Up & Animate ‘Em - Dreams v2.58

From day one, Dreams featured a powerful animation system. You can animate any tweakable property, and the animation tools work hand-in-hand with Dreams’ logic tools, letting you effortlessly create dynamic experiences.

But (you knew there was a but coming, didn’t you?) the system doesn’t come without flaws. Being so friendly with the logic system meant that animation gadgets could end up costing a lot of gameplay thermo. On top of that, while the similarities to the logic workflow make it really intuitive, going back and forth between stamping keyframes, managing a timeline, orienting the camera, and posing the thing you’re animating can make the process more time-consuming than you’d ideally like.

Enter this update. We’re introducing a whole bunch of new features to the Action Recorder that let you smoothly create detailed animations that barely put a dent in the gameplay thermo, addressing some of the frustrations you may have encountered while creating in Dreams. We’re really excited to get this into your endlessly-creative mitts and we can’t wait to see what you bring to life!

Elsewhere in 2.58, we’re releasing our final batch of Create Mode TLC features (our sixth!). These quality-of-life improvements include hex code support, new 3rd-person camera options for the Controller Sensor and a handy new Preferred Doorway tweak to make testing a whole lot easier. Check it all out in the notes below!

Important Note!

You’ll need to download this new update in order to reconnect to Dreams servers. If you have any issues with downloading the update, reconnecting to the Dreamiverse after the download is complete, or encounter any other issues as a result of the update, please let us know by submitting a support ticket.

What’s New? (Animation)

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect from the animation update. For some more informative words and (really rather cute) videos, head over to Up & Animate 'Em - A Guide on indreams.me.

The Animation Canvas

We’ve added a spiffy new canvas view for the action recorder, which you can use to manage its contents in a heap of ways:

• Select, move, clone, delete, split or merge footage.
• Make footage empty for blending with the non-animated state.
• Edit the easing, strength, springiness, and smoothing of the blending between bits of footage.
• Apply stepped blending for a classic stop-motion effect.
• Solo/mute specific animation tracks.
• Wire into the Action Recorder’s playhead.

New Recording Modes

The Action Recorder has four recording modes - the Action Mode you know and love, plus three additional recording modes, bringing the functionality of previous gadgets to the flexibility and precision of the animation canvas! Check them out…

Keyframe Mode

• Record individual poses, allowing for more precise and detailed Action Recorder animations.
• A setting to enable or disable automatic blending of adjacent recorded keyframes.
• A preference for whether the Action Recorder should default to Action Mode or Keyframe Mode.

Possession Mode

• Record Controller Sensor actions, a lot like the old Record Possession, but with the added benefit of the new Animation Canvas editing features.

Physics Mode

• Record the motion of selected objects while time is running, so you can bake physics simulations, logic-driven motion, and old expensive animations into action recorders.

Navigation Shortcuts

• A shortcut to smoothly scroll the Action Recorder playhead (useful for positioning the playhead for recording or previewing your animation).
• A shortcut to jump the playhead between bits of footage (useful for quickly navigating your animation or aligning the playhead with some footage).
• A shortcut to step the playhead frame-by-frame (useful for precise editing and navigation).

Action Recorder Editing

• Insert/Remove Time shortcuts to easily retime animations.
• A shortcut to delete only the currently previewed block of footage instead of de-animating the entire object.
• A shortcut to make the currently previewed block of footage empty.
• Selecting animated objects while scoped into an action recorder will highlight the corresponding footage of those objects in the recording bar. While an object is selected, time insertion/removal and jumping between footage will only apply to the selection’s footage.
• Added a confirmation screen for the Retake button on the action recorder.
• The Keep Changes tweak is now turned off by default on action recorders.

Action Recorder FK/IK Management

• Added the ability to switch between animating in FK and IK within the same action recorder.
• Added a new visual to indicate overlapping FK/IK poses.

Visual Tweaks

• Added a frame counter to the recording bar to show the playhead position and length of the animation.
• Added detail to the recording bar to show different types of footage: red blocks for action/physics recordings; yellow lines for keyframes; purple blocks for possession recordings.
• For animated motion, the preview path now only shows a +/-3 second window instead of previewing the full motion.

