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Video Toaster Flyer ReadMe 4.1B (Documenting Changes from 4.0 to present) (version 4 updated) **************************************************************************** PRINT ME! ATTENTION PRINT ME! **************************************************************************** This file is a compilation of changes that have since been incorporated into the Flyer software. Each change/feature has been listed under a general heading. NEW INTRODUCTION/INSTALLATION, SWITCHER/SEQUENCER AND APPENDICES DOCS These sections completely replace the old documentation. Please update your manuals. STARTUP REQUIREMENTS, TROUBLESHOOTING, LOW-MEMORY, AND TIPS: See the System 4.1 Notes starting on page 32 of the Sequencer/Switcher manual update. THE INSTALL SET There are 2 disks included with the Flyer 4.1 CD-ROM. They include software updates made during the CD duplication period. Do not attempt to update a Flyer system by just copying the CD. The files on the floppy are vital to proper operation. The best bet is to do a complete install. For the quickest installation, deselect all checkboxes on the screen that ask for the portions of the software you would like to install (basically, this tells the installer to ignore the "content" and install a basic set of software that will run the Toaster/Flyer only). You SHOULD copy any FX you plan to use in your sequences from the CD. (EXCEPTION: The effects Flip Chrome Edge and Fly Over Chrome Edge [in the Digital drawer] are very memory intensive. They do not work in a sequence every time and are removed by the installer. They exist on the CD-ROM for users who would like to use them in real time in Project/Switcher mode.) CHANGES TO THE BUTTON BAR Added Tools pop-up (this necessitated the change from "Duplicate" to "Clone", and "Select All" to merely "All"). The Tools pop-up contains all of the menu commands that we have been adding as keyboard shortcuts only such as Edit to Audio, Lock Crouton, etc. Two new options appear here as well, Setup (the Toaster Setup panel, or F10) and Options (a new options panel, or Alt-F10). A divider separates the built-in tools and programs from any custom added ones (up to 20 total) in both the Tools and Programs popups. INFO ABOUT THE PLAY BUTTON The Play button is essentially a hard-wired "Play from the first crouton" button. In most situations, this works correctly. However, if you have split-audio positioned *before* the video in the project storyboard, then the Play button will begin project playback at the video inpoint. The audio will simply start with the video. To avoid this, you can insert a Flyer still of video black to act as a "video source" during which the audio can begin. In fact, you may prefer to begin most projects with some amount of black or bars as a matter of practice. BETTER PLAYBACK CONTROL When a project is ready to play, a dialog appears, waiting for you to start the playback with a mouse click (or press the Return button). TOOLS POP-UP MENU: HARDWARE SETUP There's a new panel that can be displayed either from the Tools pop-up or by F10. It contains options relating to the hardware setup of your system: CONTROL MONITOR Selects a 2-monitor (RGB monitor and Program monitor) or 3-monitor hardware configuration. VIDEO INPUT TERMINATION Terminates (or loops thru) the video signal connected to the four Toaster inputs. Unless the input has a T connector that splits the video signal connected to a Toaster input (a loop-thru sitation), termination should be on. GPI REMOTE TRIGGER This selects the GPI trigger setting for the GPI trigger (via mouse port 2). FLYER OUT This is a confusing setting at first glance. It selects whether inputs 3 and 4 are "passing video" from the external connection on the Toaster card or from the Flyer. This feature is designed for the VT4000 hardware only and should *not* be used on the Amiga 2000 or 3000 (the external video connection will not pass legal video on the older card). When these are on, video on inputs 3 and 4 comes from the Flyer. When they are off, video on inputs 3 and 4 comes from the external connections on the back of the Toaster card. (However, if you play a Flyer clip at any time when these inputs are on, they will auto-switch back to "on" in order to play the Flyer video, but they will *not* switch back. Flyer playback always takes precedence over external input.) ENABLE HIGH QUALITY 5 MODE*********************************************** A new recording mode, High Quality 5, has been added for greater recording fidelity. This mode is not supported by all hard drives, however, since it requires a higher *sustained* data rate than many drives can maintain. To enable the High Quality 5 recording mode, make sure this checkbox is activated. Once this option is active, you will have the High Quality 5 option available to you in the Quality pop-up on the Record New Clip panel. The state of this button is remembered from session to session, so you do not need to turn it on repeatedly. After activating HQ5 here, you may select the High Quality 5 setting from the record panel. Note: Remember that you can sucessfully use HQ5 mode *only* if your drives support it! The FHDTools utility program can help you and your dealer assess a drive's compatibility with HQ5. Note: With HQ5 activated, LightWave will record better-quality clips as well. ************************************************************************** TOOLS POP-UP MENU: OPTIONS There's a new panel that can be displayed either from the Tools pop-up or by Alt+F10. It contains options relating to the sequencer software: EXPERIENCE LEVEL Novice or Super Genius. This allows you to turn on or off the warning messages that the software displays during a variety of operations. If you want to be aware of everything before you or the Flyer do it, use Novice. If you're comfortable with the software and do not wish to be slowed down by to many messages, use Super Genius. Note: You will always see warnings if you attempt to delete a file from hard drive or perform a destructive cut to a clip. STOP RECORDING ON DROPPED FRAME: A "dropped" frame count shows up on the record panel (above Length). If the "Stop on Dropped Frame" option is turned on in the Setup panel, the Flyer will stop recording when it drops a frame (and notify you of this). At that moment, the dropped frame readout will reset itself. However, if this option is not turned on, the Flyer will continue recording even if it drops a frame. If so, the number of dropped frames will appear here so that you will be aware of it. (This is useful for situations where you do not want recording interrupted, even by missed frames, such as when recording a live event.) What causes dropped frames? Several possible causes include: 1) Video that is too complex for the drive at the current quality level 2) The drive reaches a portion of its platters with slower access so that it cannot keep up 3) The drive performs a T-cal that makes it "play dead" for a length of time that is longer than the Flyer buffering can cover. In such cases, the software has to drop fields in order to keep recording. If a lot of drops continue to occur, it's likely the drive is just too slow for the compression quality selected and/or for the complexity of the incoming video. STOP SEQUENCE ON TIMING ERROR This selects whether to stop playing a sequence or continue playing if a Flyer clip "misses" or drops frames. PREFER FINE TUNE PANELS If you prefer to open control panels in their Fine Tune (expanded versions) all the time, turn this on. Otherwise, panels will open in their short form (unless you have opened it and expanded it previously). THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN: New arexx scripts written by Michael Holten (a.k.a. Aussie) are included in this release. The OZ routines add 13 timesaving tools to your edit suite. Documentation is included on disk. The files are installed to your Toaster:Arexx/Editor/OZ path. The RXTools directory tab is a shortcut to all the editor arexx scripts. CD'S AND THE FLYER: When mounting CD-ROM drives to be used with the Flyer SCSI Controller do not place the CD6: driver in the Devs:Dosdrivers directory. Instead, place the driver in the Sys:WBStartup directory. This will keep the unwanted Fly:Fly icons from cluttering your Workbench screen. If you remove the CD-ROM drive from your system, remove the driver from the WBStartup drawer. Failure to do so can result in the Flyer SCSI system locking up. (Very easy to do when using Flyer HDTools.) TOASTERPAINT TEXT COLOR Text brushes are *always* made using the color white, no matter what color you have selected when you generate the brush. To change the color of a text brush: 1) Stamp the default "white" brush down on the screen where you want it. 2) Press the right mouse button to bring back the control panel. 