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labs: AEae and MayaMaya v1.1. . .

AEae and MayaMaya have both been updated to include basic preferences and drag and drop functionality. This means you can now launch the app normally to open a specific number of new instances of the apps, or you can drag and drop project files onto the app to automatically open each one up in separate instances.

Download: AEae | MayaMaya

[andoru.labs]

labs: flashy! . .

flashy_enabled flashy_enabled

Upon realizing that the latest update to my favorite Safari extension (YouTube5) now supports Vimeo embeds, I realized there was no longer a reason to have Flash enabled on my system, at least not my main workstation. As many have mentioned, and John Gruber explains well on his site Daring Fireball, it is pretty simple to enable/disable Flash by just moving the plug-in components from the folder that Safari (and most other browsers) expect to find them. This way you have an easy fallback if you want to enable the plug-in, without going through the trouble of downloading anything.

As a person who is in front of a computer a lot, I need to ration my clicks, I am in my twenty’s and I just don’t know much clicking this right hand’s got left. . .

flashy! is an AppleScript applet that makes the simple simpler by automatically enabling and disabling the Flash plug-in by moving the appropriate components from their normal directory, and placing them in a “.disabled” directory for safekeeping.

From this:
flashy_window
flashyenabled_finder

To this:
flashy_window
flashydisabled_finder

And that pretty much covers it. The app will check for the files in their original location, disable them if they are there, and try to put them back if they aren’t. A simple toggle switch. If flashy! can’t find any of those files it will politely inform you. . .


Download: flashy! download page. . . (319KB .zip)

Log:
[2010.11.04: v1.0] – released!
[2010.11.10 – v1.1] – restarts Finder after disabling Flash to avoid errors when re-enabling

Known Issue v_1.0: When using flashy!_v1.0 for the the first time, after using it to disable Flash, you actually need to go to “/Library/Internet Plug-Ins.disabled/” and select the Flash Player.plugin file, just select it, or you will get an error message when trying to re-enable it (also make sure to Reset Safari for the change to take place in your browser). You should only need to do this once, but I am looking into it (see v1.1 above). . .

Tip: Most browsers (including Safari) have an option to Reopen Windows from Last Session in the History menu. Also, put flashy! in your Utilities folder or wherever, and just run it from Spotlight. Cmd+Space, type the first couple of letters “fla…” and press return.

Enjoy! If there are any issues, concerns, or requests please contact: andoruLABS.support. It is quite possible there could be a few little bugs or improvements that could be made so don’t be afraid to contact me. This app is free, no donations allowed on this one. . .

[andoru.labs] | [youtube5] | [daring.fireball]

labs: RenderQ_v1.2. . .

Quick update to RenderQ to v1.2 to work with latest 32/64bit release of Nuke (make sure to Reset Preferences). Also added system sleep and maya project settings…

RenderQ_v1.2

[andoru.labs]

labs: 5DDtoRGBB. . .

5DtoRGB is a Mac OS X app developed by Rarevision that is “designed to transcode your footage to a camera master format, either as Apple ProRes QuickTime files or DPX files.” Not a necessity for a lot of DSLR users, but great for any medium to heavy post work and those wanting to get the most flexibility when color grading. Another interesting bit is the ability to add an alpha to ProRes 4444 clips based on the luminance, to make it quick and easy to work with footage in post. Could be very useful for those shooting effects elements, etc.

At this point in time, 5DtoRGB is still in beta and works only as a single shot transcoding method. Meaning only one clip can be processed at a time. I would imagine Rarevision is planning to add batch functionality to their app in the future, but I see this as a very useful tool that people would like to put to immediate use. I developed 5DDtoRGBB to make it simple to open multiple instances of 5DtoRGB and prepare clips for encoding. I haven’t tested encoding times thoroughly, but I would imagine opening a massive number of 5DtoRGB instances and having them all process clips simultaneously will only end in tears.

5DDtoRGBB v1.1 (9/7) addresses this by having an “Auto” mode. Not quite a batch solution, but still very useful. In Auto Mode, 5DD will allow you to select or drag and drop multiple clips, and one instance of 5DtoRGB will load up with the first clip in the queue, allow you to convert it, then quit that instance, the next one will load up, and so on and so forth. So you still need to manually choose options for conversion and select a destination, but still can save some time. This is likely going to be redundant when Rarevision puts out on update, but I find it a good exercise to help improve my current and other future workflow tools. Rarevision has confirmed that a command line version is in the works so more 5DtoRGB stuff will definitely be happening in the future.