Optimisations

• Action recorders that animate lots of objects have received a significant performance boost.
• The gameplay thermo cost of various gadgets/things has changed:
  • Individual animation gadgets (action recorder, keyframe gadgets, possession recorders) cost slightly more Things gameplay thermo due to the new features.
  • All other thing types (sculptures, paintings, non-animation gadgets, connectors, etc.) have received a small reduction in Things gameplay thermo cost.

What’s New? (Create Mode TLC #6)

This update also brings you our final Create Mode TLC update, featuring a bunch of quality-of-life improvements.

• Added a range of new 3rd-person camera tweaks to the Controller Sensor:
  • Vertical tracking responsiveness
  • Ground height/rotation tracking
  • Look ahead timing
  • Collision avoidance
  • Transition timing
  • Auto follow/level
  • Camera rotation speed/acceleration
  • Min/max pitch
  • Angle adjustment input
• Added the ability to input a hex code for colour tweaks by hovering the tweak and pressing +
• Added the ability to input a hex code for the colour picker by hovering the menu button and pressing +
• Added a tag-like positional gizmo to the Wireless Transmitter, giving you more control over how the transmitter is detected by receivers.
• Refreshed the defaults on the Text, Number and Dialogue Displayer visuals.
• Added a new Preferred Doorway tweak to make testing logic in scenes with multiple entry doorways easier.
• Fixed a bug with the Impact Sensor that caused it to output inconsistent values for how hard the impact is.
• Added a North indicator to the floor visual so that Elements can be made at a consistent orientation.
• Changed the icon of the Light gadget to indicate whether it’s on Spotlight or Diffuse.
• Tweak sliders now show an infinity symbol in cases where zero means infinity (e.g. Follower: Max Distance).
• Made the minimised Slider gadget respect the Number of Decimal Places tweak.
• Made the Emitter’s emit position default to the grab point of the target (if one exists).
• Switches and Sliders are now visible and interactable when they are in a different scope.
• Node gadgets in a different scope show their name when hovered.
• Adjusted the initial distance from the camera when bringing in small elements for stamping.
• Trigger zones now can take scope into account when detecting the camera. This includes Camera gadgets, the Controller Sensor third-person camera, and the Edit Mode camera.
• Added an output to the Emitter’s Scene Space Transform tweak. This outputs the transform of the Emitter’s gizmo when it has a target object set, or a zero transform if it has no target set.

You Spoke, We Listened - The Delete Button

Before we get onto bugfixes, let's address the trash can in the room. After our server migration many of you expressed concern over the positioning of the Delete button on the cover page, your worry being that you might accidentally delete something. Worry no more! This update moves the Delete button to the top-right of the page, neatly circumventing your Dreams-honed muscle memory. Everything else in the flow remains the same.

Bugfixes

• A few crashes and performance-related issues in the Dreamiverse.
• Issues related to playlist navigation and search results.
• Issues related to the Limits Info page and buttons not updating correctly.
• Users were unable to publish Imp Quest creations via the versions page.
• VR Icons Update screen was shown incorrectly.
• An issue related to UI inconsistencies in the homespace.
• Issues related to moderating creations.
• An issue related to releasing a creation with long version notes.
• An issue where text overlapped in Update Mode.
• The “unable to stamp object” warning appeared over all versions of Elements or Collections in the Versions & Release page.
• Incorrect text showing on the Add a Collaborator page.
• Users briefly lost the ability to select photos in the Photo Management screen.
• An issue causing multiple warnings to be sent to a collaborator whilst they are editing a collaboration creation.
• Results on the AutoSurf completion screen displayed incorrectly.
• An issue when a user attempts to save photos when close to their maximum storage.
• Thumbs Up counter on photos would not update correctly.
• Element/Collection filters for My Collaborations provided incorrect results.
• An issue where the unarchived icon was not displaying correctly.
• The Background Opacity button would disappear while editing a collection.

Boot Screen

• Inspired by their work on the animation trailer(opens in new tab) Sinéad Oram and Dave Campbell have created a colourful new boot image for your delectation and delight.