Richard Rosenman
Engaged
Richard Rosenman
Engaged
Activity
‎Jan 21, 2022
05:59 AM
Hi Shachar! Thanks for your reply as always! Actually, I'm interested in the grabbed layer's position, not size, so that I can bind my effect to it. Kind of like using the pickwhip in After Effects to link one item's position to another. Can that be done with: checkout.u.ld.origin_x; However, when I use it, I just get 0.0 no matter where I move the grabbed layer. Any suggestions? Thanks, Richard
... View more
‎Jan 20, 2022
07:41 PM
Hi gang; This is probably a very silly question but if I check out a layer like so: AEFX_CLR_STRUCT(checkout);
ERR(PF_CHECKOUT_PARAM(in_data,
PARENT_LAYER_ID,
in_data->current_time,
in_data->time_step,
in_data->time_scale,
&checkout)); How do I retrieve it's position? I know I can easily retrieve the layer's width and height like so: int width = checkout.u.ld.width;
int height = checkout.u.ld.height; I found in the documentation that I can use this to retrieve the origin, which I assume is what I want: int originx = checkout.u.ld.origin_x;
int originy = checkout.u.ld.origin_y; But these return 0. I basically want to retrieve a layer's position so that I can bind my effect to it's position. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks, -Richard
... View more
‎Jan 10, 2022
09:11 PM
Sorry, wrong thread!
... View more
‎Jan 10, 2022
09:09 PM
Looks like I figured it out. It seems for PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX I need to add the flags in the actual parameter statement. Not sure why it differs from the others. I had it like this: AEFX_CLR_STRUCT(def); def.flags = PF_ParamFlag_SUPERVISE | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_TIME_VARY | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_INTERP; PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX("Slider", 0.0, 100.0, 0.0, 100.0, 25.0, PF_Precision_TENTHS, 0, LAYER_ID); But it needs to be like this: AEFX_CLR_STRUCT(def); PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX("Slider", 0.0, 100.0, 0.0, 100.0, 33.3333, PF_Precision_TENTHS, PF_ValueDisplayFlag_PERCENT, PF_ParamFlag_SUPERVISE | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_TIME_VARY | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_INTERP, LAYER_ID); If someone can confirm this, I can mark this as the correct answer for someone else in the future. -Richard
... View more
‎Jan 10, 2022
09:08 PM
Looks like I figured it out. It seems for PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX I need to add the flags in the actual parameter statement. Not sure why it differs from the others. I had it like this: AEFX_CLR_STRUCT(def); def.flags = PF_ParamFlag_SUPERVISE | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_TIME_VARY | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_INTERP; PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX("Slider", 0.0, 100.0, 0.0, 100.0, 25.0, PF_Precision_TENTHS, 0, LAYER_ID); But it needs to be like this: AEFX_CLR_STRUCT(def); PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX("Slider", 0.0, 100.0, 0.0, 100.0, 33.3333, PF_Precision_TENTHS, PF_ValueDisplayFlag_PERCENT, PF_ParamFlag_SUPERVISE | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_TIME_VARY | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_INTERP, LAYER_ID); If someone can confirm this, I can mark this as the correct answer for someone else in the future. -Richard
... View more
‎Jan 10, 2022
08:48 PM
Hi gang! I am using PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX float sliders with the following flags to make them not animatable (make the animation stopwatch icon disappear) and to supervise it so as to affect other parameters when it is adjusted: def.flags = PF_ParamFlag_SUPERVISE | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_TIME_VARY | PF_ParamFlag_CANNOT_INTERP; However, the animation stopwatch icon is still there. Likewise, in my UserChangedParam function it doesn't recognize it when I click / adjust that parameter. If I change it from PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX to PF_ADD_SLIDER, the animation stopwatch icon disappears and when I click on it, it notfies me so the supervision works. Most other parameters also respect these flags so why doesn't PF_ADD_FLOAT_SLIDERX? Is there another type of float slider I should be using that accepts these flags? Or am I missing a step somewhere? Thanks, -Richard