3) Press the Tools button to go to the Tools control panel. 4) Change the Draw Mode pop-up from Normal to Colorize mode. 5) Choose a new color from the color wells on top of the control panel. 6) Press the Redo key. The white text you stamped down will be redrawn with the new color you just selected. Note: You must choose the Colorize mode in step 4. Just choosing a new color and then clicking Redo will not work. TOASTERPAINT CLIP SAVING The button "Save Clip" in the Save section of the Disk panel was misleading so it has been renamed to "Clip Name". This button is used to choose the name and location where any clips you that create in ToasterPaint should be saved. Activating it does not save any data to your drives (the manual is wrong on this point). There are four ways to save fields to the clip that you name with the Clip Name button. Step 1, of course, is to select Clip Name and provide a clip name and drive location. Then... Note: A Flyer Still is made up of four fields. Repeated operation of the following options will append fields to current clip. 1) Press the lower case (i) key to save a single field. This will write the current ToasterPaint screen to the clip named with Save:Clip Name button. Remember, to make a proper Flyer Still you need to press (i) four times. 2) In the Process control panel change the Process Screen pop-up menu to "Write 2." When you then click the Process button, this will write 2 fields to the current Flyer clip. 3) In the Process control panel change the Process Screen pop-up menu to "Write 4." When you then click the Process button, this will write 4 fields to the current Flyer clip. 4) In the Process control panel change the Process Screen pop-up menu to "Write 8." When you then click the Process button, this will write 8 fields to the current Flyer clip. To make the current Toaster Paint screen the icon for the clip named with the Clip Name button press Shift (I). TOASTERPAINT SCREEN REDRAW Toaster Paint's HAM display can be corrupted by the user or unexpected events. The 24 bit data is intact and the HAM screen can be redrawn by pressing shift plus the right bracket key (}). IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT USING FLYER CLIPS IN TOASTERPAINT OR LIGHTWAVE Due to the design of the Flyer software, you must always use a drive's *volume name* when loading or saving a clip. Do NOT use device names! Device names cause confusion within the software. Device names (such as FA0:, FA1:, FB0, etc.) should not be used. Instead, when you navigate to a file's location, choose the drive by its volume name (FlyerA0:, FlyerA1:, Flyerb0:, etc.) instead of its device name. This applies to ToasterPaint (for example, when you select a clip for processing) and LightWave (when you load a clip for rotoscoping, or when you select a drive that will hold a rendered animation). Many of the ARexx scripts have been rewritten to accommodate this requirement. If you create any of your own, make sure that you consult the ones that ship with the Flyer software. You will find examples there. RECORD PANEL (NEW CLIP) CHANGES The NEW CLIP button has been changed to read RECORD... Audio Meters: A2000 audio meter colors are black and grey. White is used for peaks. A4000 audio meter colors are green and yellow. Red is used for peaks. Meters also have a slight peak delay indicator. When recording video footage with audio that you will *not* use, set the audio gain sliders to 0 (to the far left). This turns audio off on the clip(s) you record. The Flyer can cut raw footage into separate clips faster when there is no audio track. Note that this does not save "smaller" clips, in terms of their file size -- the audio data remains a part of the clip with a 0 level of gain. Reorganize Drive: ReOrganize (from this panel) is now abortable. You will usually get at least some benefit from the time spent up to that point. This is MUCH MUCH safer than shutting the power off (as some have done in the past). Project/Switcher view Recording: Press the tilde (~) key to enter the Record Panel from the Project Switcher view. You'll see a short version of the record panel. This allows you to start a recording, then select different input sources from the Switcher busses while still recording! You can use the Auto button to dissolve between sources, or just cut among them. Note that the Length indicator will stop updating itself when you click on the Switcher portion of the screen, but the recording process has *not* stopped! Click again on a blank part of the record panel and you'll see the readout update again. Note: You can pre-select a CG key page from the Project/Switcher view, open the record panel, begin recording, and then trigger the key page to appear (by dissolve or take). This allows you to record CG keys while you record clips, which can be handy for flying the entire video image (with key) around the screen in a project. Note: Do ***NOT*** press Stabilize or Save on the Switcher screen while the Record panel is up. (These options will be ghosted out in future revisions of the software.) PREVIEWING AN EFFECT (WITHOUT WATCHING THE ENTIRE PRECEDING CLIP) If you want to see how well an effect works between clips, but you don't want to watch the entire first clip play just to get to the transition, do this: Drop the effect between the two clips. Set its speed. Now, with the effect still selected, click on Play-From. The Flyer will start playback about 3 seconds before the transition (during the last 3 seconds of the first clip), run the effect, then proceed into the next clip. SPECIAL EFFECTS AND TRANSITIONS Returned Special Effects (from previous releases) Positionables have been split up and placed in the Digital and Wipe drawers. Art Card is now in the Control drawer. And the following effects have been fixed: Wipe Cross Out Wipe Fly In 2 Wipe In Center Wipe In Corner TL-BR Wipe In Corner TR-BL Wipe L-R Wipe Out Center Wipe R-L Wipe T-B Wipe 3 Slots In WIPE 5 SLITS L-R Wipe B-T Wipe Blinds To Center Dip to Matte Positionable Shrink Positionable Expand Positionable Wipe In Positionable Wipe Out Special Effects Not Available At this time, these older special effects do *not* work in 4.1. They may not be salvageable. The install program will seek these effects out and remove them from your system since there is no point in taking up otherwise useful drive space. Instant SMPTE Bars Dissolve Luma Key Fade Luma Key Fade 2 Luma Key Dip to Matte Squeeze Trails H Squeeze Trails V Take Trails Fade Trails Flipping Trails Flying Trails Squeeze Center Trails Infinite White Trails Infinite Black Trails Noisy Transporter Fade Trails Expand Note: Do not attempt to copy the "working versions" of these effects from an older release of Toaster software. They won't work. OVERLAY EFFECTS These now bring up the correct control panel. Also, they work in sequencing. There are two kinds of overlays. Static overlays and looping overlays. Neither type is a transition. Each is simply a graphic that is overlaid atop a video source. Overlays may be keyed over *any* type of video source as long as they begin and end during the master source's duration. For overlays that span several video events, you can use Flyer clips/stills only, and each video event must cut to the next (no transitions are allowed while the key is up). LOOPING OVERLAY EFFECTS Looping overlays key a one-time-only image or animation over another video source. They run once, and only once. Since this kind of effect is timed relative to the source over which it is keyed, it can be locked to the previous clip or its in point only (not to program time). The control panel for looping effects has been expanded. It now contains three additional gadgets: a "Lock" checkbox (to lock the crouton in relation to its current program time location), a "Time" time code readout (which displays the locked program time value) and, if the effect utilizes a matte color, a color pop-up. Note: When running, these effects can be aborted by right-clicking. STATIC OVERLAY EFFECTS Looping overlays key an animation over another video source. This animation can be made to repeat itself, whether there is apparent motion in it or not; hence the term looping overlay. The control panel for overlay effects has been expanded. For looping overlays that can repeat, their Loop Time is shown (the time it takes for one iteration to complete). A Length gadget specifies the exact time that the overlay will be visible. There is also a "Lock" checkbox (to lock the crouton in relation to its current program time location), a "Time" time