- Posts: 188
- Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2014 2:37 pm
In Fu9 a 2D tracker had three possible states, selected by the little check box visible to the left of the tracker name in the tracker node. The first was active - shown by a check mark, which meant that the track was used for matchmove calculations etc, and that if "track forward" or "track backward" was run (at the top of the tracker node) it would be retracked for the active frame range.
The second state reached by clicking was "off". This makes the click box blank, and the track is not used for calculation like matchmoving or retracked when track forward or backward was run. But it was still there, you could turn it back on if you decided you wanted it back.
The third state reached by clicking this box was active but not to be retracked, signified by a white ball in the checkbox. This was extremely useful. It meant that while creating a new tracker and running "track forward" or backward you did not destroy or change the tracks already done. This is especially important if you have done a load of by hand tweaks to a track as they will be wiped out if a retrack is run.
And that's exactly what's happening in fu17. There appears to now be only two states - on and off. So now if you run "track forward" on a new tracker and have forgotten to turn all the others off all your by hand work is destroyed. And if you turn the trackers off the green track path still displays in the viewport, so you have to explicitly check the checkboxes to see if they are turned on or off before running any new tracking. As I found out today after a mornings hard work was wiped.
Bizarrely, if you set the checkbox to active but no retrack (the white ball) in Fu9 then read the file in fu17 it comes up and works, white ball and all. So the functionality is all still there. But you only get one chance - if you click the white ball to get to on or off status the ball is gone for good. Which really sucks.
BM - can you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE turn it on again and make the white ball status selectable? It was there for a very good reason and hiding it marks yet another small step backwards in degrading a fast usable UI into one that it is near impossible to work with . . . it's bad enough that the 2D tracker hasn't had any development for over a decade, but now it's actively getting worse!
The second state reached by clicking was "off". This makes the click box blank, and the track is not used for calculation like matchmoving or retracked when track forward or backward was run. But it was still there, you could turn it back on if you decided you wanted it back.
The third state reached by clicking this box was active but not to be retracked, signified by a white ball in the checkbox. This was extremely useful. It meant that while creating a new tracker and running "track forward" or backward you did not destroy or change the tracks already done. This is especially important if you have done a load of by hand tweaks to a track as they will be wiped out if a retrack is run.
And that's exactly what's happening in fu17. There appears to now be only two states - on and off. So now if you run "track forward" on a new tracker and have forgotten to turn all the others off all your by hand work is destroyed. And if you turn the trackers off the green track path still displays in the viewport, so you have to explicitly check the checkboxes to see if they are turned on or off before running any new tracking. As I found out today after a mornings hard work was wiped.
Bizarrely, if you set the checkbox to active but no retrack (the white ball) in Fu9 then read the file in fu17 it comes up and works, white ball and all. So the functionality is all still there. But you only get one chance - if you click the white ball to get to on or off status the ball is gone for good. Which really sucks.
BM - can you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE turn it on again and make the white ball status selectable? It was there for a very good reason and hiding it marks yet another small step backwards in degrading a fast usable UI into one that it is near impossible to work with . . . it's bad enough that the 2D tracker hasn't had any development for over a decade, but now it's actively getting worse!