In windows 7 use:
1. Open Local Group Policy Editor. It is quite hidden - search for it in Windows Start menu or in Control panel - use the search box as I have not found the shortcut for it. Alternatively you can run gpedit from command line (not from Run in Start menu).
2. Navigate to User Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components - Tablet PC - Cursor.
3. Enable the Turn off pen feedback setting.

(From http://superuser.com/questions/49465/disable-cursor-ring-for-tablet-in-windows-7)

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I’ve updated bf_rename.

I recommend the hotkey CRTL+F2.

Now it is possible to rename multiple selected files.
The title shows the file to rename.
And the super cool new feature: CRTL-A uses the current text for the all or the rest of the tools in the selection.
This is useful if you have a branch which for example belongs to a Fire effect. Simply open the rename script, write fire and press CRTL-A and all tools will be renamed to fire with their proper short name as prefix.

Get it from VFXPedia
or my labs at output

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I always keep forgetting shell commands I rarely use. I needed to split a file on a mac and put it together on a pc. (good old 4GB Fat32 limit)

split --verbose -d -b4000MB input.mov output.mov.part

-b2000M sets the maximum size to 4000 Megabytes (b for binary). -d uses numeric suffix instead of aa ab etc.

SIZE may have a multiplier suffix:
b 512, kB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000,
M 1024*1024, GB 1000*1000*1000,
G 1024*1024*1024, and so on for T, P, E, Z, Y.

On a PC you can use the commandline command:

copy output.mov.part00+output.mov.part01 output_complete.mov

On a unix shell use:

cat output.mov.part00 output.mov.part01 > output_complete.mov

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..and by 3D I mean stereoscopic 3D.

Cineform is a company best known for its intermediate codec. Now they have created a solution to handle separate data for each file as one asset. Also separate or global corrections can be applied. I really appreciate these guys’ work. Check the FreshDV coverage on NAB with David Newman [1]. David’s blog is a good place to hang out for solid information.
If you need a quick introduction to stereoscopic imagery David gives a brief overview over the available techniques at the beginning of the feature.

[1] David Newmans blog (cineform.blogspot.com)

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As a kid I was a big fan of Peter Molyneux. I watched the progress in developing Black&White every month. I enjoyed the tight atmosphere in Fable 2 and I really get his point of design. He wants us to feel much more involved in the games as if they were real. Not from graphics point of view, but from true artificial human emotions.

But this is almost scary:

Go on, change the world peter!

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I will start Beta for the SVG Importer soon. It will be closed so that the initial public release works (more or less).

What do you need to do?
Send me a mail to apply. Please provide some basic information:
- What fusion Version do you use
- If you have Python installed, if yes which version (it’s not required though)
- What version of SVG-Supported Illustration Application you use, if any (e.g. Illustator CS2, Corel Draw XXX)
- What’s your favorite beer(tm by eyeon

Then you get the importer and may test away.
If you find bugs or some svgs do not work or have suggestions contact me.

Note that not all svgs may be supported. If you can provide me with the one I can see if it is due to a bug or serious lack of format support. If it is I will patch it within the beta phase. If not it will be added as feature request / bug for upcoming releases. The goal is to have basic svgs working or being able to manipulate and export the Vectors in Illustrator & Co. in a fashion that it is supported by the importer.

If you are still interested send me a mail.

Now some facts:
As stated before the main part of the importer is written in Python (with standard modules, including ctypes for win32con free(!) clipboard support directly through the windows API).
This means that at least with Python 2.5 you should be able to run it. This is a very flexible solution because the exporter works basically as commandline tool. So even if you don’t have Python I will provide an executable from py2exe which you can use instead. The lua code / interface stays almost the same.
I decided not to use the pyEyeon lib to connect to Fusion but instead copy the tools to the clipboard and paste it through a LUA/eyeonscript interface. This way the fusion importer is basically the same as the clipboard exporter class and similar to the comp exporter which adds the extra parts of the composition. All tools are drawn next to each other. A vertical option comes soon. Maybe it’s worth to group the polys but I haven’t done it yet and haven’t checked how grouped mask behave.
Alternatively you can export to multiple (as many as paths) DFSH shape files. It may be not useful (I’ve implemented that first) but if that format didn’t changed you can use it for fusion 4 imports maybe. Even if the lua interface goes mad (no direct paste support) it’s still a nice option.

I think that’s all folks.

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Today I had some hours to implemented the matrices. I found a little matrix class someone created so I don’t have to rely on numeric. This saved my day compared to the p00p I wrote for testing.

So feature wise the basics are there. Now it creates a comp with all the shapes. Or as alternative a couple of DFSH files.

Still on the Todo:
- optional apect ratio override
- linear polys
- the lua interface for easier access in fusion
- maybe a template for the comp so it will be compatible with other fusion versions

Not much left, we’re almost there. After that I will give it to certain people for beta testing. I will have to clean up, especially possible bugs for the public releases. Give me a message to labs bfloch com to apply for testing.