code readout (which displays the locked program time value) and, if the effect utilizes a matte color, a color pop-up gadget. Note: When running one of these effects, abort it by right-clicking. CUT CLIP and PROCESS CLIP PANEL CHANGES CUT CLIPS PANEL: ALERT STATUS CHANGES When you begin cutting from the cutting room, the Flyer now warns that this "Will destroy the original clip" if you're cutting an existing clip. (This message means that, in the process of making the clip(s) you've marked, the Flyer will remove the original "raw" clip.) Otherwise, if entering here from the record panel after acquiring footage for the first time, it will read "Are you sure you want to...". If User Mode = Super Genius, it will now skip the "Are you sure" message (but the original warning for existing clips will remain). AUDIO AND VIDEO SWITCHES If you turn audio OFF (down to 0) when recording at the Record Raw Footage panel, the Cut Raw Clip panel no longer allows you to choose "audio" or "video plus audio" options, since these options require raw footage that has audio recorded with it. CREATING NEW CLIPS When you first arrive at the Cut Raw Clips panel, In and Out points on the clip bar (in yellow on the A4000, white on the A2000/3000) define the entire raw clip. You can shorten this to any length by dragging either the in or the out pointers. After doing so, define a "new" clip by clicking in the available cross-hatched area that appeared behind the yellow bar. When you do this, the entire open area is automatically selected. To specify the in-point and take the rest to the right (the way it used to work), click while holding left Alt. To specify the out-point and take the rest to the left, hold right Alt. PROCESS CLIP PANELS: DESTINATION DIRECTORY A Destination drive popup has been added to the Process panel. It allows you to save "processed out" pieces either to same place as original clip (old way), or into the root of any other Flyer drive. PROCESS CLIP/CUT CLIP PANELS: NOTIFY MESSAGE Requester now reads "Processing clips on drive xxx" if this panel was spawned by the Process panel (instead, reads as "Cutting clips..." from the Cutting panel). PROCESS/CUT CLIPS, IN PROJECT OR IN FILES VIEW Now you can cut/process a clip without dragging it into a project. Just highlight the clip from a Files window, then select Process Clip or Cut Clip option from Tools pop-up. FILE NAME OPERATION The file name field box can be used to generate new, unique names with each clip. You can enter a specific naming convention and allow the panel to increment each number automatically. Here's how it works: The default naming system is NewClip.01, then NewClip.02, then NewClip.03, etc. If you enter Afternoon.01, the Flyer will name the next clips you define as Afternoon.02, Afternoon.03, etc.. You may use any number of digits. The Flyer will attempt to increment using your numbering scheme. If you wish to change the base name in the middle of a recording/cutting session, you can. For example, Afternoon.06 will be followed by Afternoon.07, but if you instead enter Evening.01, the next clip will be Evening.02, and so forth. If you enter a name (with no numeric extension) such as "Morning," the Flyer will use the name and add .01 to the next clip, .02 to the next, and so on. The file name field box in the processing/cutting panels now auto-activates when you first enter the panel. Each time a new default name is made for you. Also, you can now make names up to 28 characters in length. AUDIO ONLY AND ICON SLIDER Cut Clip/Process Clip panels no longer have an icon slider if the source clip is just audio. PANEL NAMES Cut clip/process clip panels now include in their title the name of the original clip being worked on (or "Raw clip" if coming from record panel). NEW BUTTONS 1) A new button to remove the currently selected clip has been added. It's labeled "Remove." The keyboard shortcut, x, to remove the currently defined clip, is still valid. 2) New buttons Next and Previous for selecting among the defined clips in the main yellow bar. On the keyboard, use n for next, and p for previous. NEW KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS WHEN MARKING CLIPS. x.....remove clip n.....jump to next defined clip (also the plus key on the numeric keypad) p.....jump to previous defined clip (also the minus key on the numeric keypad) s.....make Flyer still (the out-point jumps beside the in-point of current clip) KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS FROM FILES OR PROJECT AREAS ADDED Cut Clip To cut a clip into smaller clips (and delete the original)............Alt+c Process Clip To copy smaller clips from a larger one (not delete the original).....Alt+p ALL VIEWS SAVING A PROJECT (DEFAULT DIRECTORY) The Save button defaults to the original Projects directory (as created within the main drawer where the Toaster software has been installed) when you first select it. Of course, you can user the files navigator to save the project elsewhere if you wish. SAVING A PROJECT (ERROR MESSAGE) If you go to save a project and an error occurs, the Flyer cannot explain why the project failed to save. However, it can at least inform you that an error occurred. In such cases, try saving the project to another drive. Then go back and check the original drive to see if it's full (the most likely cause of a save project error). Reorganized "Views" popup & added divider line. Reorganized "Tools" popup alphabetically. PROJECT RELATED CHANGES (INCLUDING PROJECT, PROJECT/FILES, AND PROJECT/PROJECT VIEWS) PROJECT VIEW: INHERITANCE Holding Alt while dropping a crouton onto another allows the new crouton to "inherit" the old one's timing and duration settings, so you can replace one shot in a carefully-timed sequence without affecting any other timing. (You may still need to shift the in and out points of the replacement crouton to select the best portion of the clip to use. If you hold the Shift key while dragging either the in point or the out point, you will be able to move the entire segment without altering its length. You'll see either edit point, depending which you choose to drag with.) Note: See the Inheritance Exceptions (below) for help if you run into unexpected results when using inheritance. If you are using the Novice mode, the Flyer will request that you confirm this action before committing to it. (You can avoid this message by holding the Ctrl key along with the Alt key when you drag and drop the replacement crouton. Or go to the Sequencer Options panel and select the Super Genius mode.) In Super Genius mode, no such message will appear. The Flyer will warn you if it encounters a problem doing this (i.e. the new clip is too short to honor the in/out points, etc.). INHERITANCE TIPS: When you replace-and-inherit "same-type" croutons, the replacement crouton will inherit *all* of the settings of the original crouton. When you replace-and-inherit "related" croutons, the replacement crouton will inherit only the Length value from the original crouton. Video Clips, Flyer Stills, Framestores, and Audio clips are related croutons with regard to Length. No other settings will "carry over" to the new crouton. If you replace-and-inherit "dissimilar" croutons, the Flyer will simply perform a replacement, as if you had just dropped the new crouton on top of the old one. None of the original crouton's attributes will be applied to the replacement crouton. INHERITANCE EXCEPTIONS: In some cases, you may try to replace-and-inherit same-type croutons that cannot truly inherit. For example, some effects run at only one speed. You may replace-and-inherit a single-speed effect on top of a multi-speed effect, however in reality only a replacement will occur. No inheritance should take place, however, you can create an invalid effect by replacing an effect with no Variable speed option with an effect that has a Variable speed option. The result of this, when inherited, will be an effect that can cause stuttering, a failure to play, or other sequencing mishaps. Use caution and be aware of the possible errors when you inherit. PROJECT VIEW AND CONTROL PANEL "PREVIEW" FEATURE When you set the edit points of a clip, if there is a preceding clip in the porject you will see the preceding clip's out point on your preview monitor (as a reference). PROJECT VIEW: "QUICK ADJUST" FEATURE Control panels for both video clips and audio clips have both Quick Tune and Fine Tune versions. We've added Quick Adjust for those times when you want to adjust an in or out point quickly *without* entering a control panel. This is an advanced feature (there is no cancel), and it required a change in hotkeys that you may have recently learned! Please try it out carefully