[CREATE] Status of libora?

[Jehan Pagès]

Hi,

On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Guillermo Espertino (Gez)
<gespertino at gmail.com> wrote:
> El 12/10/12 00:28, Jehan Pagès escribió:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 12:06 AM, Danni Coy<danni.coy at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> I am looking at getting open raster support into Blender myself.
>>> Ultimately
>>> I would like to get a better texture workflow between Blender and
>>> Mypaint/Krita - photoshop would be nice too I might even be able to use
>>> the
>>> work license of photoshop but as somebody else said - Windows
>>> programming.
>>
>> Interesting. But anyway I think you are not looking for the same kind
>> of support as I do. You want to import ora as single raster images
>> (textures). I want to have layer support. Like when you import PSD
>> files into after-effects, you have 1 layer per video channel, and you
>> can align them in order to make an animation.
>
> Hi Jehan,
> I designed an importer for multilayer XCF files into blender scenes with
> that in mind. I missed the convenience of importing multilayer PSDs in After
> Effects and I needed that to start using only Blender for my job.
> I asked a friend to write the script and using xcftools and GIMP script-fu,
> Alejandro Chocano Vazquez wrote the first script for Blender 2.4x
> Some time later we started to work on a movie using Blender 2.5 and we
> needed that script ported. We commissioned that job to Daniel Salazar
> (ZanQdo), who re-wrote the script from scratch, adding new features and
> getting rid of the script-fu part (the new script is only python and it only
> requires xcftools). Among the new features of this script there is automatic
> compositing tree creation (renderlayers from gimp layers, re-creation of the
> layer stack in the compositor) and support for XJT files.
>
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/GIMPImageToScene

Interesting, I'll have a look.

> Since ZanQdo has a good reputation among Blender coders and his work in this
> script was so good, the script was included in the default installation of
> Blender.
>
> The script is very good, but it can use some improvements. Support for ORA
> would be great, and judging by how the script processes the XCF files, I
> think it wouldn't be a problem to add ORAs.

Though I think ORA is the way to the future (because it is better for
interoperability to have one format), if I have already a good support
of XCF actually, short/mid term, that's as good to me. I don't
"absolutely" need ORA support. But obviously that would be nice.

> I already approached ZanQdo asking him to add cycles support (i.e. creating
> cycles shaders for the textured planes created by the script, like the
> "images to planes" script does).

I am not Blender-aware enough to be sure to understand the feature you
asked him (if you have a link explaining, don't hesitate to give me),
but isn't Cycles the new Blender render engine? So you are asking
specifically for something 3D processing-related, no?
In our case, we do 2D only, right now. I use Blender only as a Video
editor, because until now, it looked quite good as such; and I don't
really need its 3D features (even though this is its main purpose,
indeed, that seems weird). Thus I fear this feature is not needed by
us right now. But I may misunderstand what it is about.

> I'll ask him about ORA support.
> He doesn't work for free, so I have to ask: Are you willing to use some
> money for this feature?

I would be willing, but being a developer myself, I know how much a
developer cost, and I don't have that much money. I have money, enough
for donating to nice projects (which I do from time to time), but I
don't have enough to afford paying a developer myself (even by
dividing by 2, I imagine, if he has common rates).
Moreover as I said, I am a developer, and not a too bad one; so when I
really want something, if nobody steps up before me to do it (which is
the best), well my only choice is to do it myself. It takes some time
because I can't do everything in the same time; but -- eh! -- you have
to do what you can.

I wish some day I can afford this, or I have a company which can
afford this, but right now, I am just a small individual. Hence sorry,
for the negative answer.
Thanks for the proposition anyway.

Jehan

> Kind regards,
> Gez.
>
> p.s.: Notice that this script creates planes with each layer and an aligned
> camera. It doesn't import the layers to Blender's VSE.
> I don't think it's a good idea to do that anyway. Blender's Video Editor
> isn't designed for that, but just putting rendered sequences together. It
> has very limited features regarding animation, but the rest of Blender has
> pretty much everything you'd use in After Effects (animation and
> compositing).
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