tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30646944910235130432024-03-14T18:33:10.059-07:00fnord software blogI can see the fnords!Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-20675590213430507382020-10-13T17:07:00.001-07:002020-10-13T17:42:32.910-07:00ProEXR 2.6<p>If you've been keeping your After Effects <a href="https://blog.adobe.com/en/2020/09/15/streamlined-workflows-that-make-storytelling-easier.html">up to date</a> you're already running <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/">ProEXR 2.6</a>, which adds some performance optimizations to the AE plug-ins. Standard scanline multi-channel EXR files receive a modest speed improvement, while tiled EXRs will read about 3x faster in this version. And if you have a multi-part EXR file, the individual parts are now read on-demand for faster previews and more efficient rendering.</p><p>These optimizations were made possible by Harsh Patil from <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/apples-2019-imac-pro-will-be-shaped-by-workflows/">Apple's Pro Workflow Team</a>, who analyzed the OpenEXR plug-in's performance when loading some real-world EXR sequences from various renderers. I warned him that Windows users were going to benefit from his optimizations as much as Mac, and he said Apple was fine with that! Thanks, Harsh!</p>Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-72718003729169613182020-09-11T15:47:00.002-07:002020-09-13T08:51:12.305-07:00BRAWconverter<p>BRAWconverter is a command line program for converting <a href="https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicraw" target="_blank">Blackmagic RAW</a> files into image sequences. It uses Blackmagic's public SDK to convert the BRAW file to RGB, complete with various color transformations, etc. It can output OpenEXR, DPX, PNG, TIFF, and JPEG.</p><p>BRAWconverter is free and <a href="https://gitlab.com/fnordware/BRAWconverter/" target="_blank">open source</a>. Enjoy!</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Version: 1.0<br />Date: 11 September 2020</span><br /><b><a href="http://www.fnordware.com/downloads/BRAWconverter_v1.0_mac.dmg" target="_blank">Download Mac</a></b></p>Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-77674137623776647712019-11-04T13:28:00.000-08:002019-11-04T16:01:03.532-08:00ProEXR 2.5<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyYIyOnqKEyxDt61uRKSP6XkKwS26tGgUNJZ4AUyPzbDpAoFtuOI_K0ly3x88Yz8dtYZ4iQeMFoXsUmrBx3QhCgtB2zA7GrLLKdoVfosfoYvSwMce1m_JVy4Q3YVKAJjLRrCJwGR158Q/s1600/ProEXR_2.5_EXtractoR.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="340" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyYIyOnqKEyxDt61uRKSP6XkKwS26tGgUNJZ4AUyPzbDpAoFtuOI_K0ly3x88Yz8dtYZ4iQeMFoXsUmrBx3QhCgtB2zA7GrLLKdoVfosfoYvSwMce1m_JVy4Q3YVKAJjLRrCJwGR158Q/s200/ProEXR_2.5_EXtractoR.png" width="200" /></a></div>
Today marks the release of <a href="https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-after-effects-is-faster-than-ever/" target="_blank">Adobe After Effects 2020</a>, which includes ProEXR 2.5. In fact, improved multi-channel performance is one of the <a href="https://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects.html" target="_blank">highlighted features</a> in this version of AE. Users who had previously installed <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2018/11/proexr-20.html" target="_blank">version 2.0</a> have already been enjoying the extra speed, but now it's shipping with AE itself.<br />
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ProEXR 2.5 gets rid of the separate <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2011/10/proexr-ae.html" target="_blank">ProEXR AE</a> plug-in, which has been merged into the main OpenEXR plug-in. That means AE now ships with the features in ProEXR AE, such as the ability to set up your layered comps for you, as well as export layered EXR files. To have AE set up comps for you, import your EXRs using AE's regular Import File dialog, and then tell it to Import As Composition, which is very easy to miss. Fans of the old File menu item can bring it back by editing their AE preferences file.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7mRy7b9PN99oKeulEidxt5uzPTk5W00GgTc6iTUMVUQqdnpZF1GIdnSZIbfKrGFwR6chCUHvlyKHxq39-m416H_-TmU1NShHk-fPcvooHGYLMUSw-75Y948yOJ6qxSUZyRoEsgHlYczk/s1600/ProEXR_2.5_ImportAsComp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="741" data-original-width="832" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7mRy7b9PN99oKeulEidxt5uzPTk5W00GgTc6iTUMVUQqdnpZF1GIdnSZIbfKrGFwR6chCUHvlyKHxq39-m416H_-TmU1NShHk-fPcvooHGYLMUSw-75Y948yOJ6qxSUZyRoEsgHlYczk/s200/ProEXR_2.5_ImportAsComp.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Import As Composition</td></tr>
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Also coming along for the ride is the Cryptomatte plug-in that first appeared in ProEXR 2.0. In addition, ProEXR 2.5 uses newly added AE APIs to support the reading and writing of timecode with EXR files. And finally, the EXtractoR and IDentifier interfaces have been re-done, getting rid of their modal dialogs in favor of menus right in the Effect Controls Window.<br />
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The easiest way to get ProEXR 2.5 is to just start using the new version of AE. For people sticking with older versions, you can still download the plug-ins from the <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/" target="_blank">ProEXR site</a>.<br />
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Enjoy!<br />
<br />Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-40928727583147141322019-08-30T08:21:00.001-07:002020-02-10T03:27:10.678-08:00The joys of an antique keyboard<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfqvtaLpZTxZtU4hdF_soMeD1Pi3t5VN0pOL-m7u2i33Wuzl0lZUpR08vjmdc6ubbVtdqMrivHeAkgYn5LYLAj3bO5pg8cGPudXIvBZvrtZwG_Z2oJtPHukA1cqmtvEp6payLBRJl6xlo/s1600/aek1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfqvtaLpZTxZtU4hdF_soMeD1Pi3t5VN0pOL-m7u2i33Wuzl0lZUpR08vjmdc6ubbVtdqMrivHeAkgYn5LYLAj3bO5pg8cGPudXIvBZvrtZwG_Z2oJtPHukA1cqmtvEp6payLBRJl6xlo/s320/aek1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apple Extended Keyboard (AEK) photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/p/Q8Rj2Y" target="_blank">bujcich</a></td></tr>
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The best tech I’ve bought this year is a keyboard made in 1987.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Having sailed past the 40-year mark a few years ago, I’m an older geek. Also, I’m a sentimental geek. If I had some sort of infinite garage, I’d store every piece of electronic gear I’ve ever owned, a personal personal computer museum. Maybe once a year I’d play <a href="http://xu4.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">Ultima IV</a> on my old <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS" target="_blank">Apple IIgs</a>, or run <a href="https://archive.org/details/AliasSketch_201708" target="_blank">Alias Sketch!</a> on the <a href="https://lowendmac.com/2001/treasure-your-quadra-840av/" target="_blank">Quadra 840av</a>. It would be a fun few hours of geek nostalgia.<br />
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Obviously you wouldn’t want to attempt to <i>do work</i> on those ancient artifacts. I’ve been known to <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2018/09/apple-peaked-in-2011.html" target="_blank">cling to old technology</a>, but at least my computers are from this millennium and, crucially, can run the current generation of apps and operating systems. Even if you could somehow get one of those old machines to run modern software, you’d find their processors unbearably slow, their memory and storage ridiculously tiny, their CRT screens uncomfortably small, and their mechanical mice clumsy, even with a freshly cleaned mouse ball.<br />
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Notice I didn’t say anything about the keyboard. Unlike everything else in computing, keyboards have hardly changed. The standard desktop keyboard layout solidified in 1984 with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard" target="_blank">IBM Model M</a>. Steve Jobs banned arrow keys from the original Mac keyboards, but they eventually appeared on the Apple Extended Keyboard in 1987 and the layout hasn’t changed since. Get a PS/2 or ADB to USB adapter and you can still use these keyboards today.<br />
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And how do the old keyboards compare to a modern one? Wonderfully, I would say.<br />
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Modern keyboard enthusiasts are usually gamers, and the high-end keyboards they splurge on are <a href="https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/" target="_blank">mechanical-switch keyboards</a>. Mechanical because each key has an individual switch with moving parts, as opposed to rubber membrane dome-switches you find in the cheap, mushy keyboards included with a new PC. Well, guess what: most keyboards made before 1995 were mechanical. Not only do the old keyboards hold their own against their modern counterparts, they’re often <a href="https://www.wired.com/2008/05/a-tale-of-two-k/" target="_blank">far superior</a>. (Don’t get me started on the “<a href="https://theoutline.com/post/2402/the-new-macbook-keyboard-is-ruining-my-life?zd=1&zi=6p77ornq" target="_blank">butterfly</a> <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/03/27/strn-kyboard" target="_blank">switch</a>” keyboards <a href="https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1226710675554091008" target="_blank">Apple</a> currently sells.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEUQaPp94xLYOd6pXQUcjniveCsu1WBY05CvaoO4dyoy9lYWa3RWrKGpiwrwT6yVdAtB9oDIZsthgLHa2-KlM7L75X0sVymCwhlavXAPqrbL_3tM2sQCU56fq-vuhgznu4ztYUlZbCE1g/s1600/aek2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="639" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEUQaPp94xLYOd6pXQUcjniveCsu1WBY05CvaoO4dyoy9lYWa3RWrKGpiwrwT6yVdAtB9oDIZsthgLHa2-KlM7L75X0sVymCwhlavXAPqrbL_3tM2sQCU56fq-vuhgznu4ztYUlZbCE1g/s200/aek2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/p/QtN4HL" target="_blank">bujcich</a></td></tr>
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I had previously not given a ton of thought to keyboards. I was proud to have Apple’s top of the line Extended Keyboard II in the pre-iMac days, but I unceremoniously dumped it when Apple switched to USB keyboards, dazzled as I was by their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcBpXYI1r3Q" target="_blank">colors</a> and translucency despite their mushy dome-switches. Years later I got a <a href="http://www.matias.ca/tactilepro/" target="_blank">Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard</a>, advertised as a modern replica of the original <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Extended_Keyboard" target="_blank">Apple Extended Keyboard (AEK)</a>. When it eventually wore out I thought to myself, “Why not try the original?” A few clicks on eBay and an authentic AEK was mine. Even after all these years I still paid less than its original retail price of $163.<br />