before experimenting on an existing (and important) project. In any view where the project is visible and its croutons may be edited (Project/Switcher, Project/Files, or Project) select a crouton, hold down the Ctrl key. As long as you hold the Ctrl key, the in and out points for the clip appear at the top of the screen (just above the Project window). Drag with the left mouse button to adjust the in point (you'll see the video on the main output). Drag with the right mouse button to adjust the out point. You'll also see the edit point highlight when you drag, showing you which edit mark is being changed. Therefore, the Ctrl key activates the Quick Adjust mode. The Spacebar toggles between editing the video in/out points and the audio in/out points (as long as audio exists, and is active for the clip). For fine tuning, while holding Ctrl, you can tap the left/right arrow keys on the keyboard to adjust the last-edited point one frame in the direction you press. If you hold the left Shift key while holding Ctrl, you will drag both the in point and the out point together. This allows you to change which portion of the clip is used, but not the length of the clip. If you hold the left Alt key while holding Ctrl, you will snap the audio point to the video point (for the mouse button that you dragÑleft for the in point, right for the out point) as soon as you begin dragging with the mouse. If you hold the left Shift and the left Alt keys while holding Ctrl, you will snap both audio points to both video points and move all in and out points together when you drag. This allows you to realign the audio to the video and change which portion of the clip is used, but not the length of the clip. You can also turn on Quick Adjust from the new Tools popup. It automatically exits after one jog operation, or when you tap Ctrl. ***** SO HERE'S HOW YOU QUICK ADJUST A CLIP ************ To Quick Adjust a video clip (either the video portion or the audio portion): Hold the Ctrl key to enter video edit mode. Drag the mouse (left button to adjust in point, right button to adjust out point). You will see the video of the edit point as you adjust it. To edit the audio in and out points, press the Spacebar. Press it again to go back to editing video. To shift both the in and out points together, hold the Shift key along with the Ctrl key. This lets you preserve the length of the segment while shifting the portion of the original full-length clip that is being used. To re-align the audio and video in point, or the audio and video out point, press Ctrl+Alt and then click either the left or right mouse button (left for in point, right for out point). You can also drag at this time for the pair of edit points to move together. To re-synchronize the audio edit points with the video edit points *and* shift both the in and out points together, hold Ctrl+Shift+Alt. Now you can drag with the mouse to snap audio and video, and preserve the length of the segment while changing which portion of it you use. NOTE: By default, when you select a video clip and press Ctrl to enter Quick Adjust mode, the video is always pre-selected for editing. Tap the Spacebar to toggle to and from audio editing. If you *always* edit clips where the audio and video remain locked together, get in the habit of holding the Ctrl key and the Alt key when quick adjusting. Otherwise, you can inadvertantly create a split edit. NOTE: When using Ctrl+Shift or Ctrl+Shift+Alt, you can drag with either mouse button. If you drag with the left button, you will view the changing in point of the video segment. If you drag with the right button, you will view the changing out point of the video segment. TO QUICK ADJUST AN AUDIO CLIP: Hold the Ctrl key to enter quick adjust mode. (There is no need to tap the Spacebar to go to audio edit mode, since this is an audio-only clip.) Drag the mouse (left button to adjust in point, right button to adjust out point). You will hear the audio of the edit point as you adjust it. NOTE: By default, when you select an audio clip and press Ctrl to enter Quick Adjust mode, the audio is always pre-selected for editing (since there is no video portion to an audio clip). GENERAL NOTES ABOUT QUICK ADJUST: There is no OK or Cancel option for Quick Adjust. Once you change the clip, you've changed it. This is an advanced feature and there is no way to implement an "escape" option. Save your project often, as you can always reload it to get back to the last-saved version. Quick Adjust functions on one crouton only. If several are selected when you engage the Quick Adjust mode, only the first clip can actually be edited. We chose the Ctrl key since its name, Control, is a mnemonic for the Controls button that you select to open a control panel anyway. Ctrl+Shift was chosen because you are *shifting* the entire segment in time, in effect sliding in forward or backaward within the entire clip length. The Alt key was added since audio and Alt begin with the letter a (and it's about as good as we could get!). Quick Adjust supports the left right arrow keys. Press either arrow key to move one frame in that direction. Hold the arrow key to move in that direction. The arrow keys affect the last point adjusted, whether this was an in point or an out point. It defaults to the video in point if no other was selected previously. PROJECT VIEW: Hold Alt and double-click on a crouton to bring up that crouton's control panel. (This does not work if Caps Lock is active). PROJECT VIEW: MESSAGE CHANGED Changed message from "Delete crouton(s) from project" to "Remove crouton(s) from project" to reflect that a crouton is only *removed* from a project (as opposed to *deleted* from the hard drive). PROJECT VIEW AND PROJECT/FILES VIEW When dropping crouton(s) on top of a crouton in the project, a warning will now appear that you are about to overwrite crouton named "xxxx". To avoid this warning, hold Ctrl when dropping it, as a way to say ("don't warn me, I'm intentionally overwriting"). There's no other way to prevent an accidental drop, or to add an undo here. PROJECT/FILES VIEW Overwrite & Inherit verification requesters now also say "Press OK to overwrite, CANCEL to insert" PROJECT/FILES VIEW: LOADING A PROJECT WITH MISSING CROUTONS Added panel for lost croutons that were part of a known project but have since been moved or renamed (shows comment, type, name, original location) See the FixProject script in the Sequencer/Switcher ARexx docs for info on how to auto-replace missing croutons. PROJECT/FILES VIEW: LOADING A PROJECT Continuing loading despite failure will cause Switcher to create "Lost croutons" for each crouton that cannot be loaded. Any tags saved in the project for the crouton are applied to the "lost" one, so that inheriting later will salvage as much info as possible. PROJECT/FILES VIEW: LOADING A PROJECT Current/Project times at the top of the editor now support "lost croutons" correctly, although since default tag values are not always saved in a project, these are not guaranteed 100% accurate if "lost" croutons are present. PROJECT/FILES VIEW: LOADING A PROJECT Sequencer now tries to play project even if lost croutons are present. Will fill the void with black. Gives a warning just before playing if lost croutons are indeed present (and makes excuses for why the project may not play perfectly). Note that lost FX may cause nearby "good" video sources to seem to misbehave -- hence the disclaimer . PROJECT VIEW AND PROJECT/FILES VIEW Added special "inherit" function for replacing lost croutons (copies ALL tags present to new crouton). NOTE: If "novice mode" is selected, doing an inherit (Alt-drop) will bring up a requester that says "Are you sure you want to overwrite & inherit info from FlyerB0:RatMeat." Selecting "OK" will do the overwrite/inherit. Selecting "Cancel" will not inherit AND NOT OVERWRITE; the crouton will instead be inserted after the crouton it was dropped onto. This is new. Previously, when you cancelled an inherit, the dropped clip simply replaced the original (without inheriting its settings either, which was bad). This new method is helpful if you were intending to overwrite/inherite (Alt was held down), but you accidentally dropped it on the wrong crouton. Cancel will now save your skin (crouton WILL be dropped, but inserted safely after the saved crouton -- just pick it back up again and you're off). Inherit works for same-type croutons only. Dropping an audio crouton onto a lost framestore will not work, for example. PROJECT VIEW AND PROJECT/FILES VIEW You can now avoid the "Are you sure...?" requester on an inherit by holding Ctrl (i.e. hold Ctrl+Alt to do an overwrite/inherit with no query). Of course, as before, verification on both overwrites & overwrites/inherits can be turned off by selecting "Super genius" mode. PROJECT/SWITCHER VIEW: RECORD PANEL CHANGE The Record panel in the Switcher view has been shortened. Since the Switcher buttons are still active when this panel is up so you can choose other sources (and even trigger pre-selected CG pages). See the earlier sections of this ReadMe for information on how to do it. PROJECT VIEW: TOGGLING AUDIO PLAYBACK In any project view, press Alt-a to toggle the audio playback for selected clips (or all clips, if none are selected). VIDEO INSERT EDITING Added automatic Video Insert function. This automatically matches the edit points of a duplicated clip when video clips inserted between them are used as video cutaways. This is akin to performing a Video Only Insert in a standard tape-based editing situations. A normal video insert is performed by recording a single video track onto tape, then going back and replacing one or more sections of the video *without* disturbing the continuous audio track from the original clip). With the Flyer, it's easier. To use... 1) Drag two copies of the first clip into the project. (Or duplicate this clip) 2) Set the out-point of first clip to the moment where the inserted video should begin. 