How to

[Dennis Miller]

I've got ten different paint presets that I want to run for 15 seconds each all while being captured to disk as an animation. I also want to blank the screen to white for a split second between the start of each new preset painting. Can anyone tell me how to do this without manually switching between them while I have an open Movie stream?

Thanks for the help.

Dennis

[Synthetik]

You could build a PASeq with the different presets separated by erase to white action steps. Let them play for 15 seconds before you hit the space bar when recording them. The PASeq should then playback with the timing you want.

We've discussed adding an option to gallery show that would allow for setting a time cutoff rather than # of paint stroke cutoff for the current gallery show cycle when working with paint or dual paint or loop action gallery show techniques. Sounds like that's what you really want.

[Dennis Miller]

Thanks.

But wouldn't that record all of the different Paint presets and erase to white steps in a vertical alignment over one frame? And then when I Animate that to a Movie (still source image) it would only write the last one to disk? (Which I have already tried) Or would I then use a New Movie Stream to just record to disk everything that was happening during that single frame PAseq playback? Seems like this will only work if I use a New Movie Stream, which is what I was trying to avoid.

Yes, some time-based controls would be really great.

d.

[Synthetik]

If you run Action : Animate with PASeq : to Movie, then yes, it will just write a single frame at the end of the PAseq for each frame in the animation. I thought you were using autowrite as your stream write flag, and dumping frames into the open movie stream while the painting was taking place.

[Jean Detheux]

Over the years, I have captured a lot of sessions done in SA, but always to another Mac.

I connect the two Macs in various ways (sometimes via a Video Mixer) then launch QuickTime Pro on that other Mac and start a "New Movie Recording."

It makes working in SA easier, less load on the Mac running SA, and the captured movies contain all that I want to grab, including the exact timing of the actions I apply manually or otherwise in SA (PASeq or other).

I do that especially when presenting live concerts, while recording the audio separately on yet another gadget, be that a camera or computer (although I am more and more often using a similar setup in studio work).

Here's a photo taken during one of those concerts, during which I used 3 Macs (two iMacs, one running SA and the other the GL Mixer, and one 15" laptop which was used as both preview of the final mixes and for capturing the results to disk via QT Pro and an Edirol Video Mixer (and a couple of cameras): 

I often use more Macs (up to 4 streams fed into the Edirol) or a mixture of Macs and DVD players.

[Dennis Miller]

A nice option if you have two Macs ;-)

d.