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Together with the mouse, the keyboard is how you use a computer. It’s your input, the thing you actually touch. What you see on the screen is the output. Improving your keyboard, mouse, and screen can drastically improve your computing experience, and therefore your overall quality of life.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQrztbInrUGqh7OQqhh-SZ-hMrEFbQpZ-doiH00zdJRiVcvWCvtkquupAOhfMh_6CEWfVZnAfloy2P-eWJpeQws_Ez8zsZ-ps1tCA2kkLCYgd6Kf2pgMpHUFluqV0LBR-JhWFNBh4wVh4/s1600/640px-IBM_Model_M.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="640" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQrztbInrUGqh7OQqhh-SZ-hMrEFbQpZ-doiH00zdJRiVcvWCvtkquupAOhfMh_6CEWfVZnAfloy2P-eWJpeQws_Ez8zsZ-ps1tCA2kkLCYgd6Kf2pgMpHUFluqV0LBR-JhWFNBh4wVh4/s320/640px-IBM_Model_M.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">IBM Model M photo by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard#/media/File:IBM_Model_M.png" target="_blank">Raymangold22</a></td></tr>
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Mechanical keyboards click and clack. Each one has its own feel and sound. Personal preference dictates which one you will favor. Most of the difference between mechanical keyboards can be chalked up to the make and model of the switches they use. There are a variety of different brands and flavors of switches; some of the most prized ones are no longer manufactured. Maybe, like me, you prefer an AEK with its <a href="https://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Orange" target="_blank">Orange Alps</a> switches. Or for a totally different but equally satisfying feel, there’s the <a href="https://clickykeyboards.com/" target="_blank">IBM Model M</a> with its <a href="https://deskthority.net/wiki/Buckling_spring" target="_blank">buckling spring</a> switches. Or maybe you would rather have a <a href="https://www.daskeyboard.com/" target="_blank">modern keyboard</a> with switches by <a href="https://www.cherrymx.de/en" target="_blank">Cherry</a> or <a href="http://matias.ca/switches/" target="_blank">Matias</a>. Some switches click when you press them, some clack when the key bottoms out. There are different types of keycaps, keyboards that light up, and <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/06/our-favorite-mechanical-keyboards/" target="_blank">on and on</a>. After following this <a href="https://deskthority.net/" target="_blank">rabbit hole</a> a little ways I am now the owner of more mechanical keyboards than I care to admit.<br />
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And then there’s the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axSnW-ygU5g" target="_blank">nostalgia</a>. Every time I type on this AEK it brings me back to the 1980s. Like listening to an album by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs" target="_blank">The Police</a>, it reminds me of a time when the world was just opening up to me, a world I hardly understood. This keyboard <i>feels</i> like that time. A time when computers were new and exciting and the word “Macintosh” conjured up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dutqviBn4Q" target="_blank">feelings</a> of elegance, sophistication, and possibility. Maybe it seems absurd to say a keyboard could bring back feelings like that in a person, but I’m telling you it can.<br />
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Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-20409840524351515802019-06-06T09:35:00.004-07:002020-01-29T11:06:51.495-08:00Apple delivers, mostly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/apple_mac-pro-display-pro_mac-pro_060319_big.jpg.large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="640" height="200" src="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/apple_mac-pro-display-pro_mac-pro_060319_big.jpg.large.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
I was <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2019/05/dreading-new-mac-pro.html">wrong</a>! Apple has indeed delivered a cheese grater sequel in the new Mac Pro. It is a tower. With slots. Thank goodness.<br />
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I didn't expect Apple to deliver everything I wanted in the new Mac Pro, which would basically be the 2010 Mac Pro with updated specs and the ability to run modern Nvidia cards. I thought maybe I'd get 50% satisfaction, but I'd say Apple gave me more like 70%, which is pretty good! But let's talk about that remaining 30%.<br />
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Apple and Nvidia</h4>
Not surprisingly, all the Mac Pro graphics card options are from the AMD Radeon family. My main interest in Nvidia cards was to run CUDA, Nvidia's API used by GPU renderers like Redshift and Octane. But Apple flipped the script on me! They announced that both of those renderers would be porting to Metal and would run on the Mac Pro.<br />
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While this does go a long way toward quieting my Nvidia interest, it doesn't do it completely. There is software other than Redshift and Octane that use CUDA, and Nvidia cards are generally faster than AMD's. If you own a Mac Pro, don't you want the maximum possible selection of expansion options? Eliminating half the GPU market greatly limits the utility of those eight beautiful slots.<br />
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This turn of events demonstrates how far Apple is willing to go to keep Nvidia out of the Mac, refusing to get past whatever beef they have. It must have taken quite a bit of convincing to get Redshift and Octane to port to Metal. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had actually covered the cost of porting, or even provided their own engineers. How can it be worth all the trouble?<br />
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I'd love to know <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management-doesnt-want-nvidia-support-in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro" target="_blank">what happened</a> between these two. With the PCI slots in place, Apple could flip a switch at any time and let Nvidia in the door; refusing to do so only hurts their customers. Frankly, it just seems childish to me. I'd like to think Steve Jobs wouldn't have done this.<br />
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Apple Being Apple</h4>
Between the slots, the Xeon CPUs, and the option for up to 4 GPUs, this really is a pro computer. Naturally Apple eliminated those useful SATA drive bays from the new Mac Pro, but I guess we're supposed to be grateful that the RAM and SSD appear to be upgradable. I was pleasantly surprised to see they included two USB Type A ports and even a headphone jack! How big of them.<br />
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But then there is the matter of price, which starts at $6000. Yikes.<br />
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I believe all <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2006/08/07Apple-Unveils-New-Mac-Pro-Featuring-Quad-64-bit-Xeon-Processors/">previous</a> Mac Pro models had an introductory price of $3000 or less, including the newly-obsolete trash can. Now if you want access to PCI slots, you'll have to fork over twice as much. The next cheapest option for a Mac without a built-in display is a decked-out Mac mini, which is about half the price. That's quite a gap.<br />
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On the Windows side, you can get a tower with slots and an Nvidia 2080 Ti card for less than $2500. <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/deconstructing-the-base-mac-pro-why-is-it-so-expensive/">Maybe</a> if you configure a PC with the same specs as the Mac Pro the price will be similar, but many of us would like a more affordable, lower spec option. Especially for those of us doing GPU rendering, we're blowing our wad on the graphics cards and just want a basic box to hold them.<br />
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If the new Mac Pro started at $3000 and could accept our existing Nvidia GPU investment, our studio would immediately start the process of replacing 9 year old Mac Pros with new ones. At $6000 and up, we will have to think about it. We'll probably get one for our editing suite, others for any artists that just can't stand working in Windows, but otherwise we'll continue to wait and continue to render on PCs where we get much more GPU bang for the buck. That price will certainly hurt Mac Pro sales, and then Apple will say to us, "See, we told you there was no market for the Mac Pro anymore."<br />
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In case there was any doubt the new Mac Pro is a computer for the 1%, just look at the monitor that was <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/apple-unveils-powerful-all-new-mac-pro-and-groundbreaking-pro-display-xdr/">announced</a> alongside it. It does appear to be a pretty spectacular monitor, but $5000 is gobsmacking. And that doesn't include the stand, a piece of metal which somehow costs an extra $1000!<br />
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My biggest disappointment in this new Pro gear is that Apple only seems be aiming for a very high end of the market, leaving out those of us without very deep pockets. If these towers had been in production all along maybe we could opt for an older model, but given the state of things we don't presently have many options if we want to stick with the Mac. But at least we have more than we did a week ago.Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-73202150979709117682019-05-31T16:13:00.001-07:002019-08-30T08:57:38.611-07:00Dreading the new Mac Pro<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0bge-GSLhDaQo1DbLWvrBlbYVLzd0wzSICcz_wk_B419lr5wMEsxihQJ-Nft84tqumojUwYIwEo8OZLb3b2a1I5EPwAHzORJou-NtqSu8gsdp_blrofvPEiuhZ790tnIqTCbnm3CmXzo/s1600/g4cube.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="232" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0bge-GSLhDaQo1DbLWvrBlbYVLzd0wzSICcz_wk_B419lr5wMEsxihQJ-Nft84tqumojUwYIwEo8OZLb3b2a1I5EPwAHzORJou-NtqSu8gsdp_blrofvPEiuhZ790tnIqTCbnm3CmXzo/s200/g4cube.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
The unveiling of a new Mac Pro may finally be upon us. In a bout of uncharacteristic frankness and humility, Apple admitted to journalists in <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/04/apple-pushes-the-reset-button-on-the-mac-pro/">April 2017</a> that it had made a mistake, designing the “trash can” Mac Pro into a “thermal corner.” They said a redesign would be coming in the form of a “modular system” that would take more than a year to ship. It's now been over <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/apples-2019-imac-pro-will-be-shaped-by-workflows/">two years</a> and next week’s WWDC will mark the 6 year anniversary of the loathed cylindrical Mac Pro’s announcement, so it seems likely an unveiling will come Monday morning. I assume Apple wants me to be excited that the long wait is finally over, but instead I am terrified—terrified that Apple will get the Mac Pro wrong again, and that my long relationship and investment in the Mac for professional graphics work has no future.<br />
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The studio I work for has a long Mac tradition that can be traced back to the 1990s or earlier. In a sensible world we would continue to upgrade our fleet of 30+ Macs on a yearly basis to take advantage of the latest hardware advancements, most of which come from component suppliers such as Intel, Nvidia, etc. But look in our studio and you will see that every Mac desktop is from 2010 or earlier, a whole fleet of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Pro#Case">cheese graters</a>. These are the last truly pro Mac desktops, if you adhere to the idea that a pro computer is one that gives you power and expandability.<br />
