FrameForge object/context model

[stevefal]

Thanks for replying. I think that if you were to suspend disbelief for a while longer, you would realize solutions to the problems you envision.

changing something in your proposed hierarchy might have massive and unexpected ramifications in shots that you had already planned.

I agree with "massive", but not with "unexpected". I think the current model produces unexpected results precisely because there is no explicit context model. So long as the user is working from a clearly organized plan, aka, script, a rigorously rational context model should make the massive change perfectly and pleasantly expected. The semantics of my case solution walkthrough should illustrate that. Try to describe the steps that would accomplish the same case using the current model. The semantics of that solution have nothing to do with literary organization.

you can't simply "update" existing shots without re-rendering them

To be accurate, I would say you can simply update shots without percolating their *rendering*. In practical terms, the rendering of dirty shots is negotiable. This generic problem is handled by many products in many ways. One is to mark dirty shots visually and update lazily, on-command, just-in time, on intervals, etc. It's an optimization problem.

not really saving any time nor really getting any new control

This marginalizes the actual benefit of the system. Agreed that net rendering time is the same. But the proposal is about user workflow and the mental and physical modeling of sets and scenes. The current system is hard to use for complete scripts because the system lacks the organizational constructs of a show/script. To lack those *things* is to lack a direct way to change those *things*. If this doesn't make sense, try performing my example case above mentally with the current system, or better yet a 30 minute script with 10 locations and 50 scenes. The arcane machinations involved in fluid iteration are mind-boggling (to a user).

we do have an alternate solution

If you are interested in a customer-centric approach to product design, I'm happy to be one of those customers.

Thanks again.