Doggybag #2 - the Thanksgiving 2003 Patch

Here's another bag of treats to say
Thanks for using Project Dogwaffle!
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Overview of Doggybag 2
This is the second doggybag.  [ the first one was released a month ago for Halloween, see doggybag #1 ]

Now, in this bag of treats we have included the following new features:
  • Patterns_pb.exe   [ details ] (including a set of seamless images, Pat_*.bmp)
As you can tell, there is some emphasis on using Dogwaffle for post work on animations. We originally wanted to make these just for the upcoming v2 but for the benefit of current v1.6 users we have decided to bag this into doggybag #2 for this occasion (Thanksgiving). We wanted to make it easier for you to bring in your animations and movie clips or save animations back out to Avi files. Perhaps you use a digital video camera for home movies? Perhaps you're a 3D artist who needs to add animated lens flares, snow, enahnce contrast, improve the dynamic range? Either way, saving and importing the animations as Avi allows additional ways to communicate between Dogwaffle and your current DV authoring tools.

We also made a new tool to quickly select and switch between images to be used for brushes. It's also a convenient way to use the images as paper texture.

Known Limitations or Caveats

These plugins were originally being developed for the upcoming major release v2 (tentatively planned for early 2004). At this stage they appear to be also working just fine with Dogwaffle v1.6, with just this known caviat:

The Scrub bar does not get updated with currect frame range when loading an avi into animation. There appears to be no way to correct this under v1.6. Version 2.0 will have a fix for this. As a workaround you can close the newly loaded animation's control bar and reopen it, that has been known to update the frame count shown according to what's actually loaded in the animation.
Installation of Doggybag #2

It is recommended that you have Dogwaffle 1.6 installed. It is possible that these plugins may also work with earlier versions such as 1.5 or 1.15 but we have not tested it. Use at your own risk. If you are using an older version you may want to treat yourself to an upgrade at this time.

  1. Quit Dogwaffle if it is currently running
  2. Download the zip archive called doggybag2.zip  [ size: 274 KB (280,132 bytes) ]
  3. extract (unzip) the files into the folder where your dogwaffle is installed (e.g. C:\Program Files\project dogwaffle)
  4. Start Dogwaffle and enjoy the new features.
Description of Features in DoggyBag 2



Treat #1 - Exporting Animations to Avi file
(the Animation2avi_pm.exe plugin)


In the past it was already possible to save animations as a Targa image sequence. An external application would then be used to pack them into a video file format like Avi. With this new plugin it is now possible to save the current animation straight into an Avi file.

Access the Execute Plugins window as usual and go to the Misc tab.

Execute the Animation2Avi_pm.exe  plugin


A dialog window appears which will ask you to specify the desired frame playback rate to be saved into the new Avi file. You may have previewed it at a different rate in Dogwaffle while working on it but now's the time to set the final playback speed.


Then click on "Save AVI". You'll be able to select the folder and filename as usual and also the codec and its parameters.


Here's an example: Starting from scratch in Dogwaffle we quickly painted a first frame with a background image, created an animation from it (with duplicate copies in each frame to start with identical images in each frame), then applied the Snow FX filter from the Timeline editor (see doggybag#1), then saved the sequence out to Avi. Another tool was then used to embed the Avi into a Flash stream. Click the image to the left to view it.

Treat #2 - Importing Animations from Avi file
(the Avi2animation_pm.exe plugin)

If you work with Moviemaker or other DV authoring programs you likely will have footage in Avi files. You might want to use the Dogwaffle Snow&rain FX or animated lens flares or other filters over your movies, CG animations and home videos. Same thing when using screen capture software to make animations for tutorials and training purposes. You could highlight a group of frames, change brightness in some areas, paint over the frames to mark them up, etc...

With this new plugin you can now directly import the animations from an Avi file into a Dogwaffle animation. Beware, this may take a lot of memory!




Here's an example: the avi file previously saved in the prior example above was re-loaded into Dogwaffle. An additional wet paint FX was then applied. Click the image to view it (Flash player needed).
select patterns plugin

Treat #3 - Using Patterns
(the Patterns_pb.exe plugin)


The Patterns plugin is meant to make it easy to load seamless textures for use with fill tools. That is the default mode, known as "use as brush".

There's also a "use as paper" mode that makes it a one-click solution for loading new paper textures.

Start the patterns plugin from the Brush plugins collection.

Then select the desired mode - as a brush or as paper texture.

Then just click the thumbnail and that image gets immediately loaded into the brush or into the paper texture. (You still may need to enable the paper or set the slider which controls the intensity of the paper texture).
If there are textures and patterns which you have made and which you'd like to use again and again very quickly, then you'll find that this is a quick way to access them.