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Two years ago we finally broke down and bought a few Windows PCs. We did it for one reason: to install multiple Nvidia graphics cards in each computer to power GPU renderers like Redshift and Octane, tools our artists are loving. Miraculously we <i>can</i> run Redshift on a 2010 Mac Pro if we install an unsupported Nvidia 1080 Ti card, grab some extra power from the SATA bus, and download a non-Apple driver. But modern PCs let you install 4 or more later-generation cards and our artists are hungry for that speed. The Mac Pro Apple sells today won’t let you install even one.<br />
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Apple could fix this Monday by re-introducing the 2010 Mac Pro with the latest CPUs, GPUs, and a beefy power supply. Unfortunately, I have reason to think we will be sorely disappointed.<br />
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Apple’s Definition of “Pro”</h4>
Starting with the Mac II in 1987, Apple’s high end machines included faster processors and expansion slots that were generally lacking in the consumer models. Jobs’ translucent iMac revitalized Apple, but pros could still get a boring beige tower for more demanding work, later replaced by a colorful plastic tower with a side door providing easy access to expansion slots, memory, and hard drive bays.<br />
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Today’s Apple sees their Pro computers as simply a slight spec bump from the standard version. For example, the iMac Pro can be configured with a Radeon Pro Vega 64X, verses the iMac which can only take a Pro Vega 48. But the Pro Vega 64X isn’t even the fastest card in the current Vega lineup; that would be the Radeon RX Vega 64. Not to mention the significantly faster Radeon VII, which itself isn’t as fast as Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti from two years ago. If “pro” means the computer has the fastest gear available, then this ain’t pro.<br />
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And of course the iMac Pro’s graphics aren’t upgradeable, so you won’t be able to install a Radeon VII yourself or take advantage of faster cards to come, or even the wildly expensive high-end cards that are available now. Presently no Mac computers sold by Apple allow you to upgrade the built-in graphics cards or SSD storage. That includes trash can Mac Pro, of course.<br />
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Apple and Nvidia</h4>
What keeps our 2010 Mac Pros functional is that we can run Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in them. Nvidia cards are required to use CUDA, the graphics API used by GPU renderers.<br />
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Apple and Nvidia have had bad blood for a few years now, but a cheese grater Mac Pro running High Sierra can host a 1080 Ti. That option, however, is gone if you want to run macOS Mojave, which Apple has prevented from having Nvidia driver support. Since any new Mac Pro will require Mojave or later, it certainly appears it won’t be able to use an Nvidia card, which makes it dead to us.<br />
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Pro users are civilian casualties in this Apple-Nvidia cold war. I don’t think anyone expects us to use 2010 computers with 2017 graphics cards forever, so our days on Mac desktops are numbered.<br />
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Apple Being Apple</h4>
Can’t you just imagine the meetings that must have taken place in Cupertino that led to the trash can Mac Pro?<br />
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“We’re Apple, we can’t just make another boring tower computer!”<br />
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“We’re going to entirely rethink the desktop! All expansion will be done with Thunderbolt!”<br />
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“The new Mac Pro is so simple. So elegant. So. Essential.”<br />
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The predecessor to the current Mac Pro is the failed G4 Cube, but at least Steve Jobs had the sense to keep the towers around. Apple has undeniably made computing sexy these past two decades, but there are still people who need the equivalent of a pickup truck to do heavy lifting.<br />
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The 2010 Mac Pro is a lovely tower, but it is still a tower. Today’s Apple can’t bring themselves to make anything that utilitarian, but utility is what pros demand. I don’t think I’m getting my cheese grater sequel.<br />
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Apple <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/apples-2019-imac-pro-will-be-shaped-by-workflows/">tells us</a> they’ve assembled the “Pro Workflow Team,” some sort of think tank to figure out what pros need, but isn’t that overthinking it a bit? We know what a pro desktop machine looks like, give us that! Take an HP/Dell/Razer tower and jam the macOS onto it if you have to. Feel free to experiment with more concept computers of the future if you want, but we need the workhorse.<br />
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Conclusion</h4>
Nobody would be happier than I should Apple defy my pessimism and give us an upgradeable tower with slots. Please, Apple, prove me wrong!<br />
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The Mac OS is still the best computer operating system out there. Apple has not been a good steward lately, focusing most of their efforts on integration with money-printing iOS devices, but I believe the Mac is still the most reliable, well-designed, and therefore best platform for serious work. Fighting our 10 Windows PCs running only 3 or 4 programs takes much more time out of my week than running a network of over 30 Macs with all the creative and productivity software a studio needs. If only the new Mac Pro would deliver, I’d gladly kick those PCs to the curb (after pulling out their GPUs, natch!).Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-76946287174245525562018-11-08T10:16:00.000-08:002018-11-09T08:34:53.745-08:00ProEXR 2.0<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Version 2.0 of <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/" style="font-weight: bold;">ProEXR</a> is now available. The major new addition is support for Cryptomatte in After Effects.<br />
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<a href="https://github.com/Psyop/Cryptomatte">Cryptomatte</a> is a clever improvement over OpenEXR’s <a href="https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY3MAX/Object+ID+%7C+VRayObjectID">ID</a> channels, which have been supported by ProEXR since the beginning, but in practice are rarely used. The problem with an ID channel is that each pixel can only specify a single ID, so small things like antialiasing, motion blur, and depth of field won’t work properly. Using some tricks involving 32-bit float EXR channels and cryptographic hashes, Cryptomatte gives you the ID channels you always wanted, fully functional. Just turn on Cryptomatte in a supported 3D renderer, set up the comps in After Effects using ProEXR AE, select the Cryptomatte effect, and click in your comp to generate perfect mattes for any object(s) you choose.<br />
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Since Cryptomatte uses a series of EXR channels to work its magic, developing this plug-in exposed some inefficiencies in the OpenEXR file module, which has now been updated to always cache channels and headers. In extreme cases involving EXR sequences with many channels, the speedup can be as high as 20x. I encourage all multi-channel EXR enthusiasts to replace the plug-in that ships with AE.<br />
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Enjoy!<br />
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<b>Update:</b> More information about this release and Cryptomatte in a <a href="https://www.provideocoalition.com/after-effects-exrs-compositing-with-big-boy-toys/">ProVideo Coalition article</a> by Chris Zwar!<br />
<br />Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-42016933189819449952018-09-24T09:56:00.000-07:002020-01-29T17:19:18.191-08:00Apple peaked in 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Anyone looking at my desk today could be forgiven for thinking they had stepped into a time machine. An OLED TV and Nintendo Switch on the other side of the room would reassure them this was indeed 2018, but the desk is firmly planted in 2011. There's a MacBook Pro (Early 2011), a Mac Pro (Mid 2010), and an iPhone 4 (released February 2011). Look closer and you'll also see that all three devices are still running operating systems from 2011: Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iOS 5.</div>
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Perhaps I'm a Luddite, unable or afraid to upgrade to the current OS versions? Or maybe I'm too poor or cheap to upgrade my hardware, the last time I could afford to do so was during Obama's first term? I assure you that neither of these are the case. In my day job I run a network of Macs running the latest OS. Said job also provides a paycheck that I could use to buy new computers. In fact, those Macs were acquired <i>this</i> calendar year, but they are older models I got through Craigslist. I can and do run newer Mac OS versions inside VMWare or by booting from another partition when necessary. On the iOS side, I have an iPad running a recent iOS. So I'm perfectly familiar with the various Apple OS updates, but I choose to use the 2011 versions instead.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>The reason is simple: I think the 2011 operating systems are the best ones Apple has made, and what has followed has been worse. So I have stuck with Snow Leopard and iOS 5 all these years. As newer computers can't run the old operating systems, my hardware is stuck in 2011 as well.<br />
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My refusal to upgrade started with the immediate successors to what I'm still using. iOS 6's big feature was a switch from the reliable Apple-designed Google Maps app to Apple Maps, so broken it compelled Apple to issue a rare <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/28/tim-cook-apologizes-for-apple-maps-points-to-competitive-alternatives/">apology</a>. That was an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/nov/07/peak-apple">easy skip</a>. iOS 7 was re-designed to remove most of its character in Apple's quest to make everything as "simple" as possible. Not unusable, but why bother? Successive iOS versions have seemed to mostly boast advancements in Emoji technology. I think iOS 5 is still the best iOS.</div>
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On the Mac side, Snow Leopard was followed by Lion, which removed Rosetta and tried to make the Mac more like the iPad with the Launcher, App Store, "modern" document model, and full-screen apps. As a programmer, I was especially dismayed by the changes in Xcode 4. Not only was Apple trying to make the Mac into the iPad, they seemed to see the Mac as little more than the iOS development environment. Who needs a computer when you can check email and browse the web on your phone?</div>
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Subsequent Mac OS versions adopted the plain iOS 7 look and downgraded key apps like Mail, Calendar, iTunes, Pages, and Numbers, usually to have them match their less-capable iOS counterparts. Photos replaced the superior iPhoto, Mac OS security became overbearing, QuickTime became less functional, and OS X Server has been whittled away. The big new feature in the upcoming macOS Mojave is a color scheme, but the Emoji is state of the art!</div>
