The Dogwaffle 2.0d Patch

April 2004 - Introducing the Mouth plugin,
the Raw image import & export plugin and more
 back to more Dogwaffle
Description

This patch introduces a tool (the Exposure Sheet) which is aimed at professionals doing character animation with lip sync. Assume you have a recorded voice, and you're animating your character to match its mouth with the sounds. The purpose of the exposure sheet plugin is to assist you in this task. Sounds coming from a wave file are analyzed and a visual is shown which helps you in determining the shape of the mouth for your animated character, for each frame throughout the animation. This is something which is heavily used in traditional facial animation, especially along with the onion skins.

There is also a new plugin for importing RAW image formats (*.raw). And more. See details below.

The prior patches (2.0b, 2.0c) are also rolled into this patch. So you can go straight from 2.0 to 2.0d without the need to install 2.0b or 2.0c patches first.
Installation

There is a newer patch or update available!


Download the file. Then double-click it to run it. The installer will look for v2.0 and you should make sure that the proper location is selected before you complete the installation. It will need a proper version 2.0 (full or upgraded), 2.0b or 2.0c installed to work.
What's New in this Patch ?
The Exposure Sheet
  • Allows you to scrub and playback your animation synchronized with audio as you work.
  • Allows notation to be added to any frame of an animation.
  • Allows you to phonetically analyze a wave form for lip synching.
  • See example mouth shapes, previewed in real-time as you scrub and playback animation.
  • Use with all the powerful animation tools already integrated into the program, such as Onion skin for traditional animators.
  • Choose between a Cartoon style and a Sketch style



Raw Images Support (Import/Export Plugin)exporting an image in RAW format
  • The Raw deal: two new plugins to allow importing and exporting of raw file format.  Use the Plugins panel (keyboard shortcut = "k" and select the 'Import' or the 'Export' tab).


importing a raw imageYou will want to remember that the raw format doesn't necessarily hold the size and depth information in the file and there are various formats for how to store the internal color data, so you should make a note of such things as image size (width and height) and format. Perhaps this can be part of the filename.





Building a Color Palettenew sorting methods for palettes
  • The PaletteToWells plugin has been  updated with advanced new sorting methods to allow the creation of nicer looking and more workable color sets.


[click image to enlarge]



Saving Animations to AVI - bug fix
  • A bug was identified in the Animation-to-Avi module,  which caused color rotations in cases of uncompressed saves. This has been fixed. (Animation2avi_pm.exe)