Testimonial: Why scripting is one of THE BEST features in AS

[heyvern]

I just have to give a shout out to the absolutely brilliant decision to include lua scripting in AS and also why it is so important for AS to make scripting even better.

I have been a long time, loud and repititous fan of the scripting interface in AS. Until now it was always just a really cool feature. Yes I could do a lot with it but I never had an opportunity to experience how it can be used in as an incredible time saver for low budget repetitious projects.

In the last few weeks I had a real job using AS. Very low budget. This job required doing animated "karaoke". Sing-along type animation that highlights words to the lyrics of music. The first "test" project I did a while back took a couple of hours for just one book. It was extremely tedious. Most of the effort was struggling to find the exact spot in the wave form of the audio where a key frame would be placed to highlight a syllable and repeating this over and over and over.

When I was done, I kept thinking this is crazy. There must be a better way. But it was just in the back of my head. A dream. One book was not enough incentive to create a new script.

Recently I received 25 of these books to do. Twenty freaking five. 5-9 pages each. As I got closer to the point of actually hand animating each of those books I got more and more anxious about it. I was dreading it. Oh my goodness I was sooooo dreading that tedious mind numbing process. Scrubbing through the time line in AS to find that exact spot and sticking in a key frame for syllable after syllable, page after page, the same thing for each but slightly different over and over and over and over and....

There must be a better way. NOW there was an incentive to use scripting for this job.

The first step involved setting up the AS template files ahead of time. This process was already established. This took the most time but was still "automated" to some extent using a text editor, search and replace and modifying a tool to speed up the creation of switch masks highlighting the syllables on multiple "pages" of each book. Scripting was used here by creating a simple modification to the select points tool that uses the arrow keys to move up and down the layers inside a switch to edit each layer by deleting a shape for each syllable. No need to move my mouse to the layer palette and click on it, i just tap the down arrow key and cycle through the layers many times faster as before.

The next step involved creating a "click" track using a midi keyboard and "tapping" along to the music to define where the syllables were. (this step won't be needed for future books as the "click" track can be created from the original music automatically).

The last step was to write a relatively simple script that opened this click file, counted the "clicks" and the spot on the time line, and placed key frames for each switch layer in the proper order and repeating the whole process 3 times for each song.

BANG! What took one or two, or even up to three hours before was done literally in a split second. The time needed to create the click track sound file was MEANINGLESS compared to the savings in tedium and potential errors of doing the animation by hand in AS.

The ENTIRE animation is done in ONE SINGLE STEP. It automatically sets the length of the animation based on the length of the sound file. There is NO hand animating needed WHATSOEVER. All keys, all setting of layer visibility, opacity for fades... all of it done in a few seconds with one script. While testing the script I would clear all the animation from the document and run it again, recreating hours of work over and over in just a few seconds. Changes could be made to the script and the process repeated. It is easier now to "redo" the whole animation then to go in and "hand edit" small changes. Trying to find the exact spot for a small edit adds minutes to the job, multiplied times 25 files... you see how it is. Just modify the script, clear the animation and run it again. Much faster.

In the past my scripting projects never had a time line or a budget. This was the first time I could personally see how scripting had a direct impact on making things faster and easier with a real "paying" job in AS. I went from losing money on the agreed price to actually making money. I made a boring horrible monotonous job into a simpler multi-step automated task. I took a monotonous, tedious, low budget job and made it simple and easy to do.

I can't express enough how fantastic this was. How amazing it is too see AS zipping through these files and knowing they are all exactly correct. Exactly right. If there were any problems I can see it immediately and correct the files.

I can continue adding to the script to make it even faster. I want to be able to automate the file creation process as well and shave hours off of that task. The faster I can get them done the better for both myself and my client.

I post this in the hopes that SM will see and understand how the scripting interface is one of the best and most powerful features of AS. Without it none of this would be possible. I also hope that other users of AS will see how scripting can be advantageous for their own projects. Even if it is a "one off" type of script specific to one project it can still save time and money.

Scripting in AS is not a hugely popular or talked about feature in AS except by those who use it and those brave enough to try out the scripts created by some of the users. It should be. It should have more focus and more options to make it easier for those of us who use it and make our scripts available to other AS users.

By continuing to improve and expand the script interface for the handful of users who make use of it, it is exponentially advantageous to ALL the AS users. The few who script for AS will be able to do more, faster.

-vern

[synthsin75]

Here, here! Listen up SM. Granted Vern and Genete are scripting geniuses, but it couldn't hurt to make their (and us scripting amateurs) job easier. If Vern can manage to add the actions from parsing the file format to Genete's pose array script, it would be a serious boon to ASP. But why not just add scripting access to the actions? Or any other feature for that matter?

With CS4 and other software getting into the 2D IK market, some thought should be put into how ASP is going to continue to distinguish itself. Better scripting access could be a place to start, since soooo much value is added to ASP by all the brilliant scripters.


But I'm betting SM doesn't really care. ASP's corner of the market is largely defined by its price point. Why develope software if it will just push its cost into more direct competition with it competitors? While I'd hate to lose the accessibilty of the current price point, many of us believe that ASP could, with very little developement, stand up to the competition.

[Genete]

BANG! What took one or two, or even up to three hours before was done literally in a split second. The time needed to create the click track sound file was MEANINGLESS compared to the savings in tedium and potential errors of doing the animation by hand in AS.

Shhhhh! Don't tell that so loud! Your customers can hear it!

Seriously, more interface options would give more opportunities to "scripters animators" to do a quicker job, yes. Even professionals animators that don't want to learn scripting can hire a scripter and do ask for specific scripts.
But I agree with synthsin75 about the SM's target.

-G

[Rudiger]

I would like to see Lost Marble take it even further and make the interface flexible enough that people could come out with "Total Conversions". That way you could have features and interfaces directly targeted to your desired method of animation, ie 3D, frame-by-frame, Anime, etc. I don't think it would be a case of Lost Marble shooting himself in the foot, as you would need to have an existing Anime Studio license to use the new product.

[chucky]

Shhhhh! Don't tell that so loud! Your customers can hear it! Wink

Genete, that's almost word for word what I was going to say, Vern you're setting a very dangerous precedent .

[heyvern]

Don't worry guys. I have the script. Without my script there is no "fast and easy". The problem was that the budget was so low I had no choice but to script a solution. I have the script. Without the script it is a slow and tedious process. With the current budget for this job I can make money on it.

If down the road the client wants to to purchase the script from me to do it themselves that is an option I could think about.

-vern

[slowtiger]

To be fair one should mention that this job could have been done in Flash equally fast - with scripting, of course.

[wena]

Scripting is another of them things I need a tutorial, not to write them but to use them.

I am strugeling to use the one that came with my ASP for importing from Photoshop.

Instructiones for its use is rather spars. I have printed out all the manual in the hope I can make light work of it. Now I am using the trasing as an olternative to the script for Photoshop.

Please if there is some script for photoshop to Anime Studio, please spil the beens!

Wena

[heyvern]

The script for Photoshop only works in Photoshop and only with the CS versions. It is not the kind of script discussed here. It is a Photoshop CS script which uses a form of Javascipt.

What it is suppose to do is export layers from photoshop to an AS file with each layer as an image layer. It does not "convert" to AS vectors. It only exports the images.

So for instance if you have a character created in Photoshop with all the body parts on separate layers, this script is suppose to export all those layers as PNG images, create an AS file and load each image to a layer.

I have never used it myself.

-vern