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Apple hardware has fared better in some cases, worse in others. The iMac has plodded along, periodically getting bigger displays and thinner chassis. <span class="s1"><u>Thin</u></span> seems to be Apple's top priority these days, such that Apple changed its iPhone connector and got rid of the headphone jack in its quest to make its phones ever thinner. I prefer the iPhone 4's smaller form factor, but at least there's no denying iPhone processors have stepped up in speed with each iteration and the cameras have improved as well.</div>
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Apple has relentlessly pushed its laptops thinner and lighter, dropping the optical drive and one port after another until USB-C is all that's left on the current models (R.I.P. MagSafe). In the process they have removed all that traditionally made a Pro computer professional: power and expandability. RAM and storage are no longer upgradeable and the CPUs are hobbled in the interest of cramming everything into the smallest possible case. And the current MacBook Pro keyboard is simply awful—its key travel distance is minuscule, only slightly preferable to an Atari 400's <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atari-400-Comp.jpg">membrane keyboard</a>.</div>
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The Mac Mini seems neglected nearly to the point of death, probably not a good choice for anyone, but the real disgrace is the Mac Pro. The aluminum tower Mac Pro got a slight spec bump in 2012, in anticipation of the "trash can" Mac Pro released in 2013, which can only be described as an abomination. I don't personally know anyone who uses that over-designed, non-upgradeable doorstop, Apple's sequel to the G4 Cube. It is the epitome of this form-over-function philosophy Apple has followed from 2012 onward. (NB, Steve Jobs died in 2011.) Apple says a new Mac Pro is coming in 2019 and they have learned their lesson, but all their other hardware seems to indicate they haven't. If that new Mac Pro doesn't have some PCI slots, I don't think you can make an argument that pros should use the Mac anymore.</div>
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As I write this, there is not a single item in an Apple store that appeals to me. Not a single product for which I would prefer the current model over a past one. The other day I was in an Apple store to buy the last product of theirs I actually wanted, an <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/14/the-iphone-se-was-the-best-phone-apple-ever-made-and-now-its-dead/">iPhone SE</a>, just before it was discontinued. That's right, I'm finally upgrading my phone.</div>
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Using the best OS versions all these years has been great, but I have paid a price. The software I'm running is as functional as ever, but the world I'm connecting to has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/magazine/what-i-learned-from-watching-my-ipads-slow-death.html?fallback=0&recId=1BkwjDDqxz3YrcVip4iMUHjbV9G&locked=0&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=CA&recAlloc=contextual-bandit-story-desks&geoCountry=US&blockId=signature-journalism-vi&imp_id=258232295&action=click&module=editorContent&pgtype=Article&region=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending">changing</a> and finally I have to change with it. On Snow Leopard I'm stuck with older versions Firefox and Chrome (not to mention Safari) which become more incompatible with the modern web with each passing week. This, in turn, becomes a bigger problem as more things get pushed to the cloud and more apps become web apps. iOS 5's version of Safari does not work with most modern websites and finally, the coup de grâce, the iMessage protocol has changed enough that texting has become problematic for myself and the people texting me as well.</div>
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So I'll move into the present with my phone and finally upgrade my laptop’s OS to keep pace. I give up. It will be inferior to what I'm using now, but at least texting will work and yes, those glorious diverse Emojis will be mine. I'm somewhat comforted to know that I can still run Xcode 3 in Snow Leopard by booting into another partition or in VMWare, and it’s even possible to use the final version of iPhoto in High Sierra.</div>
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For most of its history, computing seemed to move inexorably forward. Hardware got faster, software got better. Then these smart phones came around and mobility became the end-all, be-all. So what if your apps crash left and right, you can fit them in your pocket! Just as written communication went from articles to blogs to Facebook to Twitter, computing became more flashy but less functional. At the risk of sounding like the dinosaur that I am, I miss the good old days of 2011.</div>
<br />Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-49830058327861414132018-09-19T09:15:00.000-07:002019-06-24T07:53:46.429-07:00Screw you, Microsoft<div class="p1">
This blog has never before veered toward anything that might be considered opinion, but today I am making an exception. With no small amount of chagrin I heard recently that Microsoft had bought GitHub, and so I am now taking my open source projects off GitHub and moving them to <a href="https://gitlab.com/fnordware">GitLab</a>.</div>
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I will be the first to admit I'm not completely rational about this. Perhaps a long-ago spurned lover of Barack Obama refused to vote him into office. Ghandi's ex-girlfriend may say he was a jerk. Well, I've been hurt by Microsoft, and if you use computers with any frequency I'd argue you've been hurt as well.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Initially things between me and Microsoft were fine. I first used Microsoft Word on a Macintosh SE around 1989. It was a fine program. I was 14 years old and naïve about the workings of the computer industry then. I was aware that IBM PCs used some sort of text-based interface, but I didn't realize that Microsoft owned that operating system and what it would eventually mean. Even in hindsight, Microsoft at the time appeared to be simply a well-run software company.<br />
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But Microsoft never wanted to be <i>a</i> software company, they wanted to be <i>the</i> software company. They never wanted to participate in an ecosystem, they wanted to <i>be</i> the ecosystem. They got their start by providing languages to various computer systems, moved on to providing the operating system for the most popular personal computer (by accident!), and then started selling the key applications for its own and others' operating systems.</div>
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Flash forward to today and among Microsoft's products you will find an internet search engine, a video conferencing service, numerous video game companies, a professional social network, and cloud computing services. Under what mission statement would it make sense to operate in so many disparate areas?</div>
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Here is Microsoft's mission statement: <b>control everything.</b> Every time you click/type/joystick on a non-Microsoft thing the company feels a little sting. If enough people click enough times, Microsoft will eventually need to control that thing. If they can buy it cheap, that's easy enough. Often they will make a competitive product, only to later buy the market leader if they fail to take control. Microsoft shut down their CodePlex service last year, admitting defeat to (and therefore necessitating the buying of) GitHub. Microsoft is very upset it didn't buy Google, YouTube, and Android when it had the chance, because even Microsoft can't afford to buy them now.</div>
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Here is something not in Microsoft's mission statement: <b>make good stuff.</b> Microsoft couldn't care less if the things it makes are any good, as the goal is dominance, not quality. That doesn't mean Microsoft is incapable of making good stuff; if the only way to dominate a sector is through making a high-quality product, then fine, Microsoft will do it, often after multiple failed attempts. Internet Explorer in its early days is a good example of something Microsoft made well because it had to. But if there's an easier/cheaper way to take control (regardless of the legality of that path), Microsoft is just as happy to make something crappy. Sometimes Microsoft will buy something high-quality and then make it crappy—just look at Skype.</div>
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The 1990s really saw Microsoft at its worst. They had complete control over the productivity software market (the main use for computers at the time) with Microsoft Office. They solidified their market dominance by finally releasing a decent replica of the Mac operating system with Windows 95, then turned their sights toward whatever small niches were left, like desktop publishing and 3D graphics. Anything another company announced would immediately get hit with a shot of Microsoft FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), and the market would just wait to see whatever thing Microsoft was going to come out with, which was often nothing because once the new thing withered on the vine there was no longer a thing to dominate. Then the Internet became a thing and billg nearly had a heart attack, turning the company upside down to try to dominate that.</div>
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It was really the Internet that saved us from complete Microsoft dominance. As Web browsers supplanted word processors and spreadsheets as the main programs people ran on their computers, users became more aware they need not be tied to a particular platform. Calls to "standardize on Microsoft" began to quiet and Steve Jobs' return to "beleaguered" Apple brought about candy colored iMacs and iBooks, drawing new and old users to the Mac, which saw its market share increase after years of steady decline. Linux became a viable option on the desktop and the #1 choice for servers. Obviously Windows and Office still loom large in many areas of the computer industry, but few would argue they have no alternative.</div>
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So things are better now, but I have not forgotten the havoc wrecked on the computer industry during those times. As much as Microsoft likes to talk about innovation, their main tactic is to stifle other people's innovation. I'd say the desktop software landscape is about 10 years behind where it would have been were it not trapped in the Microsoft dark ages. And yes I take it personally, seeing as those were really my salad days as far as computers are concerned. And I have spent a <i>lot</i> of time with computers.</div>
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Microsoft would tell you they've changed. While Steve Ballmer once called Linux a "cancer," current CEO Satya Nadella in 2015 declared "Microsoft Loves Linux." You can now run Visual Studio on your Mac and build Mac, iOS, and even Linux programs with it. Microsoft has made many of their own projects open source, big ones like C#, .NET, PowerShell, and over a thousand more. There are rumors they may open source Windows! So I guess they've seen the light, right? Wrong.</div>