... View more
‎Jan 10, 2022
03:18 PM
Hi gang; I will be rendering a project that will require many animations to be compiled using ME. I will be rendering out the frames from a 3D app like 3ds Max, so the output will be in the form of: frame001.png frame002.png frame003.png ... Each animation will be approx 100 frames. So you can see that I am dealing with a great volume of data. I need to find a way to automate compiling every 100 frame sequence into an MP4 using ME. My first question is: Does ME support file lists? So if I were to create a text file that listed the frames in order such as those listed above (frame001.png, frame002.png, frame100.png), could I then drop the text file into ME and have it encode that sequence of 100 frames into an MP4? Or is there another way to have ME process a batch of frames into an MP4? I need to minimize the number of steps as much as possible so having ME process a batch of frames at a time is the most efficient way to do this. Any info or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, -Richard
... View more
‎Dec 17, 2021
06:44 PM
EDIT: Ok, so it actually DOES respect the alpha and it carries it over. What I am atually seeing is that my source layer's alpha is being replaced with the checked-out layer's alpha, as opposed to added to it. The behaviour I want is to composite the checked-out layer on top of my current one, not replace it with it's alpha. Any suggestions on what I am missing? Thanks, -Richard
... View more
‎Dec 17, 2021
06:28 PM
Like the title says, I have compiled the Checkout project included with the SDK to learn from it and, although it works as it should, it doesn't seem to repect a checked out layer's alpha channel. For instance, I made a new layer with simply a circle in it, and when I check out that layer, it copies the circle but the pixels that should have zero alpha come through as black. So it does not reveal the current layer outside the circle. Is there a special method to get the alpha to come through as well? Thanks, -Richard
... View more
‎Nov 25, 2021
07:53 AM
Hi gang; I am coding a relatively simple plugin with basic particle effects. At the moment, I have sliders that can rotate my around my particles but I would like to use the After Effects 3D camera since that's what it's for. I have gone through the Resizer project and I have successfully pulled the camera and light info. I also carefully read through this thread as well: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-discussions/glator-for-dummies-and-from-dummy/m-p/6930311 I see that using the camera matrix, I can pull the camera X, Y and Z coordinates using: matrix.mat[3][0];
matrix.mat[3][1];
matrix.mat[3][2]; I can't find anywhere in the documentation how to pull the remaninig info, like orientation. If I follow the GLater example, it suggests orientation would be: matrix.mat[0][1];
matrix.mat[1][1];
matrix.mat[2][1]; But that returns floating point data. Additionally, taking a look at the camera target, the GLater examples show: matrix.mat[2][0];
matrix.mat[2][1];
matrix.mat[2][2]; But that too returns floating point data. So my issue is two-fold: how to I get the remaining camera info, and more importantly, once I have it, how do I use it such as to adapt it to work with a 3D point in space? It is a shame Adobe erased so many valuable forum threads that probably showed some great examples on how to use the camera. I searched the documentation and I can't even find a description anywhere on what camera matrix corresponds to what. Can anyone help here? I realize it is a loaded question but seeing as how there is no relevant help anywhere else, a good reply (ideally with some example source code) would no doubt help a lot of other developers also trying to understand how to use the 3D camera in the SDK. Thanks! -Richard
... View more
‎Nov 09, 2021
06:00 PM
Hi Mylenium! Thanks for your reply. Let me see if I can give a simple example. Let's say I make a comp with 100 frames. I emit 1 particle per frame and I have a total of 100 particles so if I let it run, it will emit one particle per frame. Now at frame 50, I will keyframe my emission rate from 1 to 0. Unfortunately, this will also affect all the previous particles that have been emitted so if there's 50 onscreen, they will all disappear. This is the part I don't understand how the integrated particle plugins do it. I am using a frame-based approach so I believe I don't need arrays (from my undestanding). I guess it's the keyframing part that affects it in a way I am unsure how to approach. To check if the emission rate changes over time, it sounds like I have to check the (possibly keyframed) emission rate at every frame from 0 to the current frame, and add them together to get the current total so far. It sounds like I am overcomplicating thing though? Does this make sense? Richard
