[ANSWERED] Negative values in min max output scaling

[Fred]

To try to wrangle values the limit scale value actor is great, but many of these operations could be done with the value scaling on actors inputs and outputs, but the scaling does not reflect the data type. Take the output of the wave generator, it is a floating point number which by definition can be negative, but the limit min is 0. If this could be negative then it would allow for much easier manipulation of values without extra user actors. I feel like every output (or input) should have the full limit scale value features built in. If not, then please let us use negative values.

[Woland]

@fred said:

many of these operations could be done with the value scaling on actors inputs and outputs, but the scaling does not reflect the data type.

Many of the operations can already be done with the value scaling on actors' inputs and outputs. See my response to your other post about scaling.

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@fred said:

Take the output of the wave generator, it is a floating point number which by definition can be negative, but the limit min is 0. If this could be negative then it would allow for much easier manipulation of values without extra user actors. I feel like every output (or input) should have the full limit scale value features built in. If not, then please let us use negative values.

Everywhere that's possible inputs and outputs have a limit min and limit max of 'min' and 'max' (no limit), but things that have concrete bounds that cannot be crossed are like that for a reason. To address your comment about Wave Generators first though, if I understand correctly, Wave Generators are representations of different types of waves in Quadrant 1 of a Coordinate Plane. Quadrant 1 of a standard Coordinate Plane will not have any coordinates with negative values because the starting point at the bottom left is 0,0 and as you go upwards or to the right y or x values can only increase. So the waves created by the Wave Generator actor do not cross the x nor y axis and therefore cannot produce negative values, (though there's certainly room for a new Wave Generator actor that can simulate waves that cross into different quadrants, but that's a different story).

As for allowing negative numbers/uncapping limits on inputs/outputs that have hard caps right now, consider the following examples:

• A Projector actor with a value of '-100' for its 'intensity' input would be pointless because no value below 0 could ever have an effect different from 0. 
• If a Movie Player actor's 'position' input property is allowed to be set to '-3000', what frame of the movie should the actor be outputting at that value?
• Selector actors need to always have a hard min of 1 and a hard max equal to the number of inputs it has; you can manually change the range to scoot the min or max inwards from the hard bounds, but allowing values outside of the hard bounds would be pointless because they couldn't have any meaningful functionality.
• A Mouse Watcher actor has a hard limit of 0 and 100 for the horizontal and vertical values because your screen has a finite size. If the top left is 0,0 (a common convention for programs that measure position on a display), the y value increases as you move your cursor down (same convention), and the x value increases as you move your cursor to the right (same convention), how would you move your mouse to position -100,-100? 
• How could a Video Delay actor's 'frame' input give you a delay of -30 frames?
• How could a Text Draw actor have a 'font size' of '-15', an 'output width' of '-1920', or a 'font opacity' of less that 0% or more than 100%?
• How could a Motion Blur actor have an 'accum amt' (accumulation amount) of less that 0% or more than 100%?

So as I stated above, everywhere that's possible inputs and outputs have a limit min and limit max of 'min' and 'max' (no limit), but things that have concrete bounds that cannot be crossed are like that for a reason.

So that's why we cannot just globally remove all the limit min and limit max values for every input and output on every actor but, of course, we're not perfect so there may be places where the bounds could be removed or increased on an input or an output. If you identify specific inputs or outputs on specific actors where you feel the limit could be removed or increased and list them here, I'd be happy to investigate and log those.

Best wishes,

Woland

[Fred]

@woland I don’t think they should be removed I just want to be able to put a negative number in the min (or max). I get there there are a bunch of actor inputs that don’t accept/need negative numbers but there are also things that do, so many  

The wave generator not going negative is not really an issue (or crossing quadrants). It generates floating point values (these can be negative) so I just want to be able to make a negative min to shift the output. 

As I said  I don’t want them removed  and this would not change any functionality, but it would mean if you wanted to use a negative number as the min you could  it would be useful enough that it seems worth it and it doesn’t break anything or change use cases or isadoras approach