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What's really going on is Microsoft has decided that the PC market will continue to shrink and since they have <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/24/bill-gates-greatest-mistake/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=internal&utm_source=dl">epically failed</a> in the smartphone market they are looking to dominate what's left: the cloud. Since most of the software people run on the cloud is open source, Microsoft is opening up its code in an attempt to stay in the game. They're betting their giant code base is a competitive advantage and that flinging it out into the open will get them cloud market share. It's the same type of grand gesture that lead them to "integrate" Internet Explorer when they got scared by the Internet. To Microsoft, software is now the razor and cloud services are the blades.</div>
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So that's why they acquired GitHub. It's a tool used by virtually every cloud developer, therefore it bothered them not to control it. Soon I'm sure they'll try to use GitHub to pull developers away from other cloud platforms by offering exclusive integration features, even if it makes the standard GitHub experience worse. Well, I'm not sticking around to see it.</div>
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<div class="p1">
Or not. Maybe Microsoft won't change a thing and GitHub will be as great a tool for open source developers as it's always been. Well, I'm still not sticking around to see it. Screw you, Microsoft. I don't care if you claim to be rehabilitated. Or if you are rehabilitated, how about returning the vast sums of money you made with your bad behavior? I didn't think so.</div>
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<div class="p1">
Of course, I won't be able to divorce myself from GitHub completely any more than I've been able to divorce myself from Windows. I have users on Windows, and I contribute to open source projects that are on GitHub, at least for now. So like the bully who's always back at your high school reunion, I will never be able to completely escape Microsoft/GitHub. But I <i>can</i> move to another town so I won't keep bumping into them at the local watering hole.</div>
<br />Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-31909637992160508922017-11-29T10:12:00.001-08:002017-11-29T11:06:35.011-08:00RenderGarden<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWAxt_Zgkiy_QhOVzMBfzjrtBk74EyNazO3y33NA9OQMl82EsI1r36oU1zrJD1m-ocWTFmFWzBdjYoB2Db7ukk958wAfMKkaQcCJSurGYTfHOVJy_SphEigFf-1kqC-6sD0tOyuFmBMBM/s1600/RenderGarden_small.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="685" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWAxt_Zgkiy_QhOVzMBfzjrtBk74EyNazO3y33NA9OQMl82EsI1r36oU1zrJD1m-ocWTFmFWzBdjYoB2Db7ukk958wAfMKkaQcCJSurGYTfHOVJy_SphEigFf-1kqC-6sD0tOyuFmBMBM/s200/RenderGarden_small.png" width="200" /></a></div>
Got a new product sold though Mekajiki: <a href="https://www.mekajiki.com/rendergarden/"><b>RenderGarden</b></a>. I suppose the tagline sums it up best: it's not a farm, just a little garden. As opposed to full farm management software like Pixar's Tractor, RenderGarden is just a couple of scripts. But it's cheap and easy, letting you get a little After Effects render <strike>farm</strike> garden going in minutes.<br />
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A big benefit of using RenderGarden vs. the AE render queue is that you can run multiple render processes simultaneously, even on a single computer. If After Effects were fully multi-threaded this would not be much help, but in AE's current state RenderGarden can often double or triple rendering speeds, meanwhile leaving After Effects available for you to continue working.<br />
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Programs like Tractor have a centralized database of their various render tasks. A hack used by RenderGarden is that the filesystem itself is the database, with the priority of the various jobs controlled by their place in your drive's hierarchy, their status determined by naming conventions. This system isn't as bullet-proof as Tractor, but it's simple, cheap, and works for small-scale users and teams looking for a little render farm functionality.Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-86333005894398394272017-02-06T19:34:00.005-08:002021-12-20T16:29:17.038-08:00OpenColorIO for Photoshop<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirn17TPVrMg57KVuT1ye9p0vI5VLaUq-9ZVNbo4EY1MTakXr1ThXLIMZlQoNN44xUyuIgngsXvYQvSBxaqdKsIdnqdq2FbUAZQQ4unVzOnIMdUqlcJVtvS-nyPjSjsSAz4FMFW_-L5yjM/s1600/Screen+shot+2017-02-06+at+7.21.00+PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirn17TPVrMg57KVuT1ye9p0vI5VLaUq-9ZVNbo4EY1MTakXr1ThXLIMZlQoNN44xUyuIgngsXvYQvSBxaqdKsIdnqdq2FbUAZQQ4unVzOnIMdUqlcJVtvS-nyPjSjsSAz4FMFW_-L5yjM/s200/Screen+shot+2017-02-06+at+7.21.00+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div>
Many moons ago I released an <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2012/05/opencolorio-for-after-effects.html">OpenColorIO plug-in for After Effects</a>. Now there's a Photoshop plug-in as well. It has most of the same features and a similar interface.<br />
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One useful feature for Photoshop workflows is the ability to export ICC Profiles and LUTs right from the plug-in. You can test out a color conversion directly on your pixels by running it normally. Then undo and export an ICC Profile that can be assigned to your document (make sure you save it in the proper directory). Or export a LUT to be assigned to a Color Lookup adjustment layer in Photoshop.<br />
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As usual, it's free and <a href="https://github.com/fnordware/OpenColorIO" target="_blank">open source</a>.<br />
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Enjoy!<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Plug-in version: 2.1.1</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Date: 19 December 2021</span></i><br />
<b><a href="http://www.fnordware.com/OpenColorIO/OpenColorIO_PS_v2.1.1_mac.dmg">Mac</a></b> | <b><a href="http://www.fnordware.com/OpenColorIO/OpenColorIO_PS_v2.1.1_win.zip">Win</a></b>Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-4659160486399197842017-01-04T11:00:00.000-08:002017-01-07T12:53:23.956-08:00ProEXR is FreeAbout 10 years ago I released <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/" target="_blank">ProEXR</a>, a set of After Effects and Photoshop plug-ins for using multi-channel OpenEXR files. From the <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2007/08/proexr-ships.html" target="_blank">beginning</a>, the core AE plug-ins were free and the <a href="https://github.com/fnordware/openexrAE" target="_blank">source code</a> was available. A year later the AE plug-ins started <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2008/10/proexr-ships-with-after-effects-cs4.html" target="_blank">shipping</a> with After Effects CS4, and they still do to this day. Eventually <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2011/10/proexr-ae.html" target="_blank">ProEXR AE</a> was added, <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2012/04/proexr-ez-is-free.html" target="_blank">ProEXR EZ</a> was made free, then Premiere plug-ins were <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2012/04/proexr-17-available.html" target="_blank">added</a> and later <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2015/12/openexr-for-premiere-is-free.html" target="_blank">included</a> with the program, <a href="https://github.com/fnordware/openexrPremiere" target="_blank">free</a>. I guess the only thing left to do is make the whole darn thing free. And so it is. (It's <a href="https://github.com/fnordware/ProEXR" target="_blank">open source</a> too.)<br />
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From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank everyone who bought ProEXR over the years. Your support has really meant a lot, and allowed me to keep refining ProEXR into a stable product used by artists and installed in studios all over the world. All those who will use ProEXR in the future owe you a debt.<br />
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To be candid, part of the decision to make ProEXR free was driven by the emergence of another free Photoshop plug-in with a strikingly similar feature set. It looks nice, <a href="http://www.exr-io.com/" target="_blank">check it out</a>.<br />
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Thanks again, everyone. Enjoy!Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-11668687349174431522016-12-09T16:22:00.001-08:002016-12-09T16:51:46.844-08:00BoardfishI've teamed up with some old friends to make a new Mac application, <b><a href="http://boardfish.io/">Boardfish</a></b>, a tool for creating storyboards. Make panels in the graphics app of your choosing and drag them in. Boardfish will let you arrange them, add captions, and export to a PDF.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/G-3uPxQRD_s/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G-3uPxQRD_s?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
Boardfish is the brainchild of Matt Silverman, who runs the production studio <a href="http://www.swordfish-sf.com/">Swordfish</a>. (I've known Matt since forever, starting with ElectricImage user groups at the turn of the century.) At Swordfish, Matt & co. have often made storyboards using general purpose tools like InDesign, but making changes to the layouts was a pain. Matt thought it would be worth it to make an app dedicated to storyboards, so he brought me in to do the programming, <a href="http://www.cicadaprincess.com/">Mauchi Baiocchi</a> for creative input, and <a href="http://www.bravenfx.com/">Brandon Smith</a> for everything else (including the docs and website). Together, we are <a href="https://lmgtfy.com/?q=mekajiki" target="_blank">Mekajiki</a> Inc.<br />
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When it comes down to it, Boardfish is basically a page layout app—a procedural one. Virtually everything about the layout of the boards is exposed: the number of panels on a page, the typeface and font size of each text element, the width and color of every line. Boardfish lets you make global changes instantly.<br />
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There's a free trial. Give it a whirl!Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-87337248373211042332016-02-25T15:48:00.001-08:002017-12-11T22:36:02.705-08:00ProEXR AE update<a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2011/10/proexr-ae.html" target="_blank">Several years ago</a> <b><a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/" target="_blank">ProEXR</a></b> added the ability to render the layers of an After Effects comp into an EXR sequence, each layer given its own set of RGBA channels that could be pulled out independently in AE, Nuke, or another savvy program. This feature was accessed through the standard After Effects render interface, made possible by various loopholes in the After Effects API.<br />
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Well, all good things must come to an end and those loopholes were closed in After Effects CC 2015 as part of the program's <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2015/04/after-effects-cc-spring-2015-update-revealed.html" target="_blank">re-architecture-ing</a>. As a result this feature is now found where you might have expected it from the beginning, under Composition ➤ Save Frame As ➤ ProEXR. Unlike its neighboring Photoshop Layers feature, the ProEXR layer export will let you render out a sequence.<br />