Included in the download is 5DDtoRGBB, and a Reset 5DDtoRGBB Preferences app which does exactly that. It sends the preference file (which is stored at ~/Library/Preferences/com.andorulabs.5DDtoRGBB.plist) to the trash. As you may have noticed, I also included a nice unofficial icon for 5DtoRGB as well. Let’s see if Rarevision is interested. . .

Demo:


Download: 5DDtoRGBB (871KB .zip)

Log:
-2010.9.06 – v1.0 Released!
-2010.9.07 – v1.1 added “Auto” and “Manual” modes

I have contacted Rarevision with the hopes that they will add command line functionality to their app so I can incorporate 5DtoRGB encoding into my RenderQ app and have a single simple solution for all heavy duty processing I do on my workstation. In the meantime, I am working on adding drag and drop functionality to this tool, and the ability to open multiple clips up in their own separate instance of 5DtoRGB, ready to press convert and began encoding when ready. Still not a complete batch processing solution, but a good workaround until. . .

Update (9/7): Rarevision says a command line version is indeed in the works and more features are coming soon.

If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, this tool is free but feel free to donate if you find it useful.

[5DtoRGB] | [andoru.labs]

labs: 2010 Storyboard Templates. . .

story board index

Probably the most valuable couple of megabytes on this site, my storyboard templates have continuously been one of the top sources of traffic. For me, storyboarding is simultaneously the most rewarding and frustrating part of the film making process. It is very rare that a scripted scene survives the storyboarding step unscathed. While you really don’t need anything special to produce a great sequence of storyboard panels (choices range from the lowly diner napkin to the highest end Wacom Cintiq), we live in a world where people offer up all shorts of wonderful options and tools free of charge, and you would be silly not to take a look at them. I never found anything I really liked to draw my panels on so I put together some of my own a little while back.

Recently I updated them just a bit and while I tend to do most of by story boarding on one of these beauties. . .

. . . I also put together some .psd versions for people that like to work digitally from start to finish. Working in Photoshop also gives you the ability to mask off panels and shuffle things around easily.

You can checkout some examples of these templates in use on my current Floating World project page.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1280×800 (26MB)

iPhone Version (8MB)


Download: andoru.LABS 2010 Storyboard Templates (1.54MB .zip)

Log:
[feel free to use and distribute these in accordance to the CC license presented at the bottom of this site]
-2010.8.06 – Updated for 2010 and simplified
-2010.8.06 – Added .PSD templates for digital storyboarding

Like I already mentioned, there are many ways to create a storyboard. Being arguably the most important part of the film-making process I recommend doing it with some class. . .

If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, these templates are free but feel free to donate if you find them useful.

[andoru.labs]

labs. NukeView. . .

nukeview dock

After using Nuke for quite awhile now I have really started to like it’s built in viewer. It has easy controls to view multiple channels, simple region of interest, exposure and gamma controls, and proper keyboard shortcuts (jkl) for playback. I found myself often opening up Nuke just to use the viewer to take a look at renders and recently discovered while digging through the documentation that Nuke can be launched in viewer only mode using the command line. If you have ever visited this site before it is probably well apparent I am a fan of making AppleScript droplets for utilizing command line features of apps, and this was no different.

NukeView is a simple app that allows you to easily open an image sequence in the Nuke viewer without going through all the steps of opening the app, creating read nodes, finding the sequence, etc. You can simply drag and drop any file in the sequence onto NukeView and it will open Nuke in viewer only mode, then begin playback of the sequence.

Demo:

QuickTime Version 1172×720 (50.6MB)

iPhone Version (15MB)

As mentioned NukeView expects the “filename.count.ext” naming syntax and that you actually choose or drag and drop one of the image sequence files, not the folder that contains them.

UPDATE: 2010.10.6 | For those downloading NukeView again after this date, make sure to reset preferences as they are now setup differently. NukeView will now ask for the full path of the Nuke executable. For those not familiar:

1. Right click on the Nuke app to “Show Package Contents” and find the Nuke6… executable alias (/Nuke6.x.app/Contents/MacOS/Nuke6.x)

2. Reset preferences if you were using an older version of NukeView

3. Launch NukeView and it will ask you for the executable path, just drag and drop the Nuke executable (Grey UNIX file) from Finder into the open dialog.


Download: NukeView (1MB .zip)

Log:
-2010.5.17: developed basic functionality
-2010.5.28: redeveloped to allow opening and drag and drop of any file in sequence, NukeView will find how many characters are in the fileCount and open it accordingly.
-2010.10.6: updated for 64bit versions of Nuke (6.1v2…) that use new directory naming scheme. Please reset preferences before using this version.

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Also, this app is free but feel free to donate like a maniac.

[andoru.labs]

andrew hake | reel | twitter-andrewhake
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