3) Drop the video clips to be "inserted" between them. Adjust them to the length you want. (The inserted clips should last for a period of time that is less than the full unedited length of the first clip.) 4) Highlight the first and last clip in the segment (these would be the first clip and its duplicate) and press Alt-i. This makes an audio split edit where you will see and hear the first clip, then see one or more other clips while still hearing the first clip's audio, then return to the original clip (still with its audio). Of course, if you wish, you can choose to "use" or "not use" the audio from the cutaway clips along with the continuous audio from the first clip. KEY PAGES 1) Key pages now work in sequencing. However, remember that you cannot use keys with effects. They can only appear over video, i.e., live video, Flyer clips, Flyer stills. 2) New checkboxes for Fade In and Fade Out have been added to the control panel for key pages. TOASTERCG NOTES Rotating and Shearing PS Text Brushes The rotate and shear options in the PostScript Text Brush panel work in the following ways. Rotate Values from 0 to 360 degrees are valid. Text is rotated around its centerpoint, in a counterclockwise direction. (0 and 360 degrees are effectively "no rotation" values. Values above 360 are also treated as "no rotation." Negative numbers are not valid.) Shear Values from 0 to 90 are valid. Values above 60 tend to look more and more squashed as you approach 90 degrees. At 90 degrees, with its baseline locked and the text sheared far over, you create a plain line, so 90 is not really a useful number to use. Also, negative numbers are not valid. OVERLAYS OVER MULTIPLE CLIPS You can now run scrolls, crawls, keys, overlays, and non-transitional effects over multiple clips (as long as these croutons are Flyer clips or Flyer stills, and there are no effects in use while the overlays are on display. See the limitations note below. LIMITATIONS OF USING OVERLAYS ON MULTIPLE CLIPS: Framestores will *not* work. (You can convert them into Flyer stills using the BatchStill ARexx script for the Sequencer/Switcher.) Effects (such as Smooth Fade, or a Digital effect) will not work. BACKING UP A PROJECT Tape backup will work from any Flyer SCSI chain (A, B, or C). FILES/FILES VIEW CHANGES FILES VIEW: INFO PANEL CHANGES When you display the Info panel for a clip (by selecting a crouton and clicking on Controls), the file name field is auto-activated in case you wish to rename the file. Also, you can now make names up to 28 characters in length. Note: This means that you cannot simply press Return to close the panel, since the you must "exit" the file name field first. Simply press Return twice the first time to exit the file name field, the second time to exit the panel. As long as you have not changed the name of the file, the Flyer will not rename it (the system will not attempt to rename a file with the same name, since this is silly). FILES/FILES VIEW: COPY Copying files from Flyer drive to Flyer drive is now abortable! Any portion of the clip that has been copied up to this point will be removed from the destination drive. CONTROL PANEL CHANGES (INCLUDING VIDEO CLIPS, AUDIO CLIPS, ETC.) AUDIO CHANNEL CONTROL The mono and stereo channel control is not meant to be adjusted while audio is playing. You must stop the playback, change the channel setting, then play the clip again to hear the changes. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: SLIDER CONTROLS Anywhere you see an in/out slider control bar, you can use Shift plus the up and down arrow keys to jump the currently active slider (either the in or the out) to its minimum or maximum value on the bar. For example, the in slider defaults to being active when you open a video control panel. If you hold Shift and press the up arrow, the in slider will snap into position right beside the out slider. This is just another shortcut/navigation tool you can use when in a control panel. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: AUDIO "STUTTER" The occasional stutters that occur when you rapidly start/stop, or adjust balance and volume, is normal. The Editor will do a stuttery "jog in place" as it resamples the current four-field frame (in point or out point) if you adjust balance or volume while the clip is NOT playing. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: DELAY Left/Right arrows, when the left mouse button is released, now go silent after a short delay. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: HOTKEY ASSIGNMENTS 1) Help key now toggles between quick/fine tune displays. 2) Shift+mouse drag now keeps duration constant 3) Alt+mouse drag snaps A/V points together 4) Shift and Alt were changed to be made consistent with the Quick Adjust function (from any Project view). 5) Shift up/down in control panels jumps to max position. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: QUICK TUNE/FINE TUNE MOVED Quick/Fine tune buttons have been moved into upper right corner of panels. Now all the buttons along the bottom of any panel serve to exit the panel by one method or another. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: LENGTH INDICATOR MOVED The Duration readout has been moved between in/out slider time boxes. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: AUDIO LENGTH INDICATOR ADDED Audio duration also appears for audio dual-slider. This is handy for split-audio clips. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: PLAY/STOP BUTTONS Play/Stop buttons now appear on all video and audio panels. The play button remains lit as long as the clip is playing now. The ability to click on the icon of the clip in video panels has been removed. You can still click there, but it does nothing. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: NUMERIC VOLUME FIXED Numeric Volume value now updates as you drag. If the clip is playing, you will hear audio changes as you drag. If it is not playing, the last-edited point (in or out) will repeat itself as you drag. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS: AUDIO FEATURE ADDED The balance control now updates as you drag (while a clip is playing). You'll hear the volume rise or fall as you drag, or shift from left to right channels. You can also do it when they're not playing and the current audio in/out point will loop so you can hear the change. This works in audio and video panels. AUDIO CONTROL PANELS Audio looping automatically mutes after clicking the time code arrow buttons or entering time string. This is one better than 4.07 in that you DO hear the audio (one time), then silence. AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTROL PANELS (HOTKEYS AND FUNCTIONS) Several special functions have been added to audio and video control panels). If you've already read about the "Quick Adjust" feature, these will be familiar to you (they are the same functions implemented within audio and video control panels). To use them, hold down the appropriate key on the keyboard while dragging a slider with the mouse. 