== Preview Range ==

Preview Range is a useful tool for animating (espcially on longer timelines). It allows you to only run through a limited set of frames to quickly preview the timing of a section of movement without going through the whole timeline. It means you don't have to set/reset start/end frame for rendering everytime you wish to only preview a region of frames.

Hi Ton,

Attached is a patch (I know you've already got lots of them in the tracker ;-) ) for a feature that I've sometimes wanted. It seems that this sort of thing is supported in other packages, but I can't be sure.

Note: I may have left in a few bits and pieces I didn't mean to in the patch (this is off a source tree which had quite a few revisions in it, all of which was experimental)



== Preview Range ==
Preview range is useful for animating (espcially on longer timelines). It allows you to only run through a limited set of frames to quickly preview the timing of a section of movement without going through the whole timeline. It means you don't have to set/reset start/end frame for rendering everytime you wish to only preview a region of frames.

* 'Ctrl P' in Action/NLA/Timeline sets preview range. Click+drag to form selection-box defining region of frames to preview
* 'Alt P' in Action/NLA/Timeline to clear preview range
* 'Pre' button beside Start/End fields in timeline toggles whether start/end fields refer to scene or preview
* 'Ctrl Rightarrow' and 'Ctrl Leftarrow' jump to start/end of preview region when it is set
* 'S' and 'E' set the start/end frames of preview region when it is set (just like normally) in Timeline only
* In Action/NLA editors, frames out of preview region are now drawn darkened when preview-region is set


See the following page for more info later:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Aligorith/Preview_Range

1 files changed, 30 insertions, 8 deletions

diff --git a/source/blender/src/drawtime.c b/source/blender/src/drawtime.c
index a06541b8665..9b9cba4dc98 100644
--- a/source/blender/src/drawtime.c
+++ b/source/blender/src/drawtime.c
@@ -210,22 +210,42 @@ void draw_markers_timespace()
 
 }
 
+void draw_anim_preview_timespace()
+{
+	/* only draw this if preview range is set */
+	if (G.scene->r.psfra) {
+		glBlendFunc( GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA );
+		glEnable(GL_BLEND);
+		glColor4f(0, 0, 0, 0.4);
+	
+		if (PSFRA < PEFRA) {
+			glRectf(G.v2d->cur.xmin, G.v2d->cur.ymin, PSFRA, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
+			glRectf(PEFRA, G.v2d->cur.ymin, G.v2d->cur.xmax, G.v2d->cur.ymax);	
+		} 
+		else {
+			glRectf(G.v2d->cur.xmin, G.v2d->cur.ymin, G.v2d->cur.xmax, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
+		}
+		
+		glDisable(GL_BLEND);
+	}
+}
+
 static void draw_sfra_efra()
 {
 	BIF_ThemeColorShade(TH_BACK, -25);
 	
-	if (G.scene->r.sfra < G.scene->r.efra) {
-		glRectf(G.v2d->cur.xmin, G.v2d->cur.ymin, G.scene->r.sfra, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
-		
-		glRectf(G.scene->r.efra, G.v2d->cur.ymin, G.v2d->cur.xmax, G.v2d->cur.ymax);	
-	} else {
+	if (PSFRA < PEFRA) {
+		glRectf(G.v2d->cur.xmin, G.v2d->cur.ymin, PSFRA, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
+		glRectf(PEFRA, G.v2d->cur.ymin, G.v2d->cur.xmax, G.v2d->cur.ymax);	
+	} 
+	else {
 		glRectf(G.v2d->cur.xmin, G.v2d->cur.ymin, G.v2d->cur.xmax, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
 	}
 	
 	BIF_ThemeColorShade(TH_BACK, -60);
 	/* thin lines where the actual frames are */
-	fdrawline(G.scene->r.sfra, G.v2d->cur.ymin, G.scene->r.sfra, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
-	fdrawline(G.scene->r.efra, G.v2d->cur.ymin, G.scene->r.efra, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
+	fdrawline(PSFRA, G.v2d->cur.ymin, PSFRA, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
+	fdrawline(PEFRA, G.v2d->cur.ymin, PEFRA, G.v2d->cur.ymax);
 	
 	glDisable(GL_BLEND);
 }
@@ -325,7 +345,9 @@ void drawtimespace(ScrArea *sa, void *spacedata)
 	
 	myortho2(stime->v2d.cur.xmin, stime->v2d.cur.xmax, stime->v2d.cur.ymin, stime->v2d.cur.ymax);
 
-	/* draw darkened area outside of active timeline */
+	/* draw darkened area outside of active timeline 
+	 *	frame range used is preview range or scene range
+	 */
 	draw_sfra_efra();
 	
 	/* boundbox_seq(); */