Gallery Show Output issue

[Tony Bouttell]

I have a series of PASeqs I placed in my Current favorite folder.

I setup Gallery show to output each PASeq step as an image and to used the Preset Name as the file name.

When I ran Gallery show, the files names corresponded to the PASeq names NEXT in sequence, not the one currently being run. In one instance the files name did not change  when the next PASeq was being used.

How can I insure the file names being created by Gallery Show will correspond to the correct PASeq. This is quite important for me because I eventually want to be able to rename every file to correspond to the exact step a PASeq is executing. The only way I can do this is be knowing every image has the correct PASeq name.

Thanks

[John Dalton Synthetik Software]

I'm in the middle of dealing with this.

Which gallery show technique(s) are you using? 

For situations where there might be a main technique running, followed by a secondary process (like if 'Start Cycle Option' is set to Cur Favorites), do you always want what preset is currently running to be the 'name' used? I'm assuming yes?

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Adding action step naming is a little tricky. Because it really has nothing to do with gallery show code per say. It would have to be embedded in normal paseq playback code. Is this really only an issue when using 'write on op end' while running gallery show. Or is there some larger issue with people wanting to auto-name movie stream output based on paseq action step playback whenever they may be playing a paseq with an open movie stream?

[John Dalton Synthetik Software]

The other naming issue i'm noticing is that some gallery show techniques don't actually use a preset. they may use a random image processing effect, etc. Are people just concerned with preset naming for the stream images, or is there a real need for tracking whatever else might be happening with the processing behind the gallery show images stream output?

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Since i'm delving into this, i thought i'd throw it up for discussion for those of you who care. The existing gallery show image stream naming options were added pretty early on in gallery show development, before all of those additional non preset based techniques were added. Or start cycle processing for that matter. And i don't really use it the way our gallery show fanatics are, which is cool, since i love it when people start using the program in ways i had not intended or thought about. So all of these naming features came from power users requesting them.

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So I'm also opening up the discussion to image stream naming in general. Since doing what Tony wants really moves beyond just gallery show naming. It's something more generic to image streams and 'process on op end' write flag usage in image streams. So is there more flexibility in file naming for image streams in general that people are dying to see implemented?

[Tony Bouttell]

Hey John, Here's the Gallery Preferences screen I use.

Yes it is the current preset I want to use as the name.

Action steps are something I add after the files have been generated. I get the information grammatically at present.

[John Dalton Synthetik Software]

You're actually running Cur Favorites presets twice with this setup for each gallery show cycle. Once for the start cycle option, which is an optional processing step that takes place at the beginning of each gallery show cycle. And then again as the main technique. The start cycle option set to Cur Favorites chooses a random current favorites preset and runs it before running the main Technique. So you run a random cur favorites preset, then cycle forwards by 1 through cur favorites when the main technique runs.

So you should probably just set Start Cycle Option to None if you really just want to index though the cur favorites presets 1 by 1 in order.

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At this point you might say, what use is that cur favorites start cycle option?

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One way i use it is to setup a cur favorites folder of something like water wash paint presets. And then i use that as the start cycle option, with something like the random vectorizer technique. And i'm usually using an Auto Mask option as well, so the vectorizer will only fill the non auto-masked part of the canvas. So the canvas output from the previous gallery show cycle is water washed, then some new vector output is overlaid on top of it. And that process continues over a series of gallery show cycles.

You could imagine the same kind of multi-step process with a paint preset technique and the water wash start cycle option. You end up building up real interesting complexity in the resulting gallery show output images, because of the degradation of the proceeding canvas output with new paint or vector overlay on top.

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You could also build custom cur favorites folder presets that fades the previous canvas, or feather it, or act as some other kind of artistic transitional effect. So if the goal is to build a dynamic art show for a gallery, then rather than just erasing the canvas for each cycle, or straight overdrawing, the effect buildup and decay is more gradual, occurring over several gallery show cycles.

[Tony Bouttell]

Setting "Start Cycle Option" to "none", was exactly what I was looking for. My immediate goal was to create a reference library in which each image was created by applying a factory default brush. Each image would be named to correspond to the actual brush that created it.

ie Assisted-or-Auto_Abstract-Render_BuildingBlocks2_00031.psd

    Assisted-or-Auto_Abstract-Render_Buttons_00034.psd

I have a gallery show set up to generate exactly that output. Just took a little bash scripting :)