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Q. What is SMV2 ?
A.
SMV2 Overview
Sequence master is an extremely versatile and powerful asset management tool for viewing and manipulating large amounts of file data. Namely sequences of images. Sequence Master has been developed by industry professionals who required a simple tool set that speeded up the production process by unifying vital but often repetitive tasks into one utility.
Sequence Master provides the tools to facilitate the needs of the Digital artist who has to deal with hundreds and thousands of rendered files. At the moment finding, viewing manipulating and testing images is a time consuming and often stressful chore. Lots of time is wasted searching for a completed sequence and checking for missing files as all files of a sequence have to be viewed individually. Sequence master can display a sequence as a list or thumbnails and it can view files in any proprietary player as well as its integral viewer with audio support. The list can be sorted by date or size.
Sequence Master can speed up many aspects of a production throughout the production pipeline, for example; Sequence master can be used to test for continuity of action in an animated sequence via a quick test edit or the user can test composited elements within Sequence Master itself before these assets are sent further down the production pipeline.
Sequence Master provides individuals and companies with a simple intuitive resource that eliminates many common production problems and bottlenecks and in turn improves the efficiency, speed and profitability of a production.
Bottlenecks occur in the production pipeline because of the difficulty in viewing and finding frames, multiple file formats and incompatibility. Often users require various different software to accomplish simple but essential tasks. Tasks that currently require a number of differing software applications for renaming, reformatting, file conversions, compositing and editing are all available and unified within Sequence Master itself.
Sequence Master alleviates the need for animators and producers to constantly have access to script based utilities and expensive compositing and editing software on all machines. It allows all production staff to preview and check images in a production pipeline with no specialist software knowledge. For example: A producer with no compositing experience can select a Tiff sequence and easily convert it to an AVI to send to a client at four in the morning …
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Q. How do I composite a sequence
A.
SMV2 compositing
Compositing in Sequence master can be accomplished in a couple of very simple actions in the SMV2 interface.
SMV2 excepts several methods for creating composites.
If your foreground sequence has an alpha channel you only have to select the foreground and background sequences (see Below for actions)
ADVANCED NB: You can also use the alpha filters on your foreground channel to create an alpha channel if your foreground images have been rendered without one.
1) You can select a foreground and a background sequence
2) You can select a foreground, background and an alpha sequence.
3) You can select the images as above (options 1 or 2) and then select a WAV file to add sound
4) You can select the images as in option 3 and choose a further WAV to create a MIX of the two selected sound files.
Selection order is as follows :-
Foreground sequence, background sequence, alpha channel sequence, channel A WAV file, channel B WAV file.
Actions
(assuming SMV is in fileview)
If your foreground, background and alpha sequences are in the same directory :-
In order use the mouse to click and highlight the foreground sequence, then the background sequence. Use Ctrl + Click to highlight the different sequences.
If you require sound then highlight the WAV files in order for channel A and channel B if a MIX is required.
Right Click on the sequence list and choose Composite > from the menu. The composited sequence will be displayed in the main window.
If your foreground, background and alpha sequences are in different directories :-
Select your foreground sequence. Right Click on the sequence list and choose Composite > from the menu.
(The play window will appear and play your foreground sequence)
In the SMV2 fileview, browse to the directory containing your background sequence, and select it using the mouse.
On the play window menu, select Controls and then click the “Use selected as background”. This will place the background sequence into the play window composite.
Now repeat this process for the alpha channel and WAV files as necessary, each time browsing to the directory containing the sequence or Wav files, and highlighting them. Then Select Controls on the play window menu and the use selected option for your sequence or file – use selected for foreground, use selected for background use selected for alpha, use selected for Channel A or use selected for Channel B.
ANVANCED NB: Filters can be applied to the Overall image and to each of the image channels. More information on Filters can be found under the Filters Topic.
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Q. SMV2 Filters display an unchanged or blank image.
A. Before using the SMV2 filters with SMV2 you must install them onto the host operating system. See below for more information.
The SMV2 program has been designed to be self-sufficient and run from a USB device on any Microsoft Windows 2000 or Microsoft Windows XP system.
The obvious advantage is that the SMV2 user has access to the easy to use copying, renaming, playback and other facilities without having to constantly reinstall SMV2. A USB SMV2 version is licenced to the USB device and not any single computer. The exception to this installation feature is the Filters software. The complexity of the filters demand additional operating system integration and have to be installed on each host computer where the user wants to use SMV2 and the Filters.
USB pre-installed device.
Browse to the USB root directory. Execute the SMV2Filters.bat file and follow the on screen instructions to install the SMV2 filters. The filter DLL’s have to be installed into the windows system directory, make sure you have the correct access rights to do this (you may want to check with your system Administrator)
Standard SMV2 install.
As part of the Standard SMV2 installation, the filters will be set up along with the SMV2 core program. If you choose not to install the filters or you have changed to a host with out SMV2 using the USB version of SMV2 then you must install the filters separately.
On your target PC, browse to the SMV2 installation directory. In this directory there will be a Filters directory. Open this directory and run the setup.exe executable to start the install process. The filter DLL’s have to be installed into the windows system directory, make sure you have the correct access rights to do this (you may want to check with your system Administrator)
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