... View more
‎Nov 09, 2021
09:18 AM
Hi gang; I am coding a particle plugin using the SDK and I am having difficulty understanding how particle emission rate is done such as that used in the Particle Playground plugin, CC Particle World and CC Particle World 2. Specifically, I want to know how they are able to specify an emission rate and then keyframe it to 0, but have the exisiting particles continue to live. I know this depends greatly on how you've set up your system but it would seem to me you'd have to add up all the exisiting particles emitted from every frame up until the emission is keyframed to 0. Anyway, any suggestions or tips would be highly appreciated! Thanks, -Richard
... View more
‎Sep 17, 2021
07:14 PM
Thank you as always Shachar (and James). I'd be utterly lost without your thoughtful help and expertise. Thank you. Richard
... View more
‎Sep 15, 2021
05:18 PM
Hi gang; I've had this issue come up a number of times. In UserChangedParam and UpdateParameterUI I am modifying some parameters. Specifically, I am setting coordinates for a 'slave' point parameter based off a 'master' point parameter. This works just fine if I move the master point parameter interactively - the slave also moves accordingly. However, if I animate the master point parameter, and then scrub through the timeline, the slave does not update. I assume I need to somehow force AE to update the parameter results during the render function. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can go about solving my issue? Thanks! -Richard
... View more
‎Nov 21, 2020
03:28 PM
Hi Shachar! As usual, you come to the rescue.. 🙂 Please bear with me so that I understand this. In my testing, I can see that calling err = PF_Interrupt_CANCEL indeed cancels the render. Since my render happens in the SmartRender function, I send the above error in the PreRender function and it successfully skips the SmartRender function. I assume this is how I should be doing it? What I can't figure out is how to test if the user cancelled the render, and by cancel, based on my original message above, I assume that includes moving to a different frame, clicking on a button, etc, in mid-computation of the current one? If so, then I would want to test if this has happened, and if so, interrupt the frame. Something like the following: if (err = PF_ABORT(in_dataP)) err = PF_Interrupt_CANCEL; But I know this is incorrect. Am I going up the right road in testing to see if a frame (or anything for that matter), was changed during the current frame computation and, if so, to abort it? With regards to your suggestion about re-entrancy, I don't even know where to begin with that. I have found the source that is causing the crash (resizing a 2D matrix), and it doesn't crash if I don't interrupt the frame. It does if I do (for example, repeatedly move over 3 frames. So I figured the first attempts would be to skip it altogether if the user has interrupted the current processing. Any suggestions? Thank you as always - it's still a learning process but couldn't have gotten this far without your help. Regards, -Richard
... View more
‎Nov 20, 2020
08:38 PM
Hi gang; So I've got a plugin that I developed. It is computationally intensive so it takes some time to render a frame. I found that if I advance through frames quickly in After Effects, it crashes. If I advance through frames slowly, allowing each one to fully render, it doesn't. This means that interrupting a frame that hasn't yet been completed, results in crashing. What I'd like to know is what does After Effects actually do when you interrupt the current frame processing to move to another? How does it interrupt the processing? Does it somehow abort it or does it wait for it to finish in the background? Is there a function that gets called whenever a frame is interrupted where I can do a clean up? If I understand this, I might be able to know how to approach a fix for it. Thanks! Richard
