Using CinePaint's Frame Manger
This is the first draft of a manual/tutorial for the new
CinePaint Frame Manager.
It is published and authored in simple html that hopefully
will work with
any browser out there. Specifically, it is tested to work with
the Dillo
web browser which is the default help browser for CinePaint.
Any comments and recomendations can be sent to me at liquidphoto@ameritech.net
I would especially like to hear any corrections and additions
that any users
would like to see added, be it about the Frame Manager or any
other aspect of
CinePaint.
Laters,
Tom Huffman
liquidphoto@ameritech.net
Introduction:
This document is meant to be a brief introduction to the Frame
Manager in CinePaint. While this was written on a Windows XP machine
running the CinePaint-0.17-0 binary release for win32. The functionality
has been consistent across all platforms since the earliest release
of CinePaint. However, though there are no extra features between
platforms, things could be more or less broken depending on your
platform and CinePaint version. Should you run into any such problems
please report them to the CinePaint mailing lists, which can be
accessed from the CinePaint homepage at www.cinepaint.org . Should
you discover any wrong information, or something you feel should
be added to this document. Feel free to email me at liquidphoto@ameritech.net
or send a post to the CinePaint mailing lists.
Part I – Getting To Know A Little About How The Frame
Manager Works
How do I get to the Frame Manager? This seems to be the most
frequently asked question I hear about the Frame Manager. The
quick answer is that you must have an image open in order to access
the Frame Manager. Once you have an image open, you can then access
the Frame Manger from its menu options located under the File
menu of the Image window (See Figure 1).
Figure 1: Shows the two main windows of the CinePaint interface.
Unfortunately, both windows currently have a File menu,
which contain some but not all similar functions. Due to this
confusing layout, careful attention should be paid to which menu
you need. After a short time, it becomes intuitive. However, it
can lead to confusion at first glimpse.
More specifically, one of the disadvantages that CinePaint
has inherited from its branch off the old GIMP 1.0 version is
the user interface. Figure 1 shows the two main windows that are
used in CinePaint, the Image window on the right and the Toolbox
window on the left. Both windows have the distracting problem
of having a File menu with some common but also some different
options. The reason that the Frame Manager is only available from
the File menu on an Image window, is directly based on how it
works internally.
A partial view of the inside of the Frame Manager:
The Frame Manager works on a preexisting numbered sequence of
images, located in a common directory. Normally, this would be
a numbered sequence of frames as in a movie or video clip, but
the Frame Manager is only interested in the naming convention
used, not in the actual content. This allows users of digital
camera’s (many of which initially will save your downloaded
images as a numbered sequence) to easily load a sequence of digital
still pictures. Also, a user can make multiple images available
to the Frame Manager by simply renaming them and placing them
into a common directory. When you create a Frame Manager, you
are asking it to manage a sequence of images, starting with the
one currently loaded in the active Image window. All actions requested
from the Frame Manager after creation apply to that particular
list of images. Theory says that we should be able to have as
many Frame Managers for as many sequences as our system can handle,
but in practice I have not been able to succeed in creating more
than one Frame Manager without them interfearing with each other.
Part II – Creating A Frame Manager
There are four basic steps required to successfully create
a usable Frame Manager.
- Have a sequential list of images in a common directory that
we wish to do some work on.
- Start Cinepaint.
- Open an image from our sequential list. Any image will work,
but opening the first image
in the sequence that you want to work on seems to be the cleanest
method.
- From the menu at the top of the Image window select File->Frame
Manager->Create
or use the hotkey sequence Ctrl-F.
Creating a Frame Manager will bring up a Store Frame Manager
Dialog similar to Figure 2. It is important to remember that there
is currently no way within CinePaint to save a Frame Manager's
image list, thus when you close CinePaint you will loose the image
sequence you have created within the frame manager.
Figure 2: The Frame Manager Dialog and its two menus. Once
you have created this Dialog box be careful
not to delete it, as I have not yet found a way to bring it back
without creating it again from the beginning.
Each number refers to a different aspect of the Frame Manager
discussed below.
- When the Auto Save feature is turned on, a frame will be
saved to the destination directory before it is removed from
the list with the Delete menu option.
- Allows you to set the Area of Influence for a frame. The
Area of Influence is basically a poor mans quickmask. After activating
this feature, you then move to the Image window where the Frame
Manager will have activated the Rectangular selection tool. You
may then select areas you want to be manipulated, “masking
off” the areas of the frame you wish to remain untouched.
The add/subract/union options of the Rectangle selection tool
are available to allow specific selections, and I have had varied
luck using the other selection tools to create the mask.
- Turns on/off the Area of Influence.
- Step backward in the frame range.
- Determines the increment of the step used by 4 and 5. You
can either enter the size in the text box or you can use the
up and down arrows to change the value.
- Step forward in the frame range.
- Marks a frame as read only preventing it from being saved
by the Frame Manager. You can still save it using the File->Save
menu option in the Image window.
- When the A is present, the store will be affected when you
step forward or backwards.
- When the F is present, the store will be included in the
flip book.
- Indicates which frame is the background frame. This is used
by onionskining. Only one frame can be set as the background
at a time.
- An “*” in this column indicates modified frames.
