Re: Still struggles using binding :(
Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2023 4:35 pm
Now this is an example of how I would design the terms and the system for clarity (trying to not change the system too much so not much development is needed)
Changes to the system:
Make an option on the Add Bone Tool to select the default force of newly created bones. Make a tooltip system (already made for the tools) for the menu options. That's it.
Changes to the terms:
Flexi-binding: Strength Influence, something like that. It doesn't sound fancy but users just want clarity. Students read this and suddenly know the most important thing: what actually moves the points is the strength of the bones. No strength, no influence. They can intuitively guess that if a point is strength influenced, it can be influenced by the strength of any bone.
They won't be confused by the word "binding" thinking that they have to bind points with the Bind Points Tool or anything like that. "Bind" sounds too selective and too rigid to define an element that can be influenced by the strength of any bone. I think this change improves not only its own clarity but also the clarity of the Bind Points and Bind Layer concepts because the word bind is now reserved to them.
The Flexibinding modes: instead of being called "Flexibinding" (ambiguous, repetition) and region-binding, they would be called just Flexible and Region based or just Region. So instead of having to say: Hi my friend, do you have the Flexi-binding of this rig on Flexi-binding mode or on Region-binding mode? You would say: Do you have the Strength Influence of this rig on Flexible mode or on Region mode? I think one can almost guess what are they talking about without having used Moho in his life.
Release Points: Release selected Points from bones with the tooltip [The points won't be influenced by strength or binds to any bone]
Flexi-bind Layer: Enable Strength influence on Selected Layers with the tooltip [Strength will influence the origin of the selected layers instead of their points].
Release Layer: Release selected layers from bones with the tooltip [The layers won't be influenced by strength or binds to any bone]
Release layer and points: Release selected layers and their points from any bones [The layers and their points won't be influenced by strength or binds to any bone]
Use Selected Bones for Flexibinding: Make only selected bones strength influence selected layers. [The strength of the rest of the bones won't influence the points of selected layers]
Flexi-bind Points: Activate Strength influence on selected points. We don't even need a tooltip for this, I think is just very clear.
Bind Points Tool: as it is, it's just clearer now. Now bind is only used when you need to actually bind something to something.
Bind layers Tool: same.
I think that's it. I'm sure it can be improved. Most names are longer but I think that's fine. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. I'm convinced we would see 10 times less questions about this topic and more debut users would end buying the pro version with changes like these. And it is so explicit that experienced users wouldn't need to learn anything. I probably wouldn't have to check my notes so often.
Alternative: just the tooltips. That alone would save many lives.
Changes to the system:
Make an option on the Add Bone Tool to select the default force of newly created bones. Make a tooltip system (already made for the tools) for the menu options. That's it.
Changes to the terms:
Flexi-binding: Strength Influence, something like that. It doesn't sound fancy but users just want clarity. Students read this and suddenly know the most important thing: what actually moves the points is the strength of the bones. No strength, no influence. They can intuitively guess that if a point is strength influenced, it can be influenced by the strength of any bone.
They won't be confused by the word "binding" thinking that they have to bind points with the Bind Points Tool or anything like that. "Bind" sounds too selective and too rigid to define an element that can be influenced by the strength of any bone. I think this change improves not only its own clarity but also the clarity of the Bind Points and Bind Layer concepts because the word bind is now reserved to them.
The Flexibinding modes: instead of being called "Flexibinding" (ambiguous, repetition) and region-binding, they would be called just Flexible and Region based or just Region. So instead of having to say: Hi my friend, do you have the Flexi-binding of this rig on Flexi-binding mode or on Region-binding mode? You would say: Do you have the Strength Influence of this rig on Flexible mode or on Region mode? I think one can almost guess what are they talking about without having used Moho in his life.
Release Points: Release selected Points from bones with the tooltip [The points won't be influenced by strength or binds to any bone]
Flexi-bind Layer: Enable Strength influence on Selected Layers with the tooltip [Strength will influence the origin of the selected layers instead of their points].
Release Layer: Release selected layers from bones with the tooltip [The layers won't be influenced by strength or binds to any bone]
Release layer and points: Release selected layers and their points from any bones [The layers and their points won't be influenced by strength or binds to any bone]
Use Selected Bones for Flexibinding: Make only selected bones strength influence selected layers. [The strength of the rest of the bones won't influence the points of selected layers]
Flexi-bind Points: Activate Strength influence on selected points. We don't even need a tooltip for this, I think is just very clear.
Bind Points Tool: as it is, it's just clearer now. Now bind is only used when you need to actually bind something to something.
Bind layers Tool: same.
I think that's it. I'm sure it can be improved. Most names are longer but I think that's fine. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. I'm convinced we would see 10 times less questions about this topic and more debut users would end buying the pro version with changes like these. And it is so explicit that experienced users wouldn't need to learn anything. I probably wouldn't have to check my notes so often.
Alternative: just the tooltips. That alone would save many lives.