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Users of previous AE versions can still use the render queue as they always have, and that's the only way to render on a farm. Or since AE CC 2014 can read CC 2015's project files, you could always open your project in the older version and regain the render queue functionality.Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-36192538638579101262015-12-03T15:58:00.000-08:002015-12-08T10:41:45.737-08:00OpenEXR for Premiere is FreeAdobe has <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2015/11/premiere-pro-cc-2015-1.html" target="_blank">released</a> an update to Adobe Premiere CC 2015 that includes something relevant to this blog: an OpenEXR plug-in. This is actually the same plug-in that has been a part of ProEXR for the past <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2012/04/proexr-openexr-premiere-pro-photoshop-after-effects.html" target="_blank">three years</a>, and it is now free to all. (It runs in <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2015/11/adobe-media-encoder-cc-2015-1.html" target="_blank">Media Encoder</a> too.) Updating your CC 2015 is the easiest way to get it, but for those of you still using older versions of Premiere you'll find a free copy in the standard <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/" target="_blank">ProEXR download</a>, replacing the old non-free one. The price of the remaining ProEXR plug-ins has dropped to $50.<br />
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Like the <a href="https://github.com/fnordware/openexrAE" target="_blank">After Effects plug-ins</a> before it, I've made the Premiere plug-in <a href="https://github.com/fnordware/openexrPremiere" target="_blank">open source on GitHub</a>.<br />
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As a refresher, the following plug-ins are free in ProEXR:<br />
<ul>
<li>ProEXR EZ for Photoshop</li>
<li>OpenEXR, EXtractoR, IDentifier plug-ins for After Effects</li>
<li>OpenEXR for Premiere</li>
<li>ProEXR Comp Creator for After Effects (part of ProEXR AE)</li>
</ul>
The following ProEXR features require a license:<br />
<ul>
<li>ProEXR for Photoshop (read/write layered EXR files)</li>
<li>ProEXR AE (write layered EXR files out of After Effects)</li>
<li>VRimg support (part of ProEXR for Photoshop and ProEXR AE)</li>
</ul>
Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-60384058316786397722015-04-13T12:30:00.000-07:002015-04-14T12:45:33.763-07:00WebM for Premiere Pro<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.webmproject.org/media/images/webm-558x156.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.webmproject.org/media/images/webm-558x156.png" height="55" width="200" /></a></div>
After well over a year in <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2013/12/webm-and-theora-plug-ins-for-premiere.html" target="_blank">public beta</a>, today we're calling the free <b><a href="http://www.fnordware.com/WebM/" target="_blank">WebM plug-in for Premiere Pro</a></b> officially released. In that time the plug-in has evolved greatly based on feedback from users and from Google itself. And it will continue to evolve, especially as Google continues to develop their libvpx encoder.<br />
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One thing that has been interesting to watch is how the VP9 codec has come along. When I posted the first beta, VP9 was experimental, had hardly any application support, and was <i>incredibly</i> slow to encode. Today you can play VP9 in Firefox, Chrome, VLC, and other standards-compliant software. And VP9 encoding…well, let's just say it's a lot faster than it used to be, thanks to multithreading and countless other optimizations.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Here's a test I ran: encode the same clip in the different codecs using some masochistic bit rate so you can really see the artifacts. In this case it's a 1080p clip encoded at 500 kb/s (0.5 Mb/s). I made an H.264 using Premiere's encoder and VP8 and VP9 clips using the plug-in. Here's a close-up screenshot of the results:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikJCaMVLU3n_ySfsKwD2Y_MbwtnyJMDB8tVviSDWep_1yJPRbn5xfPgz3lbVwQDDcqhXh62umdESwBKamELf_JKW3y3NAILp2JX6jtAPN8u9MiNBPeuk8_fzN6Koa5Dr9iTIILHQzhDV4/s1600/vp9_compare.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikJCaMVLU3n_ySfsKwD2Y_MbwtnyJMDB8tVviSDWep_1yJPRbn5xfPgz3lbVwQDDcqhXh62umdESwBKamELf_JKW3y3NAILp2JX6jtAPN8u9MiNBPeuk8_fzN6Koa5Dr9iTIILHQzhDV4/s1600/vp9_compare.png" /></a></div>
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You can see VP9 has the best palm tree detail, for the same file size<i>.</i> VP9 is a next-generation codec, and it's available and supported <i>right now</i>. The big downside: encoding VP9 took <i>three</i> times longer to encode than VP8 and <i>eighteen</i> times longer than H.264. But what's one long encode when it means potentially thousands of people who view the clip get much higher quality?</div>
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Don't take my word for it. Try it yourself and post your results in the comments.</div>
<br />Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-17045825092323729882014-10-24T14:49:00.003-07:002014-10-24T15:16:41.756-07:00MOX<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ_dwv3yCxhA5BxaVQoLd3v3Oh7fUYIwx6MUMWZjkVMAouYCrugbs5bauPpOk62GvV0Zo_xnFp_-_W_ufUGn83s-SGJKXE9xM9GjmPRlFEJM6KEKAggNR8dzjFcUPFwBuRH0XOZnooQrM/s1600/mox_logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ_dwv3yCxhA5BxaVQoLd3v3Oh7fUYIwx6MUMWZjkVMAouYCrugbs5bauPpOk62GvV0Zo_xnFp_-_W_ufUGn83s-SGJKXE9xM9GjmPRlFEJM6KEKAggNR8dzjFcUPFwBuRH0XOZnooQrM/s1600/mox_logo.png" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
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Usually I use this blog to announce a piece of software I've written, but now I'm announcing something I'm <i>hoping</i> to write. It's MOX, an open source movie format for video and film production. You can read all about it on the <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mox-file-format/" target="_blank">Indiegogo page</a>.<br />
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The reason to use crowd funding is twofold. First, this free software project is too big for me to just put it together in my spare time. Second, we are proposing to create a new standard so we need to know there's support for it before we get started, to know that it's really worth doing.<br />
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Continue reading for the details of how this all began.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>For probably about as long as I can remember, people have posted on the <a href="http://www.media-motion.tv/ae-list.html" target="_blank">AE List</a> about problems they were having with movies. Maybe the the gamma was messed up on other computers, maybe a codec they were using broke. Working at The Orphanage, I encountered some of these problems firsthand, and was frustrated to see I had little ability to solve them, due to the closed source nature of the movie formats. I had been spoiled by PNG and OpenEXR.<br />
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In June 2013 I was working on plug-ins for <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2013/12/webm-and-theora-plug-ins-for-premiere.html" target="_blank">WebM and Theora</a>, open source movie formats for the web. This made me realize that maybe there was enough code out there to make an open source movie format for people on the production side. The next time someone complained about movie formats on the AE List, <a href="http://media-motion.tv:8100/Lists/AE-List/Message/50093.html" target="_blank">I chimed in</a>. Before I could balk at the idea of undertaking such an ambitious project on my own and for free, Louai Abu-Osba suggested it be <a href="http://media-motion.tv:8100/Lists/AE-List/Message/50105.html" target="_blank">crowdfunded</a>. I was somewhat <a href="http://media-motion.tv:8100/Lists/AE-List/Message/50112.html" target="_blank">taken aback</a> by the idea, but I was <a href="http://media-motion.tv:8100/Lists/AE-List/Message/50113.html" target="_blank">assured</a> that I had the support of the AE list.<br />
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Well, I rolled the idea around in my head for quite some time and finally <a href="http://media-motion.tv:8100/Lists/AE-List/Message/53822.html" target="_blank">brought it back</a> to the AE list. They liked most of my ideas, except for my proposed name: "POM" (for Professional Open Movie). We threw around some alternatives, and it was Teddy Gage who <a href="http://media-motion.tv:8100/Lists/AE-List/Message/53941.html" target="_blank">struck gold</a>. While I wasn't too enamored with "Movie Open eXchange," pretty much <a href="http://media-motion.tv:8100/Lists/AE-List/Message/53945.html" target="_blank">everyone</a> agreed that "MOX" was it. <a href="http://vantagegraphics.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mike Abbott</a> volunteered to replace my pathetic logo design.<br />
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With tacit approval from the AE List, I started passing my <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/downloads/MOX_Proposal.pdf" target="_blank">proposal</a> around to production people I know. My old buddy Matt Silverman, who runs <a href="http://www.swordfish-sf.com/" target="_blank">Swordfish</a>, was enthusiastic about the idea and agreed to produce the ever-important video. We got in touch with old friends at <a href="http://atomicfiction.com/" target="_blank">Atomic Fiction</a> and <a href="http://tippett.com/" target="_blank">Tippett Studio</a>, who agreed to appear in it. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0047821/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1" target="_blank">Mauchi</a>, whom I met at The Orphanage years ago, <a href="http://vimeo.com/84058031" target="_blank">directed</a> it.<br />
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Finally, on October 20 we launched the project on <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mox-file-format/" target="_blank">Indiegogo</a>.<br />
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To be continued…Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-75696290276635795912014-08-15T16:19:00.000-07:002014-08-21T07:54:51.177-07:00DWA compression in OpenEXR 2.2<a href="http://www.openexr.com/" target="_blank">OpenEXR 2.2</a> was just released, and it features a <a href="http://www.renderosity.com/dreamworks-animation-contributes-lossy-compression-to-openexr-2-2-cms-17221" target="_blank">new lossy codec</a> created by Karl Rasche of DreamWorks Animation. Simply called <b>DWA</b>, it applies techniques common in lossy image compression like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_cosine_transform" target="_blank">discrete cosine transform</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding" target="_blank">Huffman coding</a>, but it uses them to great effect. If you can accept a little loss in your HDR images, DWA can shrink them to a fraction of their lossless size.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Like other DCT compression formats such as JPEG, DWA lets you set the amount of compression you want, so you can find a balance between loss and file size that best suits your particular task. This is a first for OpenEXR, or any other HDR format to my knowledge. The DWA Compression Level parameter is a floating point number, with higher values leading to more loss and smaller files.<br />
