movie stream and recording a PASeq

[mark g]

I have used the movie stream before, and it has not been a prob. But i noticed in some of the PASeq presets, ie, Presets - default - general - AutoWoodPrint1 that it doesnt actually record anything. It seems that if there are image ops in the preset nothing records, but I tried - write frame each paint action step - ,in these cases and this seems to work with these type of presets. And yet, other of the PASeq presets may not need the "write frame each paint action step" box checked to record. mmmm..is there a particular combination of things I need to check first?

[Victor Ingrassia]

I tried duplicating your problem, but can't seem to. If I understand you... you are starting a new stream then clicking "Animate" using the AutoWoodPrint1 paseq? And you get what... no movie? a 1 frame movie? a multiframe movie that's blank? I get normal behavior here which does not require the "Write frame each paseq step". Can you give any more details?

[mark g]

hi,
I was getting no movie,
I thought that just hitting 'Action' might record as it does with the AutoPaint2 preset,
On reading your reply I tried the animate button and the Autowoodprint records,
I am trying to fathom why they behave differently.

[Victor Ingrassia]

Action just runs the current item once (paint preset, Image Op, of 1 frame of the current paseq). But to make a movie (assuming you have a movie loaded into your source area) you need to click "Animate" in the paseq window so it will advance to the next frame of the timeline (movie) after completing the series of steps in the paseq. That way it renders out one frame of video for each frame on the timeline. I'm not sure if you are using a still image as your source or not. So this might cause some confusion or make "Action" & "Animate" seem redundant. Does this help? If not... please ask more questions.

~victor

[mark g]

thanks Victor
I was just using a still, to record the various painting actions, so i could see the image appear

[Victor Ingrassia]

Well you could use the following menu items too:
Action > Paint Action Sequence Commands > Loop Paint Action sequence with the "Write frame each paint action step" flag enabled. This way each time the paseq reached the end it would write a frame to the open movie stream and run the step again. So in this case, if you don't erase the canvas as the first step of the paseq, you'll see the continuous addition of more paint to the canvas.... and this would form a movie.

Another feature you may know about is to use SA's movie stream setting : AUTOWRITE feature where SA will just spit out frames at a rate you set in the Movie Stream preference panel. So it allows you to do anything you want on the canvas and SA will make a movie of the state of the canvas every "X" frames. You'll have to experiment with the interaction of the speed of your painting, the fps of you're movie output and the "X" setting in your autowrite prefs... to get the feel you want in the output movie. (caution: make sure you turn off the autowrite pref when you are finished with the stream... since it will want to autowrite frames every time you open a new stream [ tho only when you are active on the canvas])

.. if I haven't confused the issue too much.

~vi

[mark g]

thanks for taking the time to reply
I will give both those a try, I am sure one of those will do the trick!