I wanted to see if there would be any interest in an open source project specifically for animation tools/workflow. Some may be familiar with my suite of tools which include Graph Editor Redux, Digital Pose Test and a new one I’m working on which is Timing Chart. GER in particular is a great framework for small animation scripts. I’ve had many great suggestions over the years of helpful tools which I was happy to code up. But I can’t help thinking that if it were truly open source that there would be more feedback given. I have given licenses to several companies for the source code but of course, then I have no idea how they add to it after that.
The other thread about how to distribute tools to protect yourself has got me thinking about this area. Like I explained there, I have been burned in the past and that’s why I purposely made my tools closed. But in my research into open source and the various licenses has proven quite interesting. I found a great video which I highly recommend. Yes, it’s 2 hours long but I finally understand what the issues are:
I now understand how sneaky the GPL is and why most studios are probably breaking the law when giving PyQt based apps to any contractors if they also aren’t distributing their source as well.
Back to my thought about making an Animation Tool Open Source project - I would lean toward the EPL or LGPL license.
I’d avoid GPL derived licenses if possible. Many legal departments get the hives when they see GPL (even LGPL) because they have heard horror stories about the plain GPL. BSD is a lot less scary to your average legal dept, I doubt it would cause any studio to pass up on things.
Yes, I understand about GPL. That is why PySide is LGPL and is why studios are moving to use that instead of PyQt. According to that video, BSD is way too permissive.
But, license choices aside, the question is if there’s even any interest in a community for this project. It makes no sense to open source it if I would still be the only one developing for it. One of the unique things, which I haven’t seen in other tool collections, is that I fully embrace Qt and take advantage of the opportunities for great interaction design. Yes, it means the users have to go through a bit of pain to get PyQt set up. But it’s so worth it.
Can you elaborate a bit more on what you’ve got in mind for the project? The idea of doing some collaborative toolset certainly appeals to me. I always end up dabbling in small projects in my spare time and doing something a bit larger, and more focused, sounds more satisfying.
I’d be interested in this as well, could you explain more what you have in mind, and how you plan on developing this?
I think there is a need for small open source modules to deal with some of the common things we have to write over and over again, color pickers in QT, maya menus, p4 wrappers with more features, file watchers, batch tools, tools deployment.
I feel that if each of those modules were able to stand on their own, or with a couple of dependencies the initiative can take off.
Whenever I see a maya “suite” with every bell and whistle known to man, I kinda feel that it becomes hard to manage, extend it and support it.
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I think there is a need for small open source modules to deal with some of the common things we have to write over and over again, color pickers in QT, maya menus, p4 wrappers with more features, file watchers, batch tools, tools deployment.
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This sounds pretty coooool! So I’ve just started building my own Art Pipeline Framework (WORK IN PROGRESS) and would also like to hear more about what cgjedi has in mind!
My goal is to build a solid but easy to use pipe/framework. I plan on having a quick install and a user friendly custom tool setup for non tech artists. I want them to be able to add their
own tools into the drop down menu or once they download.