April 2009 - Pro-apps-dev - lists.apple.com

How to distinguish between Viewer and Inspector renders in Motion?
by Pauli Ojala 07 Apr '09

07 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com -- Pauli Ojala Lacquer oy/ltd pauli(a)lacquer.fi _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… In Motion, an FxPlug's render method gets called twice: first for the "real" render, then for the small preview at the top of the Inspector window. My plugin now performs analysis on the input texture, and I don't want the analysis results to get updated when the tiny preview is rendered, so I need a way to distinguish between the two types of renders. Is there a flag passed somewhere that would directly indicate which type of frame is being rendered? (I may be missing something completely obvious here...) This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Labels
by Gregory Clarke 06 Apr '09

06 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Greg _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… As you probably found out, sending "Good Take" when the user has changed the label in user preferences to some other string results in a label of 'None". To mind this not an error. As a separate app how can you properly set the label if you do not know how the user is using the label? Thanks Eryk, yes found this out with some testing. The user named labels aren't stored in a plist preferences file, but I was able to parse the label names out of the .fcset file. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Transitions in FCP
by Paul Schneider 06 Apr '09

06 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi Eberhard, I've filed a bug report on your behalf at bugreport.apple.com. - Paul On Apr 5, 2009, at 9:13 AM, Eberhard Ammelt wrote: Hello, The attached project demonstrates the problem: <Transition Issue.zip> Am I missing a point, or is this an issue with FCP? _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… This looks like a bug in FCP. It only seems to happen in our RT display path; if I render your sequence using Cmd-R, both transitions function the same way. I think that the second case is actually the correct one (and both transitions work this way once I render). The way your timeline is set up, the transition's input A is nothing, and input B is a generator. The result of this transition is then composited over the caustics generator. So, the caustics is the background, not the A input to the transition, and should not be "pushed". while testing a transition effect in Final Cut Pro (6.0.5), I stumbled over a strange phenomenon when applying the transition between two layers: In some cases the transition works, in other cases it seems image A is provided with alpha = 0. After some further testing I found the same problem with some of FCP's built-in transitions. In the first case the transition to a constant color works correctly (image A is moved), while in the second case image A is not moved but is only shown as background. When I apply a filter effect to the color generator, the first transition no longer works either. Thanks for any help, Eberhard Ammelt - Pixlock _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/pschneider%40apple.com This email sent to pschneider(a)apple.com This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Transitions in FCP
by Eberhard Ammelt 05 Apr '09

05 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hello, Am I missing a point, or is this an issue with FCP? Thanks for any help, Eberhard Ammelt - Pixlock _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com while testing a transition effect in Final Cut Pro (6.0.5), I stumbled over a strange phenomenon when applying the transition between two layers: In some cases the transition works, in other cases it seems image A is provided with alpha = 0. After some further testing I found the same problem with some of FCP's built-in transitions. The attached project demonstrates the problem: Transition Issue.zip In the first case the transition to a constant color works correctly (image A is moved), while in the second case image A is not moved but is only shown as background. When I apply a filter effect to the color generator, the first transition no longer works either.

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Re: Labels
by Eryk Vershen 04 Apr '09

04 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi Gregory, -eryk On Apr 3, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Gregory Clarke wrote: Hi, <labels> <label>Good Take</label> <label2></label2> </labels> And what is label2 used for? Thanks, Greg _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/evershen%40apple.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… As you probably found out, sending "Good Take" when the user has changed the label in user preferences to some other string results in a label of 'None". To mind this not an error. As a separate app how can you properly set the label if you do not know how the user is using the label? label2 is essentially just another Master Comment. It is an arbitrary string. One can think of like a subtitle for a book - its a way of separating the good takes (or whatever) into sub categories. See the sections in the manual on "Clip Properties" and "Shared Properties Stored in Master Clips". I'd like to apply a color label to a clip in the Final Cut Pro XML file. A snippet from an exported XML looks like this example: The problem is that the user can change the name of the labels in their user preferences. Is there a way of setting a label by number or color rather than label name? The documentation was vague unfortunately. This email sent to evershen(a)apple.com This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Labels
by Gregory Clarke 03 Apr '09

03 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi, <labels> <label>Good Take</label> <label2></label2> </labels> And what is label2 used for? Thanks, Greg _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… I'd like to apply a color label to a clip in the Final Cut Pro XML file. A snippet from an exported XML looks like this example: The problem is that the user can change the name of the labels in their user preferences. Is there a way of setting a label by number or color rather than label name? The documentation was vague unfortunately. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: FCP XML icon
by Paul Schneider 03 Apr '09

03 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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FCP XML icon
by John-Paul Smith 03 Apr '09

03 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi, Is it possible to make my files display the correct icon? Thanks, J-P John-Paul Smith Chief Technology Officer Imagineer Systems T: +441483685585 F: +441483685586 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… I'd like to make the XML files my software writes out have the Final Cut Pro XML icon, rather than the blank icon they currently have. I thought I could achieve this by setting something in the resource fork of the file, but running DeRez on a file exported from FCP shows no resources. This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Cutting a generator on the timeline
by Fiorani Gallotta Pierluigi 02 Apr '09

