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

Re: FxTimingAPI in FCP
by Paul Schneider 18 Aug '09

18 Aug '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

1 0

FxTimingAPI in FCP
by Brian Gardner 17 Aug '09

17 Aug '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=dk20050327; d=earthlink.net; b=NHMnBtCeTCMw0kab4xxSZi8RUrJ1I+hm3pyHEst3vZpx/vJ3xDm+12oLssyCpixD; h=Received:Message-Id:From:To:Content-Type:Subject:Mime-Version:Date:X-Mailer:X-ELNK-Trace:X-Originating-IP; _______________________________________________ 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

1 0

Re: question on refreshing parameter data between instances.
by Paul Schneider 17 Aug '09

17 Aug '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi Jay, - Paul On Aug 11, 2009, at 12:53 PM, Jay Boyer wrote: Here is the scenario: Run FCP Apply the plug-in Save and Exit Install some fonts on the system Reopen FCP The font list in our plug-in is not up to date. Jay Boyer _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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… A long-standing and frustrating issue with Final Cut is that, when we open a saved project, we don't check with the plugin to see if its parameter list has changed. So if you have added or removed parameters, the project won't be updated. If one of your parameters has changed its name, the project won't be updated. If one of your parameters has changed its min or max value, the project won't be updated. If the user adds a new instance of the plugin, they'll get the new parameter list, but existing instances from saved projects aren't updated. Font menus are a specific symptom of this problem which are particularly troublesome. You don't have to change your parameter list to hit this problem; you only need to move the project to a second machine with a different font setup. The best way to handle this is to not use a popup parameter for your font parameter. Instead, use a custom parameter. Your parameter's custom UI can be a simple popup menu listing the fonts, but since you are managing the UI, we will ask you to recreate it every time the project is opened, so it will always be up to date. And the parameter data can be the name of the font, which will remain valid even if the font list changes, unlike an index into the font list. I've been meaning to write a sample plugin that uses this technique, since it is a pretty common problem. Making such a custom parameter is not a ton of work, but more than you should have to do for such a common operation. The FxPlug I am working on generates several lists in the drop down UI. These are lists of things that can be changed by user Input between instances of our plug-in being launched. For example, one of these is the user font list. At some point in time during our launch process I would like to be able to check the plug-in's UI for the font drop-down that was previously created, delete that list in the drop-down and rebuild the list from the current system font table. I did a quick test where I tried to get a parameter in -initWithAPIManager but the parameters do not seem to be available at that time. A related issue: At shutdown time I would prefer only to save the user's choice of font, possibly by reducing the font dropdown list to 1 item or by saving the font in a hidden string parameter. These things can be worked around by having the user delete our plug- in out of the sequence and reapply it along with their settings, but I would prefer not to burden the user with this if at all possible. Is there a way to replace drop down list contents in the UI after they have been added with -addParameters? Is there a point in the boot sequence that I can detect that the plug-in is from a prior instance so that I can update these lists? This email sent to pschneider(a)apple.com This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