... View more
‎Sep 02, 2020
08:58 PM
Hi gang; I am having trouble with trying to keep my parameters uncollapsed (closed). I will do my best to explain the problem I have a dropdown that allows you to select an option: AEFX_CLR_STRUCT(def);
def.flags = PF_ParamFlag_SUPERVISE;
PF_ADD_POPUP( "Option",
4,
1,
"Option 1|Option 2|Option 3|Option 4",
OPTION_DISK_ID); Then in the UpdateParameterUI function, I check to see which option has been selected. If Option 1 has been selected, I disable a parameter. Otherwise, I enable it. The angle parameter is also supervised in the ParamsSetup function. if (params[OPTION_DISK]->u.pd.value == 1)
{
params[ANGLE_DISK]->ui_flags |= PF_PUI_DISABLED;
params[ANGLE_DISK]->flags |= PF_ParamFlag_COLLAPSE_TWIRLY;
}
else
{
params[ANGLE_DISK]->ui_flags &= ~PF_PUI_DISABLED;
params[ANGLE_DISK]->flags |= PF_ParamFlag_COLLAPSE_TWIRLY;
} I also have the collapse_twirly flag to keep it closed no matter which option is selected because I don't want it to automatically pop open. Finally, I update the parameter: AEGP_SuiteHandler suites(in_data->pica_basicP);
ERR(suites.ParamUtilsSuite3()->PF_UpdateParamUI(in_data->effect_ref,
ANGLE_DISK,
params[ANGLE_DISK])); Now, my problem using this code is that if I collapse (open) the ANGLE parameter and try ot adjust the slider, it immediately closes. I think this is because I've added the PF_ParamFlag_COLLAPSE_TWIRLY. However, if I don't, the parameter will automatically collapse (open) when I select an option from the dropdox. I realize it's difficult to explain this. But what I want to do, is make a selection from the option dropdown parameter, which will enable the angle parameter, but NOT have the angle parameter collapse (open) unless the user opens it.. What am I doing wrong? -Rich
... View more
‎Aug 21, 2020
04:32 PM
Thank you Shachar - this is very, very helpful information. I will go and do some tests. "on mac, the release and debug configs differ mostly in the optimization definitions (i.e. optimize fastest/smallet ect). that is why your debug-compiled plug-in worked on non-dev machines." Does the above statement mean that unlike Windows where a release mode-compiled app runs MUCH faster than a debug mode one, it is not so on Mac, where the main differences are only in the compiled plugin size? Thanks, -Richard
... View more
‎Aug 20, 2020
05:14 PM
Yes, that's why I tagged the post SDK. -Richard
... View more
‎Aug 20, 2020
04:10 PM
Any suggestions or advice? I have been told that the way to do this is to edit the scheme for the project and make the changes from 'Debug' to 'Release'. However, 'Release' is not available as an option. 'Debug' is the ONLY option available. -Richard
... View more
‎Aug 19, 2020
10:12 AM
Hi gang; I have done a lot of research but I still can't get an official answer. I want to make sure I am compling in release mode as opposed to debug mode for distribution. This thread says to do so by selecting "Product" Menu => "Build For" => "Profiling" - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21897728/how-to-toggle-running-xcode-project-in-debug-or-release-mode-by-using-only-short This thread says (and a few others) to select "Product => Archive" It seems to be for IOS but probably applies to MacOS as well - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5706548/how-do-i-create-a-release-build-in-xcode Finally, this thread (and several others) say to edit the scheme - https://pinkstone.co.uk/deploying-your-app-from-xcode-to-a-device-with-release-build-configuration/ As you can see there is a lot of conflicting information. I have been doing "Product" Menu => "Build For" => "Profiling" and I distributed to some testers and it worked on their machines. But I want to be 100% sure, especially for the speed gain in release mode. Could someone please offer some guidance to this so that we have it in a post for once and for all? Thanks in advance, -Richard
... View more
‎Aug 07, 2020
07:28 AM
Any tips or suggestions on the compiling questions for Mac listed above? Thanks, Richard
... View more
‎Aug 07, 2020
07:26 AM
Ok, sounds good. Thank you for the info. Regards, Richard
... View more
‎Aug 06, 2020
05:16 PM
Hi gang; Is there a function that returns the After Effects plugin install folder WITHOUT the plugin filename, in Xcode Mac OS? I'm looking for something along the lines of "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/[version]/MediaCore" Or wherever the plugin that was launched resides? Thanks, Richard
