setting up this simple html.

SOLVED: https://www.blend4web.com/en/article/70

Ответ на сообщение пользователя aleksi1
Unfortunately I can't send you the original .blend

Well, the problem is solved, so there's no need to look at it
Glad it helped

Ответ на сообщение пользователя trepaning
If it exists, point me in the direction for a tutorial on setting up this simple html.

I see you found what you needed, but anyway here you go :)