1 0

Re: how trims & cuts effect reference image wells
by Paul Schneider 17 Aug '09

17 Aug '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: Pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi Brian, Sorry for the delay in responding; I was on vacation last week. - Paul On Aug 14, 2009, at 7:26 PM, Brian Gardner wrote: Hi, Darrin. Thank you for your suggestion about caching the generator's startTime. I gave this a try, but ran into difficulties. The main problem seems to be that the the startTimeForEffect returns a completely different value when renderOutput is called from the timeline versus the viewer. So, detecting changes between the current startTimeForEffect value and the cached value seems problematic. Because just double clicking the generator in the timeline to load it into the viewer (may) cause the value to become different, even though the generator has not been cut or trimmed. The startTimeForEffect, vs. the inPointOfTimelineForEffect, vs. the startTimeOfImageParm (with respect to a generator) all seems very confusing to me. Could you please explain what these are? I've read the docs, but they don't really say much beyond the method name. -- Brian On Aug 11, 2009, at 10:24 AM, Darrin Cardani wrote: Let me know if you have any questions. Here's the plugin I used: <ImageWellChangeTester.zip> Darrin On Aug 7, 2009, at 10:55 AM, Brian Gardner wrote: I'm tryng to get my head around what happens to a FxPlugin (especially a generator) when it is trimmed or cut inhalf then it's parts are moved around on timeline. And what a plugin which has reference image parameter(s) should/could do to appropriately update itself. I would assume the FCP 7 will make a copy of the generator (or clip+filter), then make two API method calls, to which our plugins can optionally respond: My plugin should respond to these two methods, and update it's internal state for accessing the appropriate frame ranges of it's reference image parameters to meet the new post-cut state of the edit. Is my assumption anywhere near correct? If so, what are those FxGenerator 2 methods to which my FxPlug should respond? If not, how does it really work? And how should/can my generator respond to a cut edit, so that it can appropriately access it's reference image parameters? -- Brian _______________________________________________ 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/dcardani%40apple.com -- 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/pschneider%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… I think that the main problem you are running into is that you can't actually trim a generator in FCP. Just as generators don't have intrinsic dimensions, frame rates, or durations, they also do not have in and out points in Final Cut. So blading a generator is no different than putting a second generator on the timeline next to the first. You can see this with the built-in Caustics generator; if you blade it, the animation starts over at the cut. Similarly, if you drag the "in point" of the Caustics generator, you are just changing the duration. The animation still starts at the same frame. Of course, this is problematic if you have a generator with an image well that references real media, and you would like your generator to behave more like a proxy for that real media in the timeline. We don't have a good solution for that. As to your other issues: the timing differences between the viewer and the timeline (canvas) are long-standing in Final Cut. Basically, the canvas is calling you to render in the context of an item in the sequence, while the viewer calls you to render in the context of just the item (as if it wasn't in a sequence, but you just opened it from a bin). This causes confusion with timing, especially if you are using the TimingAPI. You can see the effects of this in some of our built-in effects as well. This causes a lot of confusion, but we can't change it without some fairly large architectural changes. The way we send you -parameterChanged for image parameters when they haven't actually changed is just a bug. In short, I don't think you'll be able to accomplish what you want. It sounds like you have a generator that references media, and you want to apply the same trimming that's been done to the generator to your referenced media. But you can't, because generators aren't trimmed like media in FCP. This seems like a symptom of a larger problem, which is that many developers would like to write a plugin which is more like a media proxy than a generator. In your case, in addition to allowing the user to set in and out points on your generator, you probably also want to constrain the duration of the generator to match the media. Please file a bug detailing all the things you'd like to be able to do. Immediately after a Cut (razor), the 2nd half returns a -1 as the startTimeForEffect (as well as a -1 for the inPoint and outPoint). Once it renders into the viewer, the numbers are then changed to be relative to the viewer (not timeline). Then, once it is rendered into the canvas (by moving the playhead to be over the 2nd half) of the cut generator, the numbers are again altered to be relative to the timeline. I vaguely remember someone else having issues with the startTime being unexpectedly 0. Perhaps they'd hit the same viewer vs canvas issue? Getting a generator's image parameter to correspondingly react to a cut seems rather daunting. Perhaps I am just missing something, and a better understanding of these TimingAPI methods would resolve it? PS: In FCP, changing any parameter (except the image parameter, itself) seems to cause a parameterChange message for the image parameter. This is the opposite of what I was expecting. Brian, The way you suggest it should work would be a good design. However, that's not how it works currently. :( Paul's out on vacation, and he'd have a better idea of how it works in FCP, but I'll go over what Motion does. I believe that FCP does basically the same thing, but am not positive. An image well is a parameter like any other. When you change the clip duration or the start point, you change the value of the parameter, so the host app will ask your plugin to re-render, just as if the user changed the value of a slider or checkbox. It should first call your plugin's -parameterChanged: method with the ID of the image parameter, but upon testing, I've discovered that it does not (at least in Motion - you should try in FCP). This is a bug you should write up. So all your plugin knows is that something changed and it should rerender. One way you can track what's changed is by caching the image in the image well's start time and duration. In your - renderOutput: method, you can use the FxTimingAPI to see if the image parameter's start time or duration is different from your cached value and do the appropriate thing if it's changed. It's not as convenient as getting a -parameterChanged: message, or a notification directly, but it should be workable. 1.) a method invoked to the original generator passing it the old and new duration. (to the 1st half of cut object) 2.) another method invoked to signal the new copy of the generator, passing it the old and new relative start frame offset. (to the 2nd half of the cut generator) This email sent to dcardani(a)apple.com This email sent to pschneider(a)apple.com This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

1 0

Re: saving plugin internal state
by Paul Schneider 17 Aug '09

17 Aug '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Hi Brian, - Paul On Aug 8, 2009, at 6:47 PM, Brian wrote: Thanks for the tips, Steve. Actually, I am trying to save the state of a singleton object. (Neither per clip, nor global preference.) So, it's more like a 'project setting' type of thing. Or maybe even a 'sequence setting'. I'd certainly love it to be a 'sequence setting'. I'll definitely need to store the value inside the FCP (or Motion) project file, somehow. Any ideas? -- Brian _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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… the only "plugin state" that gets saved with the project is parameter data. As Steve says, you can use a hidden custom parameter to implement per-instance plugin state. There's no way to specify per-sequence or per-project state. Keep in mind that an FCP project can contain multiple sequences, and you can also have multiple projects open at once in FCP. I'm not sure how you could maintain a per-sequence or per-project singleton even in memory (since you don't know what project or sequence you're in), let alone save it with the project. This email sent to pschneider(a)apple.com This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

1 0

Re: FCSvr 1.5 developer documentation?
by Helena Ju 17 Aug '09

17 Aug '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

1 0

Re: Sound TC in XML?
by Helena Ju 17 Aug '09

17 Aug '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

1 0

Re: Sound TC in XML?
by Philip Hodgetts 16 Aug '09

16 Aug '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

1 0

Compressors open XML-based template format
by Andrew Mees 15 Aug '09

15 Aug '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

1 0

FCSvr 1.5 developer documentation?
by Martin Baker 15 Aug '09

15 Aug '09

site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com Delivered-To: pro-apps-dev(a)lists.apple.com Dkim-signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:sender:message-id:from:to :content-type:mime-version:subject:date:x-mailer; bh=8zj59k7QTl88dIE4JvV33EV0syG1M71TNMeJBOG+N5g=; b=O6T22rbTzlztkeBUWHDhApQhH638IxPz8EdhHbjAH5cBRrf6AEx9TrPXT8kM8+exHY 1ufRll6g62hk/V8BWjWu5FfldTEt0BoNgTVlmBuux9+OmfeV8OAF/HtUF0n3DGOvsjQ2 opr5WaF484c/ve2coe9yreZUMuUbqu79JIEe0= Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=sender:message-id:from:to:content-type:mime-version:subject:date :x-mailer; b=ttKlHdfvRpeJxb4NOtqgsE3FjNtohPpl0qDqKlkSccoh0ib7Gy2yL2brb1+k8/mX1o XPJKRSNottjJSLHC8uJPD8uI7eUDA5atqMex14vgWHsMoRMHJdErBfAo35nkFIyXdb54 XbDy2yTNtDDTnV0R7Ae+hu4BBlMgUF4UjQfMQ= _______________________________________________ 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

1 0