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The default Compression Level setting is 45.0, which creates a visually lossless image that is often less than half the size of its truly lossless Piz counterpart. In my tests, boosting that value to 100.0 still had no visible artifacts, but was further reduced to less than a third of the Piz version. Artifacts do start to appear around 200.0, but only if you zoom in to look and by that time your file is about one eighth the size of Piz. Of course, the artifacts do eventually become noticable. If you'd like to see what they look like, I've made a short video showing them—download <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/OpenEXR/DWAB_test.mp4" target="_blank">MP4</a> or <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/OpenEXR/DWAB_test.webm" target="_blank">WebM</a>.<br />
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(Of course, viewing DWA's lossy compression artifacts in some other lossy movie format is inherently problematic, but…)<br />
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Like other DCT codecs, re-compressing DWA over and over again does not incur much additional generational loss, so long as you use the same settings. Another thing that makes DWA significant is that it is fast, <i>very</i> fast. Most computers will have no problem decoding 2K frames at 24fps. The performance is aided by significant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMD" target="_blank">SIMD</a> optimization, but it's very quick even without them. Bravo, Karl!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinNfbukhTpiN84vOiVFM8623HtO9XmuUSHnT4zUB9Ag0oVvFh_qAOOyibCSqIMvj1gOM8z4CNsW5JY1psn9P-pG6fjNLF0hcfvx7K4tahYP5kclmQXWKlJiBaJO23YN-WayCIC4CUgCR8/s1600/DWAA_dialog.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinNfbukhTpiN84vOiVFM8623HtO9XmuUSHnT4zUB9Ag0oVvFh_qAOOyibCSqIMvj1gOM8z4CNsW5JY1psn9P-pG6fjNLF0hcfvx7K4tahYP5kclmQXWKlJiBaJO23YN-WayCIC4CUgCR8/s1600/DWAA_dialog.png" height="200" width="181" /></a></div>
DWA in OpenEXR is actually two compression options, <b>DWAA</b> and <b>DWAB</b>. They use the same algorithm, but DWAA compresses pixels in blocks of 32 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanline" target="_blank">scanlines</a>, while DWAB does 256 scanlines. Bundling more lines together lets DWAB compress more efficiently and increases performance when the entire entire image is read at once, as most programs do. Meanwhile, DWAA's smaller bundles make it more efficient for reading just a few scanlines at a time, as Nuke usually does.<br />
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I have re-compiled <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/" target="_blank">ProEXR 1.9</a> with OpenEXR 2.2 if you want to experiment with DWA a little. The Photoshop and After Effects plug-ins don't yet have a slider for setting the Compression Level, so it'll be fixed at the default value of 45.0. The Premiere plug-in does have a slider though, and it works fine in Adobe Media Encoder too.<br />
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As a new EXR codec, a file using DWA compression will not be compatible with programs that have not yet upgraded to OpenEXR 2.2, which as I write this is pretty much all of them. Some programs may take years to update. So feel free to experiment with DWA, but be careful when using it in production, making sure that your intended destination can accept it.Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-59152085251126972202014-06-27T00:31:00.000-07:002014-07-17T09:52:53.454-07:00SuperPNG 2.5<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdocG1BUD4F_CPHZv8ZIAYSorhvFef0kdaFOgvgeX18gk23fjc34ryIGyXXTPEv3e509d_4tE5V49GO2oPnVXB6qxnX1LNFX93TAaI8mCtRx6MpaE1JPkcCbaMHwrfd-oAeCnmLZIf_Xk/s1600/out_dialog.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdocG1BUD4F_CPHZv8ZIAYSorhvFef0kdaFOgvgeX18gk23fjc34ryIGyXXTPEv3e509d_4tE5V49GO2oPnVXB6qxnX1LNFX93TAaI8mCtRx6MpaE1JPkcCbaMHwrfd-oAeCnmLZIf_Xk/s1600/out_dialog.png" height="200" width="191" /></a></div>
I just posted a new version of <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/superpng/"><b>SuperPNG</b></a> for your downloading pleasure. The big new feature is the <b>Quantize</b> checkbox, which will convert your 32-bit RGBA image into an 8-bit indexed color image <i>with transparency.</i> And I'm not talking about <a href="http://pngquant.org/vsphotoshop.html" target="_blank">GIF-style</a> 1-bit transparency here, but full 8-bit transparency values in the PNG color palette.<br />
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That 75% reduction in bits can really crush PNGs even more than was previously possible. Lower the quality slider to use fewer colors, which means even fewer bits and an even smaller file. This feature is powered by Kornel Lesiński's <a href="http://pngquant.org/">pngquant</a> library, and Kornel has agreed to join me as SuperPNG's co-author.<br />
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Another new feature in this version is the <b>Clean Transparent</b> checkbox. It turns out that your transparent pixels may have unseen colors in them that are making PNGs harder to compress, but this feature will wipe them out for you. See the manual for more details.<br />
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SuperPNG has always been free, but now it's open source as well. Check out the <a href="http://github.com/fnordware/SuperPNG">GitHub repository</a> and see exactly what we're doing.<br />
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Enjoy!Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-44891093230263027092014-06-18T15:40:00.000-07:002014-06-27T02:51:22.254-07:00ProEXR 1.9Today Adobe released a <a href="http://provideocoalition.com/ryoung/story/creative-cloud-2014-release" target="_blank">major update</a> to After Effects and the rest of the Creative Cloud suite. This new AE ships with version 1.9 of the <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/" target="_blank">ProEXR</a> plug-ins, which have been available here in beta form. Well, if the plug-ins are good enough for Adobe to ship them, I guess they're good enough for me. Consider version 1.9 released.<br />
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The biggest change in 1.9 is that the After Effects plug-in now handles <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2012/06/datawindow-and-displaywindow-in-openexr.html" target="">displayWindow</a> natively. Most users will not be affected by this, but the <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2013/12/proexr-19-beta.html">beta notice</a> has more information for those interested.<br />
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The other subtle change is that all the ProEXR plug-ins are now built using <a href="https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/openexr-2-0-goes-deep/">OpenEXR 2.1</a>, which supports multi-part files and deep image buffers. ProEXR can now read files that use these features, although the files you write will still be single-part flat images that are compatible with EXR readers that haven't yet upgraded.<br />
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Even if you're using an older version of After Effects, you can still download the latest ProEXR plug-ins and install them with your copy. Likewise, the Photoshop and Premiere plug-ins will work just fine in older versions of those programs.<br />
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As usual, this update is free and recommended for all ProEXR users. Enjoy!Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-85908983798372956192013-12-17T16:27:00.000-08:002014-06-18T15:05:44.916-07:00ProEXR 1.9 betaThere have been some <a href="http://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/openexr-2-0-goes-deep/">significant changes</a> in the world of <a href="http://www.openexr.com/">OpenEXR</a> this year, so it's time to incorporate some of them into <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/">ProEXR</a>. The changes are big enough that I felt it best to release 1.9 in beta form and leave ample time for testing and feedback. Download links and more details after the jump.<br />
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The changes in this version are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Uses the latest OpenEXR 2.1 libraries</li>
<li>displayWindow is better handled in After Effects</li>
<li>New layer pulldown in EXtractoR</li>
</ul>
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The two major new features introduced in OpenEXR 2.0 are multi-part files and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_image_compositing">deep image buffers</a>. Multi-part images should <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-read-openexr-file-quickly.html" target="_blank">speed up</a> the reading of just one layer in a file written in this fashion, as if that part were a separate file. <a href="http://www.deepimg.com/">Deep data</a> is a totally different way of compositing which is not supported by After Effects or Photoshop, but ProEXR will flatten a deep image and read it in. Some samples of the new format can be found <a href="http://github.com/openexr/openexr-images/tree/master/v2" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Note that while ProEXR 1.9 can read files created with the new features in OpenEXR 2, the files it writes do not use the features, and are therefore backward compatible with programs that have not yet upgraded to the newest EXR library.<br />
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As discussed in <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2012/06/datawindow-and-displaywindow-in-openexr.html" target="_blank">this blog post</a>, some EXR files use something called the displayWindow, and ProEXR AE has had a way to deal with it in After Effects. Unfortunately, this method is somewhat cumbersome, especially if you have a sequence with a changing dataWindow, as you often do with sequences rendered from Nuke.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHOC49-HZ8fSCKGggyTy3FoAzL6tzhNA325J7LxYYhIbbja8AfJycHnWrU2W4UkB-w89KTkkrcoPfNjsqmFfU8j7F8wOh9LnR8g6_E1W4fSivpreIzGPYsMxJgZIix-PkEb5FpSuU9olw/s1600/displayWindow.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHOC49-HZ8fSCKGggyTy3FoAzL6tzhNA325J7LxYYhIbbja8AfJycHnWrU2W4UkB-w89KTkkrcoPfNjsqmFfU8j7F8wOh9LnR8g6_E1W4fSivpreIzGPYsMxJgZIix-PkEb5FpSuU9olw/s200/displayWindow.png" height="183" width="200" /></a>The After Effects file importer in ProEXR 1.9 can now properly position the image with respect to the displayWindow without any workarounds, and now does this by default. If you want to use the raw dataWindow as previous versions did, you have to enable the feature by editing AE's preference file, setting the "Enable displayWindow dialog" preference to 1. Once that has been done, hold down the Shift key when importing a file and a dialog will appear, letting you choose between displayWindow and dataWindow.<br />
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By the way, the EXR plug-ins that ship with After Effects have always been open source, but now they also have a <a href="http://github.com/fnordware/openexrAE" target="_blank">good home</a> up on GitHub.<br />
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So replace the plug-ins that ship with AE and whatever ProEXR you've installed in Photoshop, and take the new version for a whirl. Enjoy!<br />