02 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Thanks Piero Fiorani Il giorno 02/apr/09, alle ore 11:20, Kristian Harms ha scritto: Den 2. april. 2009 kl. 02.57 skrev Brian Gardner: When I put my generator on the timeline and cut it in half, the second half now restarts the generator at frame 1. I'd like to have the generated frames on either side of the cut look identical to how they looked before the cut. Can I do that? -- Kristian Harms _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/piero.fiorani%40fastweb… _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… I wrote couple of fxscript generators myself and I was about to say: hey I have a solution... but while coding I bumped into a fxscript limit. There is no way that I know to get the IN point position in a generator. If it were possible the IN position could be saved into a global variable savedOffset (which is left untouched during clip copies or IN point repositioning) and used in the new generator instance to evaluate myFrame = frame + glOffset - savedOffset. If it were possible... Unfortunately the GetLimits(clip, glDuration, glOffset) function does not work applied to generators because there is no way to set clip = the generator itself. Is there any hidden fxscript function or predeclared variable that allows to get the glOffset for a generator ? (Note: I already used this technique to save a filter state into global variables and it works - see my Auto Pan Zoom filter. But while glDuration and glOffset values are meaningful for both filters and generators, the GetLimits function cannot be used in generators to get those values...) -- Brian I'd very much like to second what Brian is saying here, this is something our users would also benefit from. Maybe an auxiliary step to "freeze" a generator, take a rendered generator and turn it into something that behaves more like video item could be employed, after which the cut-in-half operation would behave like Brian describes. A somewhat related request that I would like to put forward (related because it also involves getting two generator instances from one, without making a new instance from scratch) is to have some sort of notification when the user uses copy and paste on a generator. While there would be many who wouldn't have any use for this, in our particular case it would be most helpful. The value of our custom parameter contains a persistent ID which we map to objects in an internal data structure (shared by our generator instances), and the current situation will sometimes lead to multiple generators with the same ID. While we have managed to maintain correct operation, it does create a performance hit. This email sent to piero.fiorani(a)fastwebnet.it This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Cutting a generator on the timeline
by Darrin Cardani 02 Apr '09

02 Apr '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com On Apr 2, 2009, at 2:20 AM, Kristian Harms wrote: Den 2. april. 2009 kl. 02.57 skrev Brian Gardner: When I put my generator on the timeline and cut it in half, the second half now restarts the generator at frame 1. I'd like to have the generated frames on either side of the cut look identical to how they looked before the cut. Can I do that? /*! @method startTimeForEffect: @abstract Returns the start time of the given effect. @param effect The plug-in object. @result The effect's start time, expressed in timeline frames. */ - (double)startTimeForEffect:(id<FxBaseEffect>)effect; /*! @method durationForEffect: @abstract Returns the duration of the given effect. @param effect The plug-in object. @result The effect's duration, expressed in timeline frames. */ - (double)durationForEffect:(id<FxBaseEffect>)effect; Darrin -- Darrin Cardani dcardani(a)apple.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Pro-apps-dev mailing list (Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/pro-apps-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a… -- Brian I'd very much like to second what Brian is saying here, this is something our users would also benefit from. Maybe an auxiliary step to "freeze" a generator, take a rendered generator and turn it into something that behaves more like video item could be employed, after which the cut-in-half operation would behave like Brian describes. We've actually discussed this before, and it was part of the impetus for the FxTimingAPI. You can use the FxTimingAPI to figure out when your effect, generator or transition starts and how long it is. I'm not sure if that gives you everything you need or not, but it looks like these 2 methods from FxTimingAPI.h will give you some of the information you need: So if the normal case is that the user cuts the generator in 2, but doesn't move it, then you can use the start time of the effect as an offset. Just add it to the renderInfo.frame value before doing your time-based calculations and it should work like you want. (You might need to convert to timeline time, or something like that - I don't remember off the top of my head.) In the case where you're using image wells in your generator, you'd need to add the start time of the generator to the time you send to - getBitmap/Texture:fromParm:atTime:. A somewhat related request that I would like to put forward (related because it also involves getting two generator instances from one, without making a new instance from scratch) is to have some sort of notification when the user uses copy and paste on a generator. While there would be many who wouldn't have any use for this, in our particular case it would be most helpful. The value of our custom parameter contains a persistent ID which we map to objects in an internal data structure (shared by our generator instances), and the current situation will sometimes lead to multiple generators with the same ID. While we have managed to maintain correct operation, it does create a performance hit. That seems like an extremely specialized bit of functionality. I'm trying to figure out how we'd notify your plugin that it was a duplicate of the other one rather than a fresh instance just added to the project and when we'd have to make the distinction. Would the case of copying and pasting into the same document be different from copying and pasting into another document? What about when using the clone feature in Motion? Again, I'm having a hard time seeing where this would be useful to plugin developers in general. Maybe there's a way to keep the functionality in your plugin but make it perform better? This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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