1) SHIFT MODE... If you want to change which portion of a recorded clip you are using without changing the duration that you are using, you can. This allows you to shift *both* the in and out sliders forward or backward in one step, while they remain the same distance apart. In Fine Tune mode, hold Shift and drag either video or audio slider. Both sliders (in and out) will move together. The duration for the clip remains constant, you are simply moving the entire duration forward or backward in time within the full length of the recorded clip. (You will see and hear the material associated with the slider you are moving. In other words, if you drag the left video slider with Shift, both sliders move but you view the in-point. If you drag the right audio slider, both slll move but you hear the out-point.) This also works when you hold Shift and drag on the jog/shuttle arrows for either the in-point or the out-point. 2) ALT MODE You can re-synchronize the video and audio sliders after you've separated them within a video clip control panel. This is useful in case you separated them accidentally, or intentionally, and you wish to re-align them. To do so, in Fine Tune mode hold Alt and click on either video-in slider. The corresponding audio slider will jmup into alignment with the video slider. Continue holding Alt and drag the video slider and the video and audio sliders will now move in unison. This also works when you hold Alt and drag on the jog/shuttle arrow for either the in-point or the out-point.. 3) SHIFT+ALT MODE... To maintain the length of the video portion of a clip *and* re-synchronize the audio sliders to the video, in Fine Tune mode hold both Shift and Alt and drag either video slider. Both audio sliders will jump into alignment with the video sliders, and all four sliders will move in unison (video-in, video-out, audio-in, audio-out). This allows you to change the content of the edited segment without changing its length. FILES VIEW CHANGES DRIVE INFO PANEL Added "Reorganize" button to drive info panel. This is a useful addition, since this panel also displays information about the drive's available space (both its current space and the amount available after a ReOrg). STARTUP CHANGES New custom Startup icons can be found in the Custom Startups drawer. These take you directly to the Toaster application you want to work in. Custom startups include: 1) STARTTOASTER_PROJ-FILES This startup script loads the Toaster and goes to the Project/Files view. You should probably use this script *all* of the time, since you will want to fire up the program and begin editing right away. You can leave this icon out on your Workbench by selecting it and choosing the Icons menu, "Leave Out" option. This will place the icon on your Workbench in an easily accessible location.. 2) STARTTOASTER_FILES-FILES This startup script loads the Toaster and goes to the Files/Files view. 3) LWSTART This startup script goes directly LightWave Layout. (The Toaster Switcher software is loaded, but not the Sequencer software. This saves a fair amount of chip RAM, leaving more for LightWave's use. You can still load and save Flyer clips, too.) If you exit LightWave and return to the Switcher, the only way to return to LightWave is to reload the Sequencer (press F8) so that you can select LightWave from the Views pop-up. SEQUENCING (PLAYBACK) CHANGES SEQUENCING AND AUDIO New option in video Fine Tune panel to make audio fade in/out with video automatically during transition effects. SEQUENCE PROCESSING CAN BE CANCELLED Sequence processing is now abortable! During the time that the Flyer is processing a sequence (just before it can play), the system displays a dialog that allows you to cancel processing. SEQUENCING AND TRANSITION EFFECT CONTROL PANELS Improved gadgets in FX fine tune panel: they now update properly as different FX speeds are selected. Added "Take Frame" control. Some effects like KikiBell actually require that there be enough overlapping video from the outgoing clip and the incoming clip to last the entire duration of the effect. Even though the actual moment of transition (from one clip to the next) occurs near the very end of the KikiBell effect, there has to be enough "excess footage" for *each* clip to last the *entire* length of the effect. Now the effect panel shows how much of each clip (outgoing and incoming) is needed, plus the actual moment for the switch from once source to another. SEQUENCING ERROR MESSAGE: "BAD A/V TEMP DATA FOUND" There are several things you need to know about this new error message: When drives have been added, removed, or changed around on a system, excess data that the Flyer requires for proper sequencing can be left "lying around" on your drives. The result is that projects that once played fine now have difficulties. You may get this error message when you attempt to play sequences created on versions of Flyer software prior to 4.07. Your clips are actually fine, and they will play back properly when you double-click on them, but the Flyer will not sequence them properly. (Since 4.07, the process of cleaning up these temp files is automatic and does not require notification or permission.) Read on for the solution. When the Flyer discovers such a condition, it will present this message and offer to clean up the bad data. Select OK to do so. There is no danger of losing data with this option. It can take from a few seconds to several minutes, depending on the number of drives you have and their size. If this message continues to occur even after a cleanup, the Flyer is unable to delete all of the bad temp files in one try. It is probably removing only one and leaving the others. (Each time you run it, it will delete the next, and the next, and so on.) You may continue to process the project and remove the temp files one at a time. Or, if you have additional drive and space available, you can back up the project to a backup device (or another drive), reformat the video drive(s) that the footage was on, then restore the project. Reformatting the drive returns it to a cleaner operational state. The Flyer is now much smarter about drive swapping, provided that you make such changes when the system is *not* up and running. Upon bootup, shutdown, and drive reorganization, the Flyer will perform an auto-cleanup. However, it is still possible that you can confuse the system by hooking up drives while powered up, or by warm rebooting the machine after doing so. The bottom line is, don't connect/disconnect, or power up/down drives while the Flyer is running. Turn off the system and swap drives while powered off. VIDEO PLAYING FROM AN AUDIO DRIVE...NOT! Flyer now refuses to play video clips from audio drive. (Note: You can still use an audio drive to *store* or move video clips. You can even double-click on a video clip that resides on an audio drive and it may play back if the drive can do so; but you cannot use that clip in sequencing. An error message will result. If you copy a clip to an audio drive [for whatever reason], then copy it back to a video drive, it will play just fine.) AUDIO CROUTONS LIBERATED Audio croutons may now be placed in a project and played from there *without* having to link the crouton to a video crouton (by placing the audio clip immediately after the video clip on the storyboard). In order to do so, after placing an audio crouton in the storyboard window, enter the control panel for the audio clip and change its Lock To setting to Program. This locks the crouton to the program time, and makes it independent, so you can begin any project with an audio clip. LOCKING CROUTONS IN PLACE Croutons may now be "locked" in place (in relation to program time) so that their current position in the project cannot be changed. The keyboard command for this is Alt+l. You'll also find the lock command on the Tools pop-up. For example, here's how the Flyer used to work in previous releases. Place four croutons in a row. Assume that each one lasts for one second, and that you timed them so that each one occurs at a key moment in relation to an audio track. Now suppose you change the first crouton to one-half second's length, all of the timing for the croutons that follow has also been shifted. They effectively shuffle forward one-half second. If the project has been edited to music, or narration, all succeeding croutons now occur too soon. Their timing has been messed up. Using the lock function, you can lock croutons to the program time. Changes made to croutons "in front of" any other croutons will not affect their occurrence in the project, which is now based their location in relation to program time at the moment they were locked. Audio and video crouton control panels now contain a "Lock" checkbox along with the "Time" time code readout. The lock checkbox indicates whether the crouton has been locked to the program time, while the time code readout displays the program time that it has been locked to. With the checkbox activated and a time value present, the crouton will play at that moment during playback. (Locked croutons also show a tiny