I want to make a simple assistant for putting together AviSynth scripts. This would be a windows desktop application that would have a "preview" screen of an avi movie, which would give you a timeline, play, fast-forward, rewind, advance and go back frame-by-frame. The program would need to know the frame number of the current frame in the player and its filename.
What language is best suited for this? I know PHP ( I understand that this is not a contender ) and am familiar with Java. My thought is that the biggest hurdle with this project will be finding a library for the video playing features. With a cursory glance, no Java video libraries jumped out at me. My next thought would be c++ for this.
The output of this program would be an AviSynth script, a plaintext file which looks like this:
AviSource("myAvi.avi")
Crop(0, 0, 320, 240)
Blur(0.1)
There are a few tool kits that can do tihs:
C#: DirectShow (DirectX)
Java: JMF
If you have Avisynth installed, the only thing you need for preview (If I understood, that's your need) is something that can decode uncompressed video. It would open like a normal file. I'm sure there are video players implemented fairly well in Java, but I don't know how much functionallity from them you need. Anyway parsing scripts is not easy - I recommend you not to try to if you don't need to.
EDIT: I'm sorry, I thought you needed a very specific app, but from what you seem to need, you don't need to code anything, use AVSP!
Please watch this video, it shows how straightforward it is. It has advanced functions such as auto-completion, (even from your own auto-loading scripts!) syntax coloring, macros, automtic importing, drag&drop (of a video, for instance - just drag it to the video and AVSP makes the loading) scrit preview with zoom and all stuff, you can use automatic or custom sliders (you can make a slider that re-writes a number on the script in real time, for instance for hue/luminosity/contrast/etc. that would be cumbersome to control via script), checkboxes & radio buttons (for boolean values, etc...), text fields that alter strings in real time, and basically anything you need... Please check it out.
Also, VirtualDubMod is OLD.
And yep, AVSP is free, both gratis and libre! =)
Related
Before I get shot down on this one, I realize that the 'how' answer for this question might be slightly debatable, however I'm more interested in the 'what'.
In a nut shell I want to know which methods I can use to interact with a PC video game interface. I want to create a program that can extract data from a video game market interface.
My first initial thought was that I would need to programmatically take screen shots and then use some Optical Character Recognition software to extract the text. Then run whatever operation on the extracted text to derive my incites.
Then I was thinking it might just be easier to have a bunch of mini screen shots that I just use to find matches on certain sections of the screen. When a match is found, I would then know what the text is on the screen, without having to actually 'extract' it.
For those out there whom have done this, can you point me in one direction or the other? Perhaps there is a method that I am completely unaware of.
If its the case that this question is not suitable for this forum. It would be much appreciated if you could direct me elsewhere.
Edit: I should probably add that I'm not looking to spend a fortune on this project... so any free software would be the best. Perhaps that's a tall order.
I'm starting to think Sikuli is the direction I'm going to go. Open Source image recognition software, integrates with Python, Ruby, Java, JDBC, JavaScript and more.
-- Expanding on the question --
There are basically 3 categories of tools:
Recorder while you manually work along your workflow, a recorder tracks your mouse and keyboard actions. After stopping the recording, you might playback (autorun your worflow). The recordings can usually be edited and augmented with additional features.
GUI aware the tool allows to programmatically operate on GUI elements like buttons. This is based on the knowledge of internal structures and names of the GUI elements and their features. Some of these tools also have a recording feature.
Visually the tool “sees” images (usually retangular pixel areas) on the screen and allows to act on these images using mouse and keyboard simulation. There might be some recorder feture as well with such a tool.
SikuliX belongs to the 3rd category and currently does not have a recorder feature.
Answer in progress...
In games with moddable UIs, like many MMOs, you could create a mod that streams data through a series of black and white squares that could be read with optical sensors. From there, a microcontroller could deliver the data back to the PC via USB or wifi.
My approach as a noob. First determine if OCR 100% needed, I think this plays a role in speed.
if possible:
-run game in window (allows for trouble shooting and easy troubleshooting)
-is there a high contrast option for game? Will help Sikuli find things
then you plan out your scenarios:
You have to create different functions for different situations. A lot of gaming is "do you see this?" Then "do this" until that is gone.
Start with small parts you want to automate then build on them. Making sure your parts can scale in case small change need to happen, they will. For instance you want to open the menu if you see an object, lets say a tree.
Assume you have some sort of walking algorithm.
setROI(region1) #focus here for tree
if exists(tRee):
click(loCation) #you could hit the shortcut key to opening the menu
click(iTem) #if the item moves in the menu then you may need to scroll to find it first or you can change the ROI and start seeing if sikuli can differentiate your item from one you dont want to click.
You would get that to loop into other actions and proceed. Goodluck.