... View more
‎Aug 06, 2020
10:01 AM
Hi gang; I have installed After Effects 2020 on my Mac and I see that the plugins are missing the 'About' button. This is important because I am a developer and I have important information in these buttons. Here's the example from the After Affects CS6 interface that shows the button I'm talking about. It's no longer there in 2020 in the same Gaussian Blur plugin. Just the 'Reset' button is visible. Any ideas what's going on? -Richard
... View more
‎Aug 06, 2020
07:42 AM
Hi Shachar; Thanks for your reply. It's good to know the min / max issue is a common one. I managed to successfully compile a Mac plugin yesterday! Yay! I'll take this opportunity to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind: 1 - On Windows, there are several settings to change for release mode. On Mac, I've read I simply select Build For -> Profiling. Is that correct? I know that it's important to have any dependencies embedded in the file or it may not work on another machine. 2 - Right now compiling a plugin dumps it in its Xcode directory somewhere and I need to copy it each time to the After Effects plugins folder. If I change the Xcode output directory to the After Effects plugins folder in Xcode project settings, the build fails. Any ideas why? 3 - In Xcode settings, I can specify the MacOS version to compile for. I am compiling for the latest but does that mean the plugin won't work in earlier OSs? If that's the case, should I compile for the earliest OS option it gives me? I thank that is v10.6. Do you have any other tips, suggestions or settings for compiling on a Mac correctly? Thank you, as always, for your help Shachar. Regards, Richard
... View more
‎Aug 04, 2020
01:59 PM
Hello gang; I'm at a loss here and I need some serious help. Let me explain the situation. I learned how to code AE plugins on my PC using an older Visual Studio Express 2012 and the After Effects CS6 SDK. Again, I know it's old but it was easier to understand. I've since coded a few plugins and one complex one which I wish to port to have a Mac version as well. That's where all the issues arise. - I picked up a mid 2015 MacBook Pro with Catalina MacOS. - I installed XCode 11.1 because I cannot install older XCode versions since they won't work with Catalina. (For instance, the After Effects CS6 SDK says it was meant for XCode 3.5 but Catalina won't allow me to install that) - I installed the CS6 SDK for Mac and after fiddling with some settings, I think I actually got it to compile the skeleton project (after changing the BASE SDK). At least it seems to export skeleton.plugin but I don't yet have After Effects installed to check. - Then I try it with my project. When I open my project, it has a bunch of errors. Things like not recognizing min and instead asking to switch it to fmin. There are a lot of code errors. I suspect it is doing this because the C version in Visual Studio Express 2012 is the older one (c99?) while the XCode 11.1 is probably using the new one. Is my hunch correct? So I am caught between a rock and a hard place. I cannot go through and change all my code for every plugin to make it compatible with the newer C in XCode 11.1. That's a ton of work. I cannot install an older, more compatible version of XCode because it won't work with Catalina. I could install an older OS so as to be able to run an older version of XCode but that seems like a huge amount of work and time to get a ported plugin to work. So what are you recommendations? Is there a simpler way to do this? Updating my Visual Studio Express 2012 and the After Effects CS6 SDK isn't an option as it took a lot of work to get it to compile succesfully. Surely it cannot be this challening to develop a port? Any suggestions are welcome!
... View more
‎May 22, 2020
07:38 AM
Any thoughts or suggestions to this? Thanks, -Rich
... View more
‎May 20, 2020
04:08 PM
Hi Shachar; Thank you very much for that thoughtful and detailed answer. It makes sense and I'm going to try these two suggestions. Kind regards, -Richard
... View more
‎May 20, 2020
03:29 PM
After Effects' caching is extremely aggressive. I am developing a plugin and would like to disable it. I couldn't find any function in the SDK to do this. Is there some way of tricking After Effects to do so? Thanks, Rich
... View more
AdChoices