So, what now? (Patreon)
Content
Now that Timeline 4 is out, I'm sure you're wondering what's next! I don't currently have any clear plans, except helping out the community with Timeline 4 and fixing issues as they arise. I still hope to help VaM become a serious alternative to SFM and Blender for animations, and I'm feeling like it's slowly getting there!
I do have things I'm exploring right now though:
- Embody, a new plugin that bundles Improved PoV, Passenger and Snug. It will give me the opportunity to make the whole thing easier to use, and fit a few improvements. I hit a few walls however so I don't know what those improvements will be. I'll tinker and let you know!
- VimVam, a new plugin to handle keyboard shortcuts. I'm not sure yet if it will be released as I hope to instead find a way to better integrate with LFE's Keyboard Shortcuts plugin. The goal is to have context-aware shortcuts (navigate frames, animations, atoms, delete keyframes, etc.) and vim-like bindings (e.g. d3l to delete 3 keyframes). We'll see if this pans out, there's a prototype that works so there's hope!
- There are a ton of things I'd like to build with Timeline, but I need some distance and actual usage time to make sure I know what's the "right" next step.
Short term I'm planning on releasing a few scenes with complex animations I had lying around (for free), I've been working on them for months as they were big drivers for Timeline functionality (eat your own dog food as they say). I hope you'll like them!
In any case I cannot make any promises on what you can expect for this month or the next. There will definitely be stuff but it'll probably be free. So if some of you supported me to get early access features and are short on cash, please don't be shy to stop supporting my Patreon. I'd like to remind you all that this Patreon is here for you to say thanks and help justify Timeline's future amongst other things, but there's no and there will be no monthly commitments (I already put way too many hours for my own good as it is!)
Still, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped spread the word about Timeline and the other plugins I've made, who helped me test, shared great animations and insights, or simply took time to say thanks. VaM has an amazing community, and I'm proud to be part of it! I'm definitely going to continue investing time building stuff so this is not a message about me going away, I just don't want any of you to expect things I can't promise to deliver!