## poti-animation

Scope and XITE Development

Original topic on PlanetZ: https://forums.scopeusers.com/viewtopic.php?t=20605

#### poti-animation

Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 9:21 am
by stuff3d
hallo,
kann leider nicht gut englisch, villeicht klappt es deswegen nicht.
möchte ein 3d gerändertes poti erstellen, bin so wie hier im forum beschrieben vorgegangen.
habe 32-bit-tga bzw. bmp rausgerändert, mit der bezeichnung
PG0000 - PG0126.
kann die einzelnen bilder reinladen, also scheint das format zu passen.
wenn ich jetzt bei einem fertigen poti die animation ersetzen will, durch das texture window über load bitmap und wähle PG0000.tga bzw. .bmp
passiert garnichts.
was mach ich falsch???

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Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 1:39 pm
by erminardi
Wuerstel, gulasch und pretzel... why not in english naechste mahl?

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Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 5:31 pm
by katano
Schwulitäten, sounds good

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Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:43 pm
by stuff3d
was kann am outputformat noch falsch sein,
vorgabe ist doch nur 32-bit tga bzw. bmp, oder?
und einzeln kann ich sie ja reinladen.
die durchnummerierung hab ich auch aufsteigend.
ist die art wie ich die files lade richtig, also animation
markieren und dann load bitmap?

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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 11:49 am
by stuff3d
muss ich dann nochmal testen.
feddes merci...
und kleine vorschau meiner baustelle

Attachments
    crossfader.gif (69.69 KiB) Viewed 10065 times

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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 1:42 pm
by hifiboom
wow schaut ja super aus, bastelst du an einem virtuellen DJ Crossfader?

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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 2:28 pm
by stuff3d
nee, das wird ein kompletter dj-mixer.
4 monokanäle, 6 sterokanäle, die auch schaltungstechnisch
schon fertig sind, sowie 6 aux sends.
die oberfläche ist fast komplett fertig, werde in kürze
die ganze oberfläche vorstellen.
muss halt aus gewissen gründen ein paar element ändern.
die animationen werden halt viel arbeit, da ich ca. 100 poti-animationen
erstellen muss, wegen den spiegelungen und den farbverläufen.
schaun wir mal.....

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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:03 pm
by next to nothing
eg skjønne ikkje ein drit av ka dåke skrive.

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:33 am
by hubird
thank God you discussed this in another language!

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:34 am
by Shroomz~>

> stardust wrote:Photoshop is known to have an issue with handling transparency/alpha correctly for tga format.

No it doesn't. Photoshop is unbeatable for this type of work. Sorry to but in, but people shouldn't be fed misinformation so readily.
There's one thing that can happen which may throw a few people off track, but it's not inherant to photoshop. When sizing down animations which include an alpha channel, occasionally you may find the need to put an inner black stroke on your alpha channel mask layer if an imperfection appears around the mask edge.

> My recommendation would be GIMP therefore, since it produces the TGA 32bit with alpha just as SDK wants it.

So does photoshop. You just need to know how to use the software.
I won't say what I think of Gimp. Lets just say I've spent considerable time with Gimp & won't be wasting any more time with it.
Shit I can't help myself, Gimp is not a good piece of software & doesn't come close to meeting the expectations of anyone who knows design software. For someone who doesn't know design software & doesn't care about the workflow of the application they're gonna be using intensively or not as the case may be, it might just suffice.

> Also Blender renders animation as single tga pictures in the correct format.

So do professional 3d apps like Max, Maya & Lightwave, so nothing new there.
In fact, they can also include an alpha channel transparency in the animation renders which means that those who don't know how to use their 2d application to mask & create an alpha channel, don't need to worry about it at all.
As sharc briefly explained in the gui elements thread, essentially you should only be using your 2d tool for croping & resizing your 3d rendered animation frames. The exception to that is elements with oddly shaped moving shadows.
Obviously level & colour adjustments are possible at the 2d app stage if needed (which they often are if you're colour-matching a control to the surface it sits on).
Again, sorry for butting in, but you can't be telling people all over the world on a public forum that Photoshop doesn't work properly with alpha channels (which is rediculous) & that Gimp is a better choice when in fact gimp is crap & only a better choice if you don't know what you're talking about OR you're not doing very much with it, so don't care.
Sorry, I can't write this in German for our new forum member stuff3d, but feel free to translate it for him, cursing 'n' all.

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:50 am
by djmicron
just to add an information about tga's.
You don't need to crop or resize tga's after the 3d render, because scope sdk will calculate the alpha channel and just the visible part of the image will be used inside the surface and you'll see the animation as it is already cropped.
this is to avoid designers from extra work

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:14 am
by Shroomz~>
Salvatore, to get the best quality 3d animations for sdk use, the 3d rendering should be done at a larger size & higher resolution than the actual control (knob or whatever) that's required. Animation renders should be done at at least 320x240px, but preferably 640x480 to obtain high quality images. It's then necessary to crop the canvas of each frame to 480x480 (for example) & resize each frame to your desired final size. This is done quickly in PS by creating action scripts for the crop & resize necesary for a single frame of your animation, then using the script/s in an automated batch process to crop & resize all frames of your animation.
If you do as suggested above & compare the end result to an animation rendered at actual size, you should notice a big difference in the image quality.
The same applies to 2d work. More often than not, it's best to create 2d imagery at a much larger size/higher resolution then size it down once complete. Doing this means that you get very high quality anti-aliasing & better quality results all round.

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:29 am
by Shroomz~>
Here's a working example of what I'm talking about. I'm working on a new vintage-style VU meter at the moment as the one on Martin's SATEQ was really just an initial test. This new one has a round shaped outer bezel which requires high quality anti-aliasing. To obtain the best quality, the working canvas size I'm using is 1600x1600px even although the final size will be less than 100x100px. If I just made the design on an actual-size canvas of less than 100x100px, the end result would be knowhere near as high quality. Hope that makes sense.

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:45 am
by djmicron
shroomz,
i'm not convinced about this point.
if the animations are rendered at 300 dpi, the quality will be good with small images too, but at 72 dpi you are right.

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 9:21 am
by Shroomz~>
Even at 300dpi you'll get better quality results by working on a larger canvas & sizing down your finished result. You should specifically notice a difference in the edge pixel anti-aliasing on anything which isn't a straight line, such as circles, curves, angles etc. Working on a larger canvas than you need also gives you higher quality selection capabilities for any advanced 2d work.
I'm sure sharc will correct me if I'm wrong since he's the 2d graphics expert & can no doubt explain this better than I have.

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 12:44 pm
by sharc

> stardust wrote: In the forums of PS I always found the complaints on incorrect handling of transparency when loading and saving TGAs with PS.

Is this recently Stardust? I'm using CS2 here and have no problems with Alpha channels in TGA format. Like Shroomz said, resizing your TGA can sometimes result in a slight feathering of the alpha channel at the edge of the canvas. a 1-pixel inner stroke on the alpha channel always sorts this out.

> stardust wrote: so ... I guess you simply have the better way to work with handmade PS scripts.
> At least the default PS procedure is bulky....to me.
> If you sorted it out to create 32bit tgas with a proper alpha channel AUTOMATICALLY from astandard tga after editin with PS it would be a nice move not just to claim knowledge but to share it.

Use the actions and batch automation in photoshop. It's very quick and easy and allows multiple edits to be applied to all animation frames non-destructively. If your TGA renders don't already have an alpha channel you can create one in CS2 with the 'apply image' function (this can be a little more time consuming). For testing alpha channel transparency you can always make a selection using the alpha channel and copy and paste your control with shadow or whatever onto the background of your choosing. Hope this helps

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 1:50 pm
by Shroomz~>

> stardust wrote:Good to know about the automatic crop of the SDK. Thanks DJ.
> But the animation files are substantially bigger (at least before loading) if you have overhead not used for visible projections.
> Does the crop feature include also a storage in the module with the automatic-crop file size ?

There isn't an automatic 'crop' function as such in the SDK. Micron basically meant that the sdk automatically applies whatever alpha channel mask info is contained in the TGA files you use & 'automatically' creates your desired transparency.
It was a slight misunderstanding AFAIK because Micron thought that when I spoke of 'croping' I was talking about doing what your alpha channels should be doing (which I explained that I wasn't. I was talking about croping from a rectangular to square canvas such as 640x480 to 480x480)

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 2:03 pm
by Shroomz~>

> stardust wrote:If you sorted it out to create 32bit tgas with a proper alpha channel AUTOMATICALLY from astandard tga after editin with PS it would be a nice move not just to claim knowledge but to share it.

As I said earlier, the alpha channels for your animation frames should be included in your render output from whatever 3d app you're using. This simplifies things considerably by eliminating the need to create alpha channels for each frame manually, although If a control is perfectly round in shape you only need to create one alpha channel for the entire animation anyway. Having alpha channels included in your 3d render output is pretty much a necessity for doing something oddly shaped like the pointer knobs or chickenheads I made. Otherwise I would have had to manually create an alpha channel mask for every frame (yawn).
Btw, 150 frames is WAY too many for any normal medium to large knobs. 61 is plenty over a 300 degree rotation & if the knob is small you'll even get away with 31 (31 is better than 33 for rotation divisions & creation of surround graphics)
You'd only need 150 for something MASSIVE!!!

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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:53 pm
by Shroomz~>
Yeh, very funny Stardust. It's obviously a waste of my time trying to give you advise. It may however, be advisable to take the following advise. If you tell people that photoshop isn't any good for this type of work & that gimp would be a better choice, you're most certainly making a complete fool of yourself.
Photoshop isn't what you'd call cheap, but then IS IT? when compared to what's considered reasonable to ask for a supposedly high-end audio plug-in? I bet you've spent a lot more on plugins for Scope than the cost of a PS license, so if you're in any way serious about graphics maybe that's worth pondering.

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Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:36 am
by Shroomz~>
It's not about PS v Gimp & Gimp is most certainly not comparable to Cubase or Logic as it's not a professional tool, as they & Photoshop are.
My coming into your conversation here was about you saying earlier in the thread that there's a flaw in photoshop's alpha channel handling & for that reason that you advise Gimp as a better choice. This is absolute nonsense as there is no > repeat > NO flaw in Photoshop's TGA or alpha channel handling. Anyone having such problems with photoshop is either using a very very old version or simply doesn't know how to use the application properly.
Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone like yourself or anyone else for that matter, choosing to use a free tool such as gimp. It is NOT however, a better choice than a professional application such as Photoshop just because YOU perceive PS to have a flaw, (which it does not) so it's quite foolish to make such claims.
Also, as I've said several times already here, your rendered animation frames can have the alpha channel per frame included eliminating any need to mess with masks in your 2d app. Lastly, but worth a mention, is that alpha channels can be tricky to work with anyway IF you're working with feathered edge pixels, but that's another issue which is not in ANY way related to a software flaw.
As you can see, I'm not talking about the pros & cons of these two apps, just trying to clear up the misinformation being given out.

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Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 5:46 am
by sharc
Can I just add that the alpha channel flaw I mentioned isn't exclusive to Photoshop. Except when working with vector graphics, this flaw can rear it's ugly head in most software including Gimp.

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Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 11:27 am
by Shroomz~>
Alpha channels are worked with separately & manually in photoshop to give you more flexibility. For example, you don't always want just a straight mask, you'll often want to include shadows, glows or feather the edges of it slightly to compensate for anti-aliasing on the edges of your image (or series of images). These things need to be done manually. Photoshop does not do the work for you & it is not supposed to. It assumes the user will want the flexibility to dig deeper, that's all.
I perfectly understand your points 1 & 2 and personally don't see the problem as I know it's not a flaw in the software.
As my brother touched on, the only real problem with alpha channels is actually inherant (no matter what app you're using) to working with images which have anti-aliasing or feathered edges (although working on a larger canvas often helps with this issue considerably). With such images, the edges of a normal alpha channel mask may often need to be tweeked to obtain a smooth blend with the image/s without unwanted artifacts. Such issues will need to be dealt with manually by working on your alpha channel no matter what software you're using, so from my perspective it's not an issue or flaw, but something you'll always need to deal with when creating certain graphics for use in the sdk.

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Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 5:19 pm
by hubird
conclusion: there's no misunderstanding about the given information (Gimp can do a task streight forward where PS cannot) but about the naming of the (missing) functionality...depending on the user looking for eighter quick use or excessive digging...could this help?

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Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:35 pm
by hubird

#### Re:

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 3:43 pm
by Spielraum

> stuff3d wrote:nee, das wird ein kompletter dj-mixer.
> 4 monokanäle, 6 sterokanäle, die auch schaltungstechnisch
> schon fertig sind, sowie 6 aux sends.
> die oberfläche ist fast komplett fertig, werde in kürze
> die ganze oberfläche vorstellen.
> muss halt aus gewissen gründen ein paar element ändern.
> die animationen werden halt viel arbeit, da ich ca. 100 poti-animationen
> erstellen muss, wegen den spiegelungen und den farbverläufen.
> schaun wir mal.....

habe ich etwas verpasst, genau so´n teil braucht scope unbedingt!!
und ich suche sowas schon seit pulsarzeiten...
where the finale.dev ?