[CREATE] Status of libora?

[Jehan Pagès]

Hi,

On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Jon Nordby <jononor at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 24 September 2012 05:19, Jehan Pagès <jehan.marmottard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> If you are interested in continuing to work on libora I'll review and
>>> integrate the patches you provide, and give you commit access when
>>> you've completed a couple.
>>
>> Cool. I don't know if I'll clone the repo, or maybe simply send some
>> patches, if ever I have any to send.
>
> Either works fine by me, as long as you create a bugreport or send an
> email when you want it merged (I don't have email subscriptions in
> gitorious, too spammy). A separate repo is of course a bit easier for
> bigger amounts of work.

Indeed. I just meant that I don't know if I would have big amount of
work. Right now, I have only compiled the library, and I will start to
have a look and play around.
My main idea was to have a look at tools to process OpenRaster to:
- maybe improve the support in Gimp.
- add a support in Blender to import OpenRaster files into the video
editor (like for instance when Adobe users import a PSD file into
AfterEffect).

Instead of doing all in Python, In could make a Python wrapper to
libora, and use it in both Gimp and Blender (as both accept Python
plugins).

But I am still studying the possibilities. If OpenRaster happens to be
too much of a pain, I may want to work directly on xcf files.
Another possibility is to not bother about trying to connect these,
and just have a Gimp plugin generate all my frames as png images from
my layers. This last solution is actually the easiest to do. That may
be my way to go.
Simply as someone who likes good design, I know that OpenRaster is (on
the principle) the way to go for interoperability.

Basically it will all depend in the end on a compromise between the
"principles" and the easiness (= not wasting all my time when I
already have a valid solution).

>> While I am at it, I have a generic question about OpenRaster: what is
>> the "status of acceptance"? I know mypaint already has it as its
>> default format. But Gimp still has it as a very basic plugin
>> lacking features (I think you wrote it, so know that's not a critics
>> of the nice work done :p).
>> First test I did, I used groups of layers, and they disappeared in the ora
>> (though, after skimming through the spec, ora has group of layers:
>> stack element).
>> Do you know if Gimp developers plan to switch to ora some day to
>> replace xcf? That would be awesome.
>
> OpenRaster can be used to exchange basic raster documents between the
> applications listed here:
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/OpenRaster/ApplicationSupport
>
> The GIMP plugin is lacking support for the active layer marker and the
> non-separable layer modes that where specified recently,
> but is otherwise on-par with what exists in MyPaint or Krita.
>
> The Krita guys did at some point plan to use OpenRaster as the native
> file format (don't know the current viewpoint), but I don't think this
> has ever been the plan for GIMP. In my opinion OpenRaster has value as
> an interchange format. For simple applications like MyPaint using it
> as a native format is useful, but for advanced applications like GIMP
> I think it would be more pain than gain. It might even break the
> exchange promise as simpler applications rarely are able to implement
> everything more advanced applications would want in a native format.
>
>> What about the proprietary softwares (we all think of Adobe with
>> Photoshop, of course!). They will obviously not make it their default,
>> but do you know of anyone interested in the spec other than Free
>> Softwares, at least for secondary export format?
>> After all, you based on OpenDocument spec and mouvement, and it is now
>> even supported in Microsoft Word (and most proprietary text processor
>> softwares).
> I have not seen any interest from proprietary companies. But then
> again, they rarely communicate with open source projects, so it could
> be they are paying close attention for all I know. Realistically
> though, if anyone wants OpenRaster support for Adobe Photoshop I think
> it is best to just do it yourself. I believe it would be possible with
> the Photoshop SDK.
>
>> Also is the standards still evolving?
>> I would personally be interested into an animation extension. I see
>> there has been a "proposal" of just a few approximative lines. In the
>> context of our project, I would be happy to discuss it, extend this
>> and add a support to libora.
> Yes, some things were agreed on this year, so it is still in
> development. I don't expect any changes to the base standard at this
> point, but the things that noone has implemented yet may still change,
> and additions are of couse possible. Sadly it is not so easy from the
> spec which aspects has been widely implemented and agreed on and which
> are still a bit in the air.
>

In the agreed things/discussion, is there anything about animation?
Because the "spec" I see is just a few bullet points of random ideas
thrown around: http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/OpenRaster/Draft/Animation
There is not really any spec yet. Or maybe I am not looking in the
right place. Is there a real document elsewhere?
Also from having seen the stuff in Photoshop for animation, which was
more like an awful hack and sucked, I can say I don't agree with these
bullet points already.

> In the end, like in any open source project, development is up to the
> involvement of the various developers making use of OpenRaster.

Yep. :-)
Thanks.

Jehan

>
> --
> Jon Nordby - www.jonnor.com