padlock icon in the editor.) NEW ICON APPEARANCE IN PROJECT WINDOWS When a crouton has been locked to the program time, its icon (in the project window display) will show a tiny padlock in the upper left-hand corner. This serves as a visual indication that it has been locked. (Within its panel, you'll also find a "Lock" checkbox that indicates this.) From the keyboard, you can lock and unlock the selected crouton(s) by holding Alt and pressing l. This keyboard shortcut, Alt+l, toggles the lock on and off. Also, when a crouton has active audio (its audio will be heard during sequence playback) its icon will now show a tiny audio speaker in the upper right-hand corner. This serves as a visual indication that its audio is active. From the keyboard, you can activate and deactivate audio for the selected crouton(s) by holding Alt and pressing a. This keyboard shortcut, Alt+a, toggles audio on and off. This is particularly handy for turning off the audio playback of a large group of croutons in one operation. SINGLE DRIVE SYSTEMS Single drive systems will work for cuts-only editing (and LightWave recording and playback). (You will not be able to use effects or audio, but you will be able to create projects with cuts-only edits.) CLIP LENGTH (MINIMUM) Sequencer can now play clips as short as 2 frames (4 fields). NEW KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS F9.....open control panel for selected clip Delete.....delete currently highlighted crouton(s), with confirmation EDITING VIDEO TO AN AUDIO TRACK It's now possible to edit your video segments so that edits fall on the appropriate music (or narration) cues. For example, suppose you have a music track with a strong beat and you want to make every edit fall on the beat. If you can keep a beat (or at least be close to the beat), you can edit your video the music. Here's how. Select the audio crouton, hold Alt, and click on Play-From. The first video clip that follows the audio clip will highlight, and the audio clip will begin playing. As the music track plays, press the Spacebar every time you want an edit to occur on a beat. With each tap of the Spacebar, each crouton will be "locked" in time (based on the Program time) and the crouton next to it will be highlighted. Continue pressing Spacebar as desired to lock a group of video croutons to the audio track. When done, click the Stop button (or press Esc). The Flyer will ask if you wish for it to automatically adjust the out-points of the locked-down clips (when editing to audio, you are setting only the in-point for each clip). In most cases, you will want to click OK. After a moment, all adjustments will have been made and you can play the project. Other controls are also available when editing to audio: 1) Press Enter (instead of Spacebar) to lock a crouton but not move to the next crouton. 2) Use the arrow keys to navigate up, down, and across the rows of the project during playback. This way you can "jump" to any crouton to lock it in time with the audio. Tip: It may be best to preset the in point of the video clips that will be locked to the beat, so that you can be sure that the moment each clip is locked to is a moment where there's appropriate action in the video content. Of course, you can always go back and edit the portion of each locked crouton using the Shift key, which keeps the duration the same while adjusting which portion of the clip is used. Note: You can lock an audio crouton to another audio crouton using this technique. This allows you to combine sound effects with changes in the audio material. For example, you may want an explosion sound effect to occur when the music crashes. Select the music track and click Alt+Play-From, then lock the sound effect to the moment during the playback when the music peaks. Note: This method allows you to lock croutons to a single audio track. If you wish to play an entire project and lock a number of croutons to a number of audio tracks, hold Alt and click Play. The Play button always plays projects from the first crouton. As each audio track occurs (at its normal time in the project) you can lock other croutons to the program time. EDITING VIDEO TO MULTIPLE AUDIO TRACKS (ENTIRE PROJECT) If you have a large project with several audio tracks and hundreds of video clips, it may be easier to perform the "edit to audio" technique for the entire project in one operation. To do so, hold Alt and click on Play. The entire project will play, in real time, with the audio tracks occurring as they should. While they play, you can lock various video clips to the program time. When you are finished, click Stop (or press Esc) to exit this edit mode. The same instructions and controls as used in "Editing to an Audio Track" apply, except that you should hold Alt and click on Play. EDITING AUDIO TO A VIDEO CLIP It's now possible to edit audio events so that they occur at specific moments during a video clip. This is a variation of editing to audio. Rather than selecting an audio clip and locking video events to it, you select a video clip and lock audio events to it. The same instructions and controls as used in "Editing to an Audio Track" apply, except that you should highlight a video crouton before you hold Alt and click on Play-From. SEQUENCING WITH BLACK When sequencing, if you leave a transition crouton at either the beginning or the end of the project, the Flyer will assume that you wish to start with "video black" as the first source, then transition into the first actual video event crouton on the storyboard. For example, you mistakenly leave a Smooth Fade icon at the end of your project; the Flyer will just fade to black at the end of playback. AFTER YOU FINISH A PROJECT... After removing files from the Flyer drives (at the completion of a project), you can go ahead and begin recording new material for your next project. You do *not* need to reformat the Flyer video and audio drives for each project. If, when you enter the Record panel, you find that a given drive shows less than the full amount of space available (due to file fragmentation), you can simply click the Reorganize button. On an empty drive, reorganization usually takes under a minute (a simple quick check of the drive to confirm that it is, in fact, empty). Then you can begin recording again. UTILITIES: NEW CLI COMMANDS DumpProject should be placed in your Amiga's c: directory. DumpProject will display data about an entire project. Essentially, this is a list of each crouton in the project. If you open a shell, then type in the command (followed by a project name), the entire project's contents will be displayed in the shell window. EXAMPLE: Dumpproject Toaster:Projects/Test If you wish to redirect this list to a file that you can edit or read in a text editor, use the AmigaDOS redirection command. The first command example, below,creates a file in RAM: called Test. The second command sends the file to a printer. EXAMPLE: Dumpproject Toaster:Projects/TestProject >RAM:Test EXAMPLE: Dumpproject Toaster:Projects/TestProject >PRT: FREEZING VIDEO FROM SWITCHER The Freeze/Live buttons now work consistently. The "old way" of capturing, by selecting an input and the two framebuffers, then clicking Freeze, is now restored. When you capture via this method, the Toaster captures a four-field image into each framebuffer (DV1 and DV2). The new quick-and-easy way to capture an image, by clicking on the 1, 2, 3 or 4 button, now works. When you capture via this method, the Toaster *always* captures a four-field color frame into DV1 only. DV2 will retain its original contents. This was necessary in order to make the panel operate correctly. CONFIGURING LIGHTWAVE PLUG-INS LightWave includes a set of plug-ins that must be configured for your system before you can use them. See the note, below, about "Saving LightWave Animations as Flyer Clips" for an example that explains how to do this. For any other plug-ins that you find in the appropriate plug-ins directory, install them in the same manner. Each plug-in will be added to LightWave's config file so that it will be available each time you run LightWave. Saving LightWave Animations as Flyer Clips You can now save a LightWave animation as a clip to a Flyer drive. The technique has been implemented as a LightWave plug-in. Note: LightWave animation clips are saved in the quality mode that has been set from the Hardware Options panel. If your drives support HQ5, and HQ5 is turned on from the Hardware Options panel, the animation will be saved as if it were recorded as an HQ5 quality clip. In order to use the plug-in, you must first add it to LightWave. (Once it has been added, it will remain available in all future LightWave sessions.) Follow the steps below. 