Overlaying text on UI

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

I am planning to develop a tool that allows to attach text to keys in the timeline that then is shown as text directly below the key in the timeline overlaying the maxUI. This is supposed to support the animators work and make it more easy to identify keys that are for keyPoses and keys that are for breakdowns. By moving keys in the timeline, the overlaying text is supposed to move according to this key.

I am planning to write this tool with python but my research did not yet lead to any results.. Hopefully some of you can share ideas or knowledge about how to approach 🙂

Thanks in advance

Martin

[istan]

I probably did not fully understand your requirements, but I would rather use SDK C++ for such activities. Showing/hiding windows and painting overlays is for me easier there.. 

[Anonymous]

Thank your for your suggestion, istan! The thing is, that I know maxScript and Python and would like to avoid getting into another pragramming-language for this :). You cannot change the maxUI the way I want and I do not yet know if this is even possible with python, but to be a little bit more clear about what I want, have a look at this demo:

Annotate Pro - Demovideo

In the video you see that the artist uses AnnotatePro to paint an animationcurve on the screen, and this stays on top of the MaxUI. Basically this is what I want, but with the addition that I can 'attach' these 'drawings' to the keys shown in the Max-timeline. So lets say there is a key on Frame 100 and I 'marked' this frame with an 'A'. Now when I select this key in the timeline and shift it over to frame 110, the 'A'-marking shifts with it. This marking is always on top of the MaxUI while working (just like the drawings in the demovideo) and I would like to know if there is a way in python to create this marking and have it always overlaying the MaxUI.

Best,

Martin

[Swordslayer]

Painting stuff like that is simple, you only need a transparent form for that where you only catch certain events (IIRC for a transparent form over current viewport, there's a sample on the getcoreinterface blog using C#). Making it follow the UI interactions on the other hand.. that sounds pretty hard. While you could probably catch some of the events with callbacks and a mouse hook, finding out where on the screen they should be placed won't be easy at all.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Swordslayer - I'll have a look at this blog!