It's the guy who made the fancy alignment tool! :D I hope it gets ported over one day!
In fact, it turns out that Jasper's suggestion of an "interpolation gradient" was genius! Here's the current setup:
http://postimage.org/image/velcy91a9/
You can add linear, grid or radial interpolation gradients.
The example shown here is a grid gradient. This interpolation tool can eventually be ported to be applied to just about any group of objects (but let's just stick to tiling for now...)
Veronika, I didn't see your mail before I finished the current mock-ups. I do think what you're proposing could be quite useful for a general interpolation tool. :) We could start thinking about it separately from the tiling tool.
Anyway, here's how the interpolation gradient would work with tiling (grid example): - Here, you have to define a Row stop and a Column stop. - By default, applying a grid interpolation gradient will place the stops on the tiles neighbouring the base tile. - You can drag that extremity to other tiles. - You can add Multiple stops! Just like a gradient!
The other tiles aren't updated, this saves some processing power and avoids some clutter.
Now the handle form is where it gets a bit trickier. I think the best would be to have a specialized handle of some sort. Anybody can think of a design?
For blur and opacity, now that we have a few free controllers (maybe), we could maybe assign Ctrl to Opacity and Shift to Blur. The user just drags over the frame. Also hold down Alt to add/remove jitter values.
For HLS interpolation: by default the ghost tile or handle is without fill, but fill etc. can be added like with any normal object to launch HLS interpolation. In fact, the user can switch to the eyedropper tool and take the values of a target object. Alt-click with the eyedropper to take a second set of values as jitter reference?
So, the "optimal" work flow is to create sets of two coloured dots beforehand to set select color interpolation and jitter values. Of course you can also open up the full editor.
To answer a few questions by Tom: 1. Yes, I've also decided that just Normal and Fuse modes are enough.
2. I want a separate Radial tiling because it's more intuitive for angle control. In the case of the render frames, you can manually set a start and end point, and snap to full circle (and maybe specify if you want more than 1 circle).
When it's snapped to full circle: when editing the angle of the base tile, it will automatically take values to make a full circle. Small stuff like that.
3. The thing about guide points and guide segments is that others have noted the usefulness of placing them elsewhere than on the tile sides.
4. Skew will be allowed for P1 and P2. If you drag the handles in certains ways, they will automatically become upright.
5. The problem with live preview is that these tiles take potentially a long time to render. :S
Since you're here, I don't suppose you'd have an idea as to the form of the handle for interpolation gradients, would you? :)