Link to the project
Hey guys. I'm a longtime lurker, and usually like learning about this stuff on my own, but I figured I would see if someone (especially someone involved with the active open source project or its dependencies) would happen to know something I am really curious about.
If you compile the open source project, Audacity, for Windows and export any amount of silence, the resultant Wav has noise in it. By this, I mean (what seems at first glance) to be random noise appears in the resultant file. Everytime. And this noise varies from export to export - which I did by exporting the same content twice in a row without doing anything inbetween.
So far, the only other thing I have tested is Steinberg's Nuendo 4, and the same methodology produces nice, clean Wav files full of 00 every time.
Since this is my first foray into having the awesomeness of an actively maintained project, I figured somebody would have some knowledge about it, or at least let me know where else to post such a question. I am going to crosspost this to the Audacity forums also, and start there.
I managed to get this built in VS2010, and with DirectSound support, so can provide all the information to do so if anyone wants to try it out.
Cheers!
The default settings for (export) quality have dithering activated, which adds a little bit of random noise to improve the sound quality of a downconversion to 16bit WAV.
If you turn off dithering you get all 0 on an export of total silence, but for real world audio the sound quality is better with dithering on.
I'm running Audacity in German language, so I can't give you the exact menu terms, but you should be able to find it like this:
Open the settings via the Edit/Settings Menu.
Quality is in option 4 and there should be a setting for high quality conversion where you can select the kind of dithering you want. Here you can turn it off.
I tried to sign up, but I was unable; perhaps a problem from my side. Hopefully I'll get an answer as anonymous.
I apologize for the grammar/syntax, but English isn't my native language.
Recently I lost my job, so I have enough spare time to try something fun. I decided to create a simple text RPG game for me and some friends. It will very close to the board games like Talisman, Dungeon Run, and HeroQuest, using dice and a simple attribute/skill system. So no 3d graphics. The only 2d element, if I decide to include it, will be a map
that will allow the hero to move between locations. Currently I'm using Windows XP SP3, for the game I use wxDev-C++, and although cross platform would be cool, I don't really care.
I have some experience in C++ (currently using wxDev-C++), but I'm far from being called an expert or even a great programmer. I was about to start writing parts of the code, but I decided to check if creating a GUI for the game is possible. In some forums, many suggested I use Qt, CEGUI or wxWidgets, but most examples I saw are grey boxes that are
indifferent at best, when I want something that fits better in a fantasy setting. I don't claim I would do better, but I want a GUI that is more fantasy related.
What I want from the GUI:
1. A "cool" Gui with decent graphics. I could even create an image to serve as a mask in Photoshop, but the GUI builder will have to support imported images.
2. A relatively large textbox in the middle (with a scrollbar) that will display die rolls, damage and options.
3. The ability to display dynamically values (like the change in the health after each action without requiring to refresh manually)
4. Display an icon or a small image of the character in the area where I display stats/abilities.
5. Open new windows created with tha same GUI builder to allocate points, buy/sell things and open a map.
About the map in the game: I decided to create a map in photoshop. When the hero decides to move to another location, a new window will open showing the map. I thought of 2 possible ways to move between locations: 1) Create hotspots on the image and select one by clicking on the name of the location.(I dare not think about the complexity of this so we
move to idea #2) and 2) Have the image as a backgroung to a grid with vertical and horizontal coordinates. When the hero selects a new area to visit, he clicks on the area, but what he really does is click on the grid, which returns the two values (x,y) of the location and informs the game about the area the hero wants to visit.
Yeah, yeah, I know it's too much, so what I'm most interested in are the 1-3. I know that even if they are possible, it will propably take forever, but as I said I have spare time, and I like learning new things. I apologize for the size of the post, but I decided to post as many info as possible so you know what I want.
If any of you has used Qt, CEGUI or wxWidgets could you tell which covers most of my criteria? I saw some great stuff build with CEGUI, but I don't know if it is too hard to learn?
Thank in advance.
I know my answer comes pretty late, I only recently started using stackoverflow fairly recently, but maybe this response will help anybody.
CEGUI fully supports skinning widgets using XML. Our CEED editor (WYSIWYG) fully supports layout editing, but the skinning editor (LNF editor) is not finished as of now (11.11.2014), the development version supports exchanging images however and changing sizes and proportions, but more advanced adjustments have to be done in XML.
CEGUI has an imageset editor, fully supported by the CEED editor. Creating imagesets (sets of named subimages, with position and dimension inside a big texture atlas) is supported there. Additionally there is a way to create imagesets from just a bunch of jpg/png/... files using a tool. You would have to ask for specifics in the forum though because it is not integrated into CEED yet.
So basically with CEGUI you are free to make whatever fantasy GUI you want. Skinning simple elements like buttons and progress bars isn't much work in XML anyways. Without the finished editor, some more advanced widgets are more work to skin, but many skins have already been created done this way