1) Enter LightWave. 2) Go to the Options panel. 3) Click on Add Plug-ins. 4) Navigate to the Plug-ins directory (inside the main NewTek directory). Select and load the file clipsav.p. This automatically installs the plug-in and modifies LightWave's config file so that the plug-in will be available each time you run the program. 5) Go to the Record panel and drag the pointer over the Animation Type pop-up. Notice that you have two new options: FlyerClip and FlyerFilm. You can use these to save clips to the Flyer when rendering animations. FlyerClip saves a standard Flyer clip. FlyerFilm saves frames as if they had been transferred from film to video using the 3/2 pull-down technique. The result is that fields are written at a 3:2 ratio (rather than writing all images at the rate of two fields, every other image is written into 3 fields, then 2, then 3, then 2, and so on, emulating the 3/2 pulldown technique of film-to-video transfer). Note: If you wish to update or remove an existing plug-in, you will need to remove its command line from the LightWave config file. Use a text editor to delete the line from the config file so that the plug-in is not loaded when LightWave starts. You may also wish to delete the actual plug-in executable from your hard disk. This is of course optional. TRANSLATOR 3D A new object translation utility is provided for use with the LightWave Modeler. Translator3D delivers fast, accurate and easy conversions of your 3DStudio, DXF and Wavefront objects. Loading objects is easy. In modeler, press the "Load" button in the objects panel. If the object is not an .lwo file Tran3D will convert it. To export as one of the supported formats follow these steps... 1) Make sure the object is in the foreground layer. 2) Enter the Tools panel. 3) Press the Custom pop-up and select the Translator3D-Export option. 4) Select the object format then click OK. 5) A file requester will appear. Enter the object name and drive path. Press the OK button. To change the configuration options do the following... 1) Enter the Objects panel. 2) Press the Custom pop-up and select the Translator3D-Options entry. 3) On the configuration panel, select the Object format whose options will be modified then click the OK button. 4) On the individual option panel, make changes to the options. Click OK to keep the changes. 5) When finished making changes, select the Done button and then select the OK button to save the changes or CANCEL to forget the changes. The configuration options are: 3D Studio 1) Object Color From - This will decide where the color data is taken from the 3D Studio object to be imported. There are three options, Amibent, Diffuse and Specular. Diffuse is the default. 2) Material Mode - Some 3D Studio objects may be imported with their RGB color values set to black (0, 0, 0). The Original option will leave these colors alone. The White option will convert the black colors to a white RGB value of (200, 200, 200). The default is Original. DXF 1) Convert Blocks - This will toggle on or off whether the Blocks section of a DXF object is converted. The default is Blocks active. 2) Arc Segments - This entry varies the number segments for the conversion of CIRCLE and ARC entities. This value can be no less than 4 and no greater than 1000. the default is 12. WAVEFRONT 1) There are no options for Wavefront. VIDEO TOASTER FLYER AREXX SCRIPTS AREXX ADDITIONS FOR PROGRAMMERS Added ARexx commands to let users add to the new Tools popup: AddTool, RemTool, ToolName, ToolCmd, ToolNum. New functions: Requester w/ 1-4 buttons, ProjectUpdate() to recalc total running time. Timing Errors due to Too Many ARexx Scripts in a Project At this time, we do not recommend that you place ARexx scripts within a video project where timing is critical (except for the Replay.rexx script, which simply serves to cause a project to play repeatedly). The presence of multiple ARexx scripts can cause timing errors during playback. Since ARexx scripts cannot be run reliably during project playback, this should not be an issue. ABSTRACT The ARexx scripts add a variety of powerful must-have features to the Video Toaster and Video Toaster Flyer. Here are just a few examples of what they can do from the Flyer sequencer: · Adjust the volume level of all selected clips (or all clips) in a project · Process video clips to create slow-motion, strobe, or fast-motion effects · Change the icon for a video clip · Capture time lapse clips · Record your own stop-motion clips OVERVIEW Most ARexx scripts have been written to fill a need that went unanticipated in the original software spec, or to add a cool feature that someone thought would be fun. Some scripts perform the same function in one application as they do in another. USING THE SCRIPTS There are ARexx scripts for each of the Toaster's video graphic applications. The scripts are started by each program in a different manner. Below is a short description of the ARexx-access within these programs. For further information than is offered here, see the manual for each application. AREXX SCRIPTS FOR TOASTERPAINT Select and start ARexx scripts from the Process panel. There are two types: those that affect the current screen only, and those that can operate on video clips. AREXX SCRIPTS FOR LIGHTWAVE Modeler has two pop-up menus labeled Custom, one on the Objects panel and one on the Tools panel. You'll find a variety of ARexx scripts within each button. Layout does not use ARexx at this time. AREXX SCRIPTS FOR SEQUENCER/SWITCHER All scripts are started by one of two means: In a files view, navigate to the ARexx directory, enter the Editor subdirectory, and double-click on any ARexx script there. Or, if you have dragged any ARexx scripts into the Startup subdirectory there, you can simply select them from the Tools pop-up on the main button bar. Note: When started from the ARexx directory on the hard drive, scripts will affect all of the croutons in the current project. However, if scripts are run from the Tools pop-up menu instead, they can affect either (a) the currently selected croutons, or (b) all croutons in the project. These scripts are noted below. Special Note: None of the ARexx scripts (with the exception of FixProject) will affect any "Lost Croutons" in a project. The Lost Crouton contains information about a crouton that is missing from a loaded project. Since Lost Croutons are not valid croutons for sequencing or editing, they cannot be altered (therefore, the croutons they represent, when restored, will retain their original settings). AREXX SCRIPTS FOR TOASTERCG All scripts are started by one of two means: Press Alt+F1 to call up a file requester (preset to the CG ARexx scripts directory), then select the script you wish to run by double-clicking on it. If you know the function key that is assigned to the script you want to run, simply press Alt+(that Fkey), or Shift+Alt+(that Fkey). Function keys can be assigned for both the Alt and Shift+Alt settings (for a total of 20 key assignments in all). Note: Do *NOT* use spaces in the names of any CG Arexx scripts. The Alt+F1 launcher cannot start a script with spaces. Note: If there is no response from ToasterCG when you invoke an ARexx hotkey, it is possible that the ARexx server (Rexxmast) is not active. You may need to return to the Workbench, locate and start its icon (it's in the System drawer of your startup hard drive). If Rexxmast will not run, or ARexx still will not run, then you may need to reinstall the Workbench or Toaster software. TOASTERCG KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS These can be altered if you wish to reorganize them. You need to know how to use a text editor to open the config file, make the correct changes, and save it once again. The file is called cg-config. Its full pathname is Toaster:Programs/CG_Support/cg-config. Alt+F1 RexxLauncher Alt+F2 SaveTextFile Alt+F3 SaveState Alt+F4 SavePage Alt+F5 SaveAttrib Alt+F6 BumpLines Alt+F7 SpellCheck Alt+F8 DOSCommand Alt+F9 SizeUp Alt+F10 CopyAttrib Shift+Alt+F1 Import Shift+Alt+F2 RmWord Shift+Alt+F3 SaveState Shift+Alt+F4 EPSLoad Shift+Alt+F5 CGHaiku Shift+Alt+F6 unused Shift+Alt+F7 unused Shift+Alt+F8 unused Shift+Alt+F9 SizeDown Shift+Alt+F10 PasteAttrib HOW TO CHECK FOR THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF VOLTAGE GOING TO THE FLYER There is a barrel shaped Ferrite B power supply line filter just to the right of the Flyer logo. Using a meter the voltage should read between 4.7 - 5.0 volts. Anything lower than that can cause the Flyer to malfunction. Look into replacing the Amiga power supply if you have this problem. o malfunction. Look into replacing the Amiga power supply if you have this problem.