VFX Workflow with SCRATCH 9

[Geoff]

Hi all, 

I am a VFX supervisor and recently my company bought Scratch 9 for doing VFX dailies, reviews and QuickTime generation of the latest Version of sequences for the client.  Everything is absolutely great and I love it, but I am trying to find a way to automatize the process of importing comp versions and stack them into their Construct's slot. 

Basically, my goal is to be able from Nuke to publish the comp version (both EXRs and .mov) and Scratch will add automatically the published version into the shot's slot. So when I am reviewing the whole sequence, I have the latest comps into Scratch.

Is there any way to script this workflow? Does Scratch has an API that I can use for doing pipeline development?

 

Many thanks for your replies!

Geoff

[Tom Evans]

@Mazze

[Mazze]

Thanks for linking me in, Tom!

Geoff, check this link: http://www.assimilatesupport.com/akb/KnowledgebaseArticle51008.aspx

This does not yet cover a recent function added:
The option to start Play Pro (or the player of full SCRATCH) with a playlist which could be useful for certain review sessions: some of our customers build a setup where you can click a (web) link that (dynamically) generates / returns a play-list (*.splx) file that directly opens in Play Pro.  Feel free tp ing me if that is of interest and I can provide you with info on that. Else, the link above should have everything you need^^.

 

Cheers,
Mazze

 

[Geoff]

Many Thanks for your swift reply Mazze! 

Yes we are using Full SCRATCH 9 and Ideally we would love it to be our central hub.

I'll dig more into the link you've provided, much appreciated!

Geoff

[Geoff]

@Mazze By the way I am absolutely interested in what you've described. I'd love to know more please.

Thanks!

[Mazze]

Cool - will get you this on monday 🙂 .

[Geoff]

Many thanks for your time Mazze!

[Mazze]

Actually, I found a sample playlist (find attached).

You can just dag this onto the SCRATCH icon on your desktop or alternatively start SCRATCH via command line and add this .splx file as startup argument^^.

 

Greetz,
Mazze

my_playlist.splx

[Geoff]

That's great it is working perfectly!

The .splx file can be easily generated with a python script, that's awesome.

Thanks again Mazze!

 

[Geoff]

Hi all,

I was playing with python to be able to go trough the .xml file and I was wondering if we can customize some attributes in the xml/splx?

For instance I would like to give a name to a slot, is it possible?

an I add extra children tags like sequence in a shot tag?

like this example:

<slot index="0" name="124_LAC_0030">
					<length>212</length>
					<timecode>00:00:00:00</timecode>
					<transition>
						<type>Cut</type>
						<before>0</before>
						<after>0</after>
					</transition>
					<smode>Once</smode>
					<shots>
						<shot uuid="c239468a-ad13-42f6-83ac-6877ae70dbc8" type="4823CDE5-74BB-425B-92E8-0699A027F7C3" slot="0" layer="0">
							<file>C:\FILM\124_LAC_0030\COMP\124_LAC_0030_comp_v020\QT\124_LAC_0030_comp_v020.mp4</file>
							<name>124_LAC_0030_comp_v020</name>
                          	<sequence>124_LAC</sequence>
							<handles>
								<in>0</in>
								<out>211</out>
							</handles>
							<length>212</length>
							<size>
								<width>1920</width>
								<height>1080</height>
							</size>
							<fps>24.000</fps>
							<timecode>00:00:00:00</timecode>
							<view>
								<projection_type>normal</projection_type>
								<stereo_mode>mono</stereo_mode>
							</view>
							<colorgrade>
								<input>
									<colorspace>Lin/sRGB</colorspace>
									<eotf>SDR</eotf>
								</input>
							</colorgrade>
							<MOS>Y</MOS>
							<metadata>
								<dataitem>
									<key>Bit Depth</key>
									<value>8</value>
								</dataitem>
								<dataitem>
									<key>Compression</key>
									<value>H.264 High</value>
								</dataitem>
							</metadata>
						</shot>
					</shots>
				</slot>

 

Thanks a lot for your answers! 

Geoff

[Mazze]

Hi Geoff,

yes it is possible to name slots: just use a <name> tag within the <slot> tag (rather than an attribute).

As for the sequence: If you mean that you want to use different sections of the same shot, then just add the same file multiple times (as <shot>) and set different in-out in the <handles> section.

Hope this answers your questions^^.

 

Greetz,
Mazze

 

[Geoff]

Hi Mazze, many thanks for your reply and sorry to bother you during the weekend.

That is definitely answering my question about the slot name. For the sequence I wanted to link a shot to a sequence,  for tracking purpose that is why I wanted to add a tag called <sequence> into the <shot> tag . but no biggie if it is not a feature, a basic regex  on the <name> of the shot will do it!

I have one tiny last question that you could for sure help me with (a very stupid one!):

I've been looking in C:\ProgramData\Assimilator\Project\<Name_of_the_project> to find the entire project xml file, but only I can find the projectPaths.xml. I was wondering where was it stored by default? because I want to insert new shots within the project and not just as a playlist that is not attached to a project. Does it make sense? 

Again thank you so much for your precious time and expertise with SCRATCH, this is a fantastic software!

[Mazze]

Hey Geoff,

not 100% sure what you intend with the sequence - note though that you can just load an image sequence just like a container shot - for the sequence just pass the name of the first file.

As for retrieving the full project database in xml form -  you would add to the project settings to always generate an xml database on exiting the project or create a so called custom command button and set this to export the full project database in xml.

You can do that in the System Settings ==> Custom Commands tab.

Check this (rather old) video for a quick explanation: 

 

 

Cheers,
Mazze

[Geoff]

Thank you @Mazze

Sorry for the late reply (deadlines!). I'll check the video, I'm sure I'll manage to make it work the way I want it to be done! 😉

Geoff

 

[Mazze]

No problem - let us know how far you got 😉 .