I ran across an interesting script for animations the other day called AnimStack http://registry.gimp.org/node/26501. Is a work in progress, he's on version 0.4 now.

This may be kinda uninteresting to some as on Windows side I believe there is GimpGap for making animations. I've yet to find a decent enabler for the Mac platform. This little 61.98KB .scm file may be on the right path. So far for basic things, it seems to work. For some of the effect, like motion blur on animation, while it works on his video, I have yet to get mine to work. Either this because I am doing something wrong, or it may in the end not be compatible with Mac OS X. I'd be curious if anyone is interested to give it a go and let me know if you have any luck with it. Hell, you may end up liking it more than me.

This is really interesting and thanks for posting it, WW. I'm going to have to give it a try and see what I think.

Hi, I am the author of AnimStack. I'm glad people finally started noticing it (still waiting for feature post on GIMP's G+ page ).

It is a misconception that AnimStack is a GAP replacement/alternative. AnimStack is a low-level automation tool for animation post-processing. All version 0.1 did was to basically put a layer into a specific position in a bunch of layer groups (it only had 5 tags: bg, fg, copy, roll and splice). This is still the core concept of the script. Amazingly, people found it useful because apparently there was no easy way to slap some text on every frame of a gif. With animstack you just put "[fg]" on the text layer, and voila.

The thing is that even after processing, you're in complete control to move things around. I never used GAP, but I'm assuming it doesn't use layer groups because it was made before GIMP 2.8. I think it creates each frame as its own xcf? Basically, the workflow must be radically different.

Anyway, since it's just a Script-Fu script, it should work on any operating system and be trivial to install. It's probably the most algorithmically complex Scheme script in the GIMP registry though. So if you can't get motion blur to work, either you are doing something wrong, or I did something wrong; so you should probably explain your problem in more detail.

to Gimp Chat, Grue. I'm glad you are here. I was not sure how to go about using AnimStack. I am assuming I need an animation before I use the script?

You are correct about GAP and using xcf files as frames. It's an entirely different action from your script.

I think your script would begin where GAP left off. Perhaps to fancy up a GAP animation more with a background, etc.

Oh what fun! Hey there Grue. Welcome to GimpChat. I was hoping to talk to other users about this and see how they got along with it. Lo and behold, the author himself arrives Pleasure to meet you. I've quite taken by your little program here and just had to share it.

Yes, I honestly don't know much about any such programs/scripts in Gimp. I am a new/old guy with Gimp. I've had it a long time over the years but just recently, thanks to GimpChat and Partha, I'm learning some more of the ropes. I have never used Gimp Gap so when I hackishly try to compare your script to it , I only do so in very very general sense in that it can in some way affect a series of images. But good gosh, the automation! The sheer joy it is to see a background get added to a anim already created! Just today, I used it to cut out extra frames from an imported layer series. Done in seconds. It would have taken me long time, and driven me insane and made my already horrible vision blurrier.

I've only had just the one problem with it and that was adding the motion blur. Up to .04 version, I'm good. I just started trying generate my own snow fall as you did in a video. I was way too sleepy to finish it, I had a false start and ended up having a stationary anim. I'll work on that.

As mentioned before, the motion blur does have me baffled. Here's what I've done:

1) opened as layers, 7 images. They are .xcf files. All RGB.
2) Save
3) added a transparent frame onto which I am to write the tags. ( I had it located on 2nd layer, moved it about after the process of tags didn't work )
4) Entered: [render] [-1-5;md:20:0] ( I didn't catch the bit about the colon after the range at first )
5) Filters>Animation>Process AnimStack tags. * at which point nothing happened *
6) Reviewed your excellent videos and learned more about your script.




Thinking it was something to do with the images, I tried the box anim you had in the latest video.

1) Started new image 640 x 400, transparent
2) Duplicated and tagged this frame with [*5] and saved my poor abused nib on my stylus some taps. Love watching it duplicate frames!
3) Added a square selection on left side for image and filled it with a color.
4) Moved the selection via "layer move" and moved on up to the next frame/layer and placed it further to right.
5) Continued until I ran out of frames/layers.
6) Added a new layer, called "layer" and tagged it with [render] [-1-3;mb:20:0]
7) Filters>Animation>Process AnimStack tags. * at which point nothing happened *



Is a mystery to me. I'm sure it's me. I'd just be curious to know what it was I missed.

This turned into epic post.

Anyway, bottom line. Thanks for such a script! It was a pleasure to find and hope others can use it as well. Good luck to you in your endeavors!

WW

Well, it's definitely strange that nothing is happening with those tags. This behavior would be consistent with it not recognizing the tag "[render]" which was added in AnimStack 0.4. The timing of your post suggests that you probably got the latest version, but it never hurts to check. The .scm file should say "v. 0.4" at the top. This is the only reason I can come up with. Maybe redownload it to be sure?

Also, about ranges: the steps are numbered starting from 0, and counting starts from the tagged layer. So you basically have this (asterisks mark the frames that get the effect):

whereas you probably want something like this:

or:

@Grue..Yes! that was my problem. I had download both the .3 and .4 versions. Thought I had updated my scripts folder with .4 but must have only done so in my mind. Thanks for voice of reasoning

Is working and now I'm playing with all the setting combinations for my little experiment!

Thank you much!

WW

To whomever it might concern: AnimStack 0.5 is out!



(yes, this was made with AnimStack and the xcf source is available)

http://registry.gimp.org/node/26501



Previous tutorials: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... JlwIzMziEq


WW: I added a tool to reverse layers you've been asking for It's in Image - Reverse/Mirror layers...

Thank you very much, Grue!
I definitely will try this.

@Grue....very awesome, I downloaded after you posted this and am checking it out. Thank you very much for the reverse! It just keeps getting better! And a new video too, thank you!

ww

Thanks so much, Grue.

AnimStack 0.6 is released

* Arithmetic adjustments for effect tag parameters
* Automatic generator variable i corresponding to the number of current step
* Label tags and option for action tag to terminate at specific label
* Option to reverse action's direction
* New effects: crop, drotate, seed
* New generators: dosc, dpoly
* mask effect now can use another layer as a source of mask
* render action can render an "interval" of layers (several layers in order)
* RNG seed is initialized at startup
* Fix rotate not autocropping at right angles
* Other fixes

http://registry.gimp.org/node/26501

Very cool, Grue
--
In case anyone is wondering, you need Gimp 2.8 or later.

I agree.
This is some amazing software.

Feels a bit complex at start playing with all those tags, but once You get it this is one impressive and powerful add-on.
May be even #1 for me. Thank You.