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<br />Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-22979364453838264652013-12-16T13:19:00.000-08:002015-04-14T12:44:45.893-07:00WebM and Theora plug-ins for Premiere (beta)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.webmproject.org/media/images/webm-558x156.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.webmproject.org/media/images/webm-558x156.png" height="55" width="200" /></a></div>
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When people think about <a href="http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Elements/video#Formats_and_Codecs">video in HTML5</a>, they usually think <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC">H.264</a>. But many browsers also support <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Theora</a> (.ogv) and <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>, two video formats that have the advantage of being truly open, with no <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA">patent licensing fees</a> <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/04/know-your-rights-h-264-patent-licensing-and-you/">required</a> for the privilege of using them.<br />
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Theora and WebM actually share a common heritage in the VPX codecs created by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On2_Technologies">On2 Technologies</a>. On2 gave their VP3 codec to the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph.Org Foundation</a> in 2001, while Google got VP8 when it acquired On2 in 2010. Now both codecs, once proprietary, are open source and freely available, attempting to unseat H.264 as the preferred web video format.</div>
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The only problem is that my favorite video editor, <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere.html">Adobe Premiere Pro</a>, has no way of reading or writing these formats…until now. I've taken the open source encoders and built Premiere plug-ins around them (they also work in Adobe Media Encoder). The plug-ins themselves are open source as well, currently in a beta release. Find download links in the ReadMe on their respective GitHub pages:</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://github.com/fnordware/AdobeWebM">WebM</a> | <a href="http://github.com/fnordware/AdobeOgg">Theora</a></span></div>
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The Theora repository also has a plug-in for using <a href="http://www.vorbis.com/">Ogg/Vorbis</a>, <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus</a>, and <a href="http://xiph.org/flac/">FLAC</a> audio files in Premiere. Vorbis is a similarly free alternative to MP3 (Both Theora and WebM use it for audio compression), Opus is a new high-quality codec, and FLAC is the Free Lossless Audio Codec.</div>
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WebM is actively being developed by Google. There is talk of supporting <a href="http://wiki.webmproject.org/alpha-channel">alpha channels</a> and lossless compression in the future. If they follow through, WebM could become a reasonable movie format for use in production.</div>
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Please download, experiment, and send feedback. And enjoy!<br />
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<b>Update:</b> the WebM plug-in is now <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2015/04/webm-for-premiere.html" target="_blank">released!</a></div>
Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com53tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-70452179235906701042013-12-16T12:34:00.000-08:002020-01-28T13:19:15.049-08:00WebP plug-in for Photoshop (beta)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/images/webplogo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/images/webplogo.png" /></a></div>
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A side project of the Google's <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a> open source video format is <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/">WebP</a>, a still image format based on the VP8 codec. WebP supports both lossless and lossy compression and claims to do each better than PNG (lossless) and JPEG (lossy). WebP also supports an alpha channel.<br />
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I was naturally curious about this new format, so I've made a Photoshop plug-in to use it. Like WebP itself, the plug-in is open source and currently in beta release. Download links can be found by visiting my <a href="http://github.com/fnordware/AdobeWebM">WebM project on GitHub</a>.<br />
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There is an entirely seperate open source WebP plug-in available from <a href="http://telegraphics.com.au/sw/product/WebPFormat">Telegraphics</a> if you want to try that too.<br />
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<b>Update:</b> In 2019 Google posted their own <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/docs/webpshop" target="_blank">Photoshop plug-in</a>, which includes a preview. Download it from the <a href="https://github.com/webmproject/WebPShop/releases" target="_blank">GitHub page</a>.Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-25699275372274182832013-04-04T14:08:00.001-07:002013-12-17T16:33:43.409-08:00ProEXR 1.8Eagle-eyed Adobe watchers who have read through the list of features in <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2013/04/whats-new-changed-after-effects-next.html">the next version of After Effects</a> have seen that it will include version 1.8 of the <a href="http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/">ProEXR</a> plug-ins. Yes, such a thing does exist, and I'm releasing it today. The next AE may not ship for a little while, but you can grab these plug-ins now and use them in whichever version you've got, all the way back to CS3.<br />
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This is a modest release, befitting a 0.1 version upgrade. The flashiest new feature is found in After Effects, something called <b>channel caching.</b> The quick explanation is that an EXR with many channels will read much faster if you turn it on (go to the Interpret Footage dialog and click the More Options button). More details in <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-read-openexr-file-quickly.html">this blog post</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyeyU9mWE4UuXZKFK4mJajeJggCJ5n2Gd7l1XaAVVHemsrZGL99Jg3nbV_VJuxPvIxVYDQR9fA4C7rk_EWMOx6-c6vlBC9FT-BGWis1nTXSzNXtyZr2qB7nF9-wceJ_T1v_xAC_6ofWWA/s1600/OpenEXR_input_options.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyeyU9mWE4UuXZKFK4mJajeJggCJ5n2Gd7l1XaAVVHemsrZGL99Jg3nbV_VJuxPvIxVYDQR9fA4C7rk_EWMOx6-c6vlBC9FT-BGWis1nTXSzNXtyZr2qB7nF9-wceJ_T1v_xAC_6ofWWA/s200/OpenEXR_input_options.png" width="200" /></a></div>
Version 1.8 also contains a year's worth of minor bug fixes, optimizations, and other improvements to all the plug-ins in ProEXR. And yet they are completely compatible with the previous versions, so fear not.<br />
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The update is free, as always. I recommend you upgrade ASAP.<br />
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Enjoy!Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064694491023513043.post-43435295140086135652013-04-04T14:01:00.000-07:002014-05-02T19:00:39.888-07:00How to read an OpenEXR file quicklyOver the past few years I've spent quite a bit of effort figuring out how to read <a href="http://www.openexr.com/">OpenEXR</a> files quickly, particularly files containing many channels. The short answer is that for maximum speed, all the channels in an EXR should be loaded using a single read operation. ProEXR for Photoshop has been doing this for a while; now with the <a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2013/04/proexr-18.html">channel cache</a>, After Effects can do it too.<br />
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Continue reading for more than any sane person would ever want to know about the channel cache in AE.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><div>
OpenEXR files can hold any number of channels. A "standard" EXR file just contains the channels "R", "G", "B", and maybe "A". These are the channels that are read by AE when you drop an EXR into a comp. If there are more channels, you access them using the EXtractoR and IDentifier plug-ins.</div>
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You might think that loading the standard four RGBA channels would take the same amount of time for a 4-channel file as it would for a 50-channel file. But this is <i>not</i> the case! Due to OpenEXR's file structure, sorting through all those extra channels actually takes up quite a bit of time. (Note to self: don't dump superfluous channels I'm not using into EXR files because they will slow things down.)</div>
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Or if you've already rendered a 50-channel file, you might think that reading only 4 channels from it would be much faster than reading all 50. But it's actually not that much faster. Apparently sorting through channels is a real bottleneck. (Tiled EXR images require even more sorting, and therefore slow things down even more compared to a regular scanline EXR.)</div>
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Nuke is well-positioned to take advantage of this situation. With its multi-channel architecture it gets all the channels it needs out of the EXR with one read. With AE, each EXtractoR instance launches a separate read.</div>
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Let's think about this. Many channels means that every 4-channel read is slower. Many channels also means you probably have a lot of EXtractoRs. (Slow reads) x (many reads) = very slow.</div>
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<a href="http://fnordware.blogspot.com/2013/04/proexr-18.html">Channel Cache</a> to the rescue. When this is activated, all the channels are read into a memory cache during the first read. Subsequent EXtractoR calls get their channels from the cache for a big speedup. The cost of doing this, of course, is RAM. For example, I have a 1920x1080 EXR with 47 channels and it takes up 198 MB of memory in the cache for each frame. But in these days of big RAM, that's a small price to pay for the 5x speedup it gives.</div>
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In the input options dialog you can also set the global "Cache Size", which is the number of EXRs that will be in the cache at a time. It defaults to 3. The fourth file cached would cause the cache accessed the longest time ago to get dumped. You probably want this number to be at least as big as the number of multi-channel files loaded on a given frame. Unfortunately this setting is stored with your computer, not with the project.</div>
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Cached files stay in memory until they haven't been accessed for 30 seconds (can be changed by editing the AE preferences file). You can disable all caching by setting the number of caches to 0. Caches are also purged when you run the AE purge commands under Edit > Purge.</div>
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And that's all I have to say about that.</div>
Brendanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15810877387574644692noreply@blogger.com6