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Hi everyone,
Im thinking about implementing a little something as a plugin for TVPaint, and wanted to hear from you if you will find it useful or maybe it already exists.
The problem:
I have some shots with about 6 or 7 characters. As I do my compositing in AE, and soon Ill try to switch to Nuke, I want to export the animations as PNG seqs. Most of the time, I want to export each character to its own sequence, and even to separate the color layer from the outlines. Doing it now is very time consuming, because I need to turn all the layers on and off, and wait for each export to complete. It can take hours.

So, I was thinking to borrow a little from the big brothers at the CG and VFX realm, and export all visible layers as one EXR seq. Then in Nuke, and maybe in AE as well, it is very easy to isolate each layer as we wish.
Maybe it can be taken further, and use the new Deep Compositing techniques: I can add an artificial depth to each layer, based on its order, so it can be easier to insert other images or animations between them. For example, a bag between an arm and a body, with no need to worry about layer order once outside of TVpaint. I know this deep stuff is probably an overkill, Im just thinking out loud. Maybe it can be useful.
The last think I though about implementing there, is an option to the sequence automatically to the exact bounding box of the animation. I don't know if EXR supports different resolutions for different layers,
but I can always export multiple sequences automatically. Maybe based on layers names or colors.

Im not sure, but I think it will be relatively easy to implement.

Thanks

Sounds very interesting!
I often export sequences to AE if I need an elaborate camera move or one that is hard to create in TVP so a plugin like this would definitely have my attention.

It's a feature more and more requested.

Currently, I know we did a script with george to do so, but it could be great to implement it definitely into the software.

Hi Elodie,
Do you know where can I find this script? It might be good enough, though I'll probably give EXR a try anyway, just for fun.

oferk, how about fixing Lazy Brush. It seems it works on very simple samples but when using in the field it has many problems (viz SIERRA'S REPORT AND sANDRA FINDS IT USELESS As well).

I expected this Well, first of all, I am working on some fixes right now. I just became available for working on this, and at least for now, Im working on this for free, so I can only do things that are simple enough to implement. Some things are just a bit tedious to do as a plugin (and not an integrated feature).
We just completed coloring two student films with LazyBrush, and they weren't so simple samples at all. I understand that it does not fit your pipeline, but it does work. And we will
try to fix that for you.

I began developing the LazyBrush plugin for myself, as I will do for this one, if someone else will find it useful, I will give it to them.

Frankly, had I been made aware of this position of yours at the time I was eager to support it, I wouldn't have dished out 60 bucks for something headed for the dust bin.

Its not headed for the dust bin at all. On the contrary. Its just not me anymore who is supposed to take it much further.
I think I misphrased myself. I didn't intend to say that we won't try to improve and update the plugin, or to make you feel like you wasted your money.
I apologize it came out like that.

oferk wrote:Hi Elodie,
Do you know where can I find this script? It might be good enough, though I'll probably give EXR a try anyway, just for fun.

Unfortunately, I cannot help you neither. The developer who created the script (Eric2) is in holidays