Hi.
Please help me to figure out this problem.
I have an image sequence of an alpha map that I would like to process in a faster way then with the tools I have at my disposal. I use the time echo effect in After Effects to achieve the result, but it takes forever for AE to complete. What I am looking for is pointers for scripts (either in or out of AE) or plugins. I use Mac Os X 10.6.6 and AE CS5.
Please see the example shot:
http://www.carl.stendahls.se/accumulate_me.mp4
TIA, Carl
hi carl,
there are 1001 ways to achieve what you are looking for! 
for example i could think of using OpenGl to write into a buffer. like this you could get pretty fast results
since your effect is really simple you could do this even by a python script! what do you mean exactly by “slow” how long does it take for the effect to process one frame? how big are your images? a python script wouldn’t be as fast as a highly optimized c++ tool but depending on your filesize i imagine that the script could process one image per frame
are you familiar with programming or are you looking to achieve this with an existing tool? maybe imagemagick with a batch script could do the trick aswell
grs
Patrik
Thanks for your reply Gravedigger.
Great to hear that it is so many ways to do this. :applause:
Yes, it is a very simple effect. Well, if I take the small animation example in my previous post, it took between 20-30 sec per frame when reached say frame 60 in the animation at an resolution of 512x512 px (slower the further in the sequence). I am going to make perhaps 50 of these animations with a 1 K resolution, where it will be maybe 500 frames on some of them. Sorry to say, but I am not very familiar with neither scripting or programming.
any chance that you upload a little example sequence? 10 frames at 128 / 256 would be enough. like this i can check what works best
grs
Patrik
i’ve written a simple python script which converts your sequence to gif files with accumulated results
the processing takes about 120 millisecs per frame
would this be a solution for you?
to use the script you would need to have python and PIL installed. if you can’t or don’t want to setup python with PIL i could convert your sequence and send it back to you
grs
Patrik
Just one note Carl, this forum is for programmers, and people wanting to become one, and needing some help or wanting to share something on those lines.
It isn’t a forum for “I have this awesome idea for a tool, can somebody write it for me?!!” or “does anybody know a script that does this?” kinda posts.
Questions such as “what plugin would do this for afx?” should go in app specific forums, or if those aren’t available for the specific app, then in the speciality forums (compositing in this case).