- Display of the current frame sequence. The current active
frame is highlighted. Clicking on the filename will make the
selected frame active. Only one frame can be active at a time.
- Activate the flipbook, and play backwards through the frames.
The Frame Manager will start with the current active frame and
advance to the previous frame in the frame list (up the list
window). There is currently no way to adjust the frames per second
used by the Frame Manager, though I estimate it to be around
10fps. The fps is very inaccurate and will vary based on the
speed of the computer. The Frame Manager activates a frame, which
causes it to be displayed in the Frame Managers corresponding
display, it then sits and waits for a set period of time, and
then it activates the previous frame in the list. When it reaches
the beginning of the list, it returns to the last frame and starts
working its way up again. It will continue this loop until the
user presses the Stop button.
- Advance backwards through the frame list one frame and make
it active.
- Stops the flipbook. It sets the current active frame to that
last played by the flipbook. It doesn’t return to the last
active frame before the flipbook was activated. In order to change
from flipping forwards to backwards or visversa, you must first
stop the flipbook.
- Advance forwards through the frame list one frame and make
it active
- Activate the flipbook, and play forwards through the frames.
The Frame Manager will start with the current active frame and
advance to the next frame in the frame list (down the list window).
There is currently no way to adjust the frames per second used
by the Frame Manager, though I estimate it to be around 10fps.
The fps is very inaccurate and will vary based on the speed of
the computer. The Frame Manager activates a frame, which causes
it to be displayed in the Frame Managers corresponding display,
it then sits and waits for a set period of time, and then it
activates the next frame in the list. When it reaches the end
of the list, it returns to the first frame and starts working
its way down again. It will continue this loop until the user
presses the Stop button.
- Turns the onion skin feature on and off.
- Adjusting this slider will set the opacity of the foreground
element of the onionskin. The value ranges from 0.0 to 1.0 with
higher numbers indicating increased opacity.
- Switches the Frame Managers associated Display between the
Foregound and Background frames.
- Because the Frame Manager works on directories, the destination
and source directories are kept track of as opposed to each individual
file name. The directory and general filename are displayed in
this area. Figure 2 indicates that the destination and source
directories are identical, with the basic filename being “full
[xxx].png where [xxx] is the image sequence numbers. You should
be able to indicate a different directory for the destination,
so that you can maintain your unmodified source files and save
your changes to a different directory. I’m not sure how
to accomplish this, so hopefully someone will be able to enlighten
me.
- Because the Frame Manager works on directories, the destination
and source directories are kept track of as opposed to each individual
file name. The directory and general filename are displayed in
this area. Figure 2 indicates that the destination and source
directories are identical, with the basic filename being “full
[xxx].png where [xxx] is the image sequence numbers. You should
be able to indicate a different directory for the destination,
so that you can maintain your unmodified source files and save
your changes to a different directory. I’m not sure how
to accomplish this, so hopefully someone will be able to enlighten
me.
- Add frames to the Frame Manager. See below for more detail.
- This menu option deletes a single entry from the Frame Manager.
Specifically the currently selected one, which would be “full
004.png” in figure 2. If the autosave feature is active,
the file will be saved into the corresponding destination directory
for this Frame Manager. This is not an edit function. I simply
removes the frames entry from the Frame Manager. No change is
made to the file in the source directory, and no renumbering
of the frames takes place. So even if you remove a bunch of frames
from the middle of a sequence with Delete, it will play differently
when you activate the Play command of the flipbook, these are
only temporary, however, and disappear when the Frame Manager
is destroyed.
- Raises the currently active frame one place in the frame
list.
- Lowers the currently active frame one place in the frame
list.
- Save the currently active frame into the destination directory.
Does not save frames marked as read only.
- Save all frames currently loaded into the frame manager that
are not marked as read only.
- Discard all changes made to the currently active frame and
return it to the state it was in when loaded into the Frame Manager.
This does not seem to rely on the undo functions of Cinepaint
and is thus independent of its undo settings.
- Change Frame allows you to change swap the currently active
frame with another frame from the same source image sequence.
This appears to be broken under win32.
- Haven’t figured this option out yet. Need to dig back
into the source and see if I can find any clues.
- Haven’t figured this option out yet. Need to dig back
into the source and see if I can find any clues.
- Haven’t figured this option out yet. Need to dig back
into the source and see if I can find any clues.
Part III - Adding Frames To The Frame Manager
When you select Store->Add from the Frame Managers
menu. A dialog similar to figure 3 will be brought up.
Figure 3: Shows the dialog box for adding new frames to the
store. Remember, you are adding new store entries, the Frame Manager
will not create frames that do not alread exist.
This dialog can be broken up into three segments. First is
the number of frames you wish to add. You can eather directy enter
the number of frames into the text box, or you may use the up/down
arrows next to the text box to increment/decrement the number
of frames desired. Secondly, you need to decide if you want to
load your new frames as read only. Finally, you select if you
want to add frames numerically backwards or forwards from the
numbered sequence of images. Alternatively, you may decide to
load multiple copies of a single frame. When loading multiple
copies, a litteral copy is made of each frame and changes to one
do not affect the others.
Questions to rower@movieeditor.com
Created December 2, 2003; updated
December 2, 2003