Stuff left out that might be in future releases:
- other primitives
- grouping
- maybe colors :-)
- direct creation of polys in fusion (would rely on pyEyeon)

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If you ever wondered what the “decomposeMatrix” plugin in your Maya installation does:
it decomposes a matrix. Say what?
You input a matrix and get the proper translate, rotate, scale and shear values.
Why the hell would I do this?

Here a nice scenario I encountered. I had a camera movement and wanted to add a layer of animation. It would be easier to animate if I “baked” the movement of the first camera and used a second camera with additional movement.

So I’ve created a group for all objects (except the camera) connected the inverseMatrix of the first camera to a decompose node and connected these transformation to the group.
Now I “baked” the camera movement and was able to create a second camera which I animated around the group. The first camera can be changed without affecting the second one. Neat stuff I wanted to share.

If you need an example tell me.

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Step by step it’s coming along. I’ve rewritten the main functionality of the SVG to fusion translator in python and added some functionality. I called this baby SVGet.
In general you should be able to import basic shapes and it even creates a nice comp for you! But there are some features like matrices / transformations which must be available to ensure that more SVG shapes are supported. Also only paths/polybezier lines are supported. I want to include at least linear lines, too. Cubic lines / B-Splines are supported by SVG but I haven’t seen an app that creates them. So no Cubic lines this time.

Shapes like circles etc. could be added in future but are not that important. Also I need to think of how to solve matrices with shapes like circles. Should work for translate, scale and rotate but as soon as skew or custom matrices are involved we have a problem. In this case a circle polyshape would need to take over. Not worth the trouble for now.

Also I don’t think that I will support colors in this basic release. Something for the future (or community). I want to concentrate on the paths now.

The public beta will start as soon as the “must have” features are included. This should be the start to close the gap between graphic and compositing department in fusion.

Now I can do gnus AND penguins

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studiodaily [1] hosts an interesting talk about editing systems and their future. Worth to watch (and quite entertaining, too).

[1] Alhpadogs Lounge on editing (studiodaily.com)

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The frameCache node in maya is very handy for delaying animations. This script makes use of it to created delayed transform animations or copies of such.
The partner script bfUpdateFrameCache updates them in case maya messed up while you changed the animation afterwards. Check this poor dummy animation for an example:

This was a great chance to test maya’s python bindings. Well they are a bit more awkward compared to mel. But as long as I can use pythons great oo concepts it is forgivable.

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I’ve put a little command line batch utility to the output [1] which enables you to easily change your IP address from within the commandline in windows.
Tested on XP SP3.

Usage:
------
changeip.bat adapter static|dhcp [IP] [Gateway] [DNS]

Examples:
---------
Change Network adapter "LAN" to dhcp
changeip.bat "LAN" dhcp

Change Network adapter "LAN" to IP 192.168.0.1 (leave Gateway and DNS as is)
changeip.bat "LAN" static 192.168.0.1

Change Network adapter "LAN" to IP 192.168.0.1 (Gateway and DNS to none)
changeip.bat "LAN" static 192.168.0.1 none none

Change Network adapter "LAN" to IP 192.168.0.1 with gateway 192.168.0.2
and DNS 192.168.0.4
changeip.bat "LAN" static 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.2 192.168.0.4

Look for it under tools/other.

[1] output (labs.bfloch.com)

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Some geek info about the importer…

As you may have noticed from various sources I’m working on a SVG importer/translator script for fusion. I wrote a prototype in Qt (C++) and decided to rewrite it in plain python.

The status so far is that XML Parsing is mostly done and the linked lists are build. There are some steps needed to apply all transformation matrices to the path object which can be kind of tricky. I’ve ignored this step in the prototype to only parse paths within one path or without transformation. Actually you would need to merge down all paths to a single path which can be easily done within Illustrator. But I want allow support for conventional SVGs so “I will do the math".

On the other hand I won’t support color and gradient data. Also different shapes besides paths / polyshapes (B-Splines) will be ignored. The importer is written object oriented though so more SVG features can be added in future by myself or others.

Here again the screenshot from the working prototype. Since I’ve dropped Qt / pyQt for this tool there won’t be a nice preview in the final version. I didn’t want to force people to install pyQt to use this (yet ). But the script is planned to be usable as commandline script so you can embed it into your pipeline or do batch conversion.

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Welcome to my laboratory!

I feel like Dexter. This sub site will help to separate my private blog from useful stuff I create. Hope to provide you with great ideas, scripts, tools or applications. Feel free to comment!

/script links to this blog.
/output contains the files.

Also check out my /links section.
EDIT: Did I mention that there is a nice Atom/RSS feed?

Cheers
Blazej

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