When I’ve beaten on them a little more, I will cut a 1.6 release but those of you who are eager-beavers can always build from source.
I DID create some documentation already, though:
The javadoc links will be broken until I push a new release and I will add some overview graphics or something… but it’s enough to see what has been done so far.
Tween
twiːn/
nountrademark
plural noun: Tweens
any of a class of compounds used especially as emulsifiers and surfactants. They are derivatives of fatty acid esters of sorbitan.
or
Tween
preposition
1.contraction of between.noun
or
2.Also, tween, tweeny. a youngster between 10 and 12 years of age, considered too old to be a child and too young to be a teenager.
And because I’m feeling chatty… you youngsters just pull up a piece of carpet while grandpa regales you with stories of the ‘before time’, the ‘long long ago’…
In conventional animation, the animator only draws some of the frames. Generally just the most important poses every 5 or six actual frames or so to block in the important bits of the animation. Then there are special less-skilled artists called ‘in-betweeners’ that fill in the gaps. Lots more ‘in-betweeners’ than animators. Inbetweening - Wikipedia …though I haven’t actually read it if it contradicts anything I just said.
I was first introduced to the term ‘tween’ when using a software package on my old Amiga 1000. I don’t even remember what it was called but you could draw polygons in different poses. Each frame there was called a ‘tween’. I’d already known the term ‘in-betweening’ by then so it made sense and it stuck.
I guess these days, even Flash has something called a Tween but I’ve never used flash.
Interesting side note: when I was a kid, I went through a period where I wanted to be a cartoonist/animator. Watched many a Disney documentary. Then, video games and computers happened. The rest is history.
Other true story: the other 3 animation system prototypes that I developed over the last two years that ended up sucking… all had Interpolators. I think Tween is better.
And embedded in that is an interesting example of how one small stubborn decision early on can wreck a whole design. Interpolators did not have a ‘length’. They were always 0 to 1. It turns out that giving my Tweens a length simplified SO MUCH. Can you imagine what it was like before to have sequences of interpolators that ran at different times?
That was the hole that ultimately sank every other design in my opinion. It had slightly farther reaching implications too because it created its own mental block about how to simplify some other stuff. So I’m super happy with this design so far mostly because I didn’t hate it two days later.
I did just upload the latest javadocs even though they aren’t in sync with the release… now at least the links in the new wiki docs aren’t broken.
@nehon, I’m particularly interested in your take on things when you get the chance as you have a lot of experience with JME’s cinematics… and there could be some cross-pollination there. They kind of serve different purproses but still.
Thanks for the explanation 
