Remapping

Having worked with FF for a short time now and I am really enthusiastic about the program and its many possibilities.
I also run into some things I can't quite place, one being the way remapping is done.

I understand the principle and the need for remapping. What I don't get, is that the user does not see the correct values. I.e. I remap the radius in a Blur component. The max radius I want the user to be able to access is 10, so I remap. The remapping works all right, but the user still sees values from 1 to 100, in stead of 0 to 10, which I want the user to see, namely the actual values she is using.
Another example with curves.take the Gain Curve and attach a Slider Control to the Gain input. Now with or without remapping, the value of 50 of the slider gives me a linear curve. Above 50 the curve makes more contrast and below 50 less. I want the user to have a linear curve at value 0, positive values will make the curve steeper and negative values flatter.

With Slider Controls connected f.i. to a RGB Math component like Round (to the Granularity input) and no remapping is possible. It would be great to be able to set a max and min in these cases.

Bottom line : I think it's a pity that there is no possible remapping in values as to what the user sees. I am fully aware that sometimes to achieve the desired result, in my way, a double remapping is needed, but the user interface should always come first, in my book
There are more things to be said about the UI, but that will be for another time.

Do others have any thoughts on this?

Regards, Beat

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thereisone wrote : Can't you set the max value on the control as well? So if your blur was a max of 10, make the slider only have a max value of 10.

Yes and that is what I do. The remapping to the object is not so much the point. But I will still see the slider for the user give me 1 to 100, although value 50 means actually 5 px radius in your example.

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In that case, you would not be able to see the exact value.

That is my point. I want the user and myself to see exactly what e.g. my blur radius is in absolute values and not relative to the remapping to the component.

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I'm curious as to why you would need the user to see the exact value when it is only relative to the filter and wouldn't affect the way they use the control?

For example to use my experience in other programs as to how big a certain blur radius (or other parameter) should be to achieve a certain effect. Even if the PS and FF blur algorithm probably are not exact the same, the difference between radius of 5 px and the radius of 50 px is much bigger. Fr om applying parameters and knowing what their exact values are, I learn a lot, which is transferable to other filters and programs. Also it teaches me how to set the remapping to the components, as I can see the actual values of a parameter wh ere increasing or decreasing is useless in that context, so I can set the remapping accordingly, in stead of with trial and error.

Also, it feels very counter intuitive to have a slider that sets the gain of the Gain Curve component and the slider shows a value of 50 when it is linear. I would say value 0 at linear, positive with steepening the curve and negative with flattening.

Cheers, Beat

I mostly use IntSlider or Slider which always shows in the Settings values from 1 - 100, no matter what remapping is done.
The Value Control is a total mystery for me. In the remapping I can set a range f.i. -2 to +2 , a max and min, but when dialing the wheel in the settings, there is no max or min. The behavior of this controller and it's remapping totally eludes me

Beat

Thanks for your input, thereisone.

The more I look into the whole remapping stuff, the more confused and baffled I get. I hope I can explain what I mean. I realize that this topic is a bit hard to write about in a precise and clear way. To get something straight fr om the top : with 'User setting' or 'User slider', I mean the slider that the user sees in the 'Settings tab', so we're not in the Editor mode.

Let's consider your example with the IntSlider.
Yes, with the IntSlider you can set a maximum. Needed in example of an IntSlider controlling a switch. But using it on an input like the radius of a Blur component, it does not work well for three reasons :

1. If you want to use only small radii, then you'd want decimal increments, not only steps of an integer. So the IntSlider is not the appropriate controller for a small blur radius, when not using Remapping.
If using remapping, then you see the decimals in the remapping field in the Editor, but again not in the User tab).

2. If I use no Remapping, then the Max Value of the IntSlider does not change a thing, only what is visible in the User settings. E.g. If I set the max of the IntSlider to 10, then for the user the values on the slider to set are 1 - 10. But 10 does not mean 10 pixels, 10 means the max blur settings. So no matter what max settings I give in, the max setting will always be the max blur possible, so there is no sense in setting a max here.

3. No matter what I give in as a maximum with the remapping, when setting the User slider to the max (the utmost right), I always get the max possible radius of the blur component. So if I would want the max blur radius to be 10 px, and I set the max value of the IntSlider to 10 and set the max in the remapping field to 10, I do not get as a max result 10 px blur, I get the max possible blur of the blur component. Moreover, I get exactly the same result if I set the max in the remapping field to 2 or to 100 or to any other value. This defeats the effect of the remapping.
My guess is, that the mismatch here is because the wrong kind of slider is being used. better to use (as indicated above) the Slider control.

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I'm curious as to why you would need the user to see the exact value when it is only relative to the filter and wouldn't affect the way they use the control?

Yesterday, when working on a Posterize filter, I came again across an instance where I need to see the actual values, i.s.o. the relative values.
If I want to make a couple of zones in the lightness values (0-255), then I'd like to see the correct values I dial in, not 0-255 scaled back to 1-100. I can look at an image and more or less tell then wh ere I would like to different zones to be, but I am used to think in values from 0-255, as in PS and any other image editor.

I will look into the Slider control some more and also to the other controllers that emit number values. I noticed that with controlling the RGBmath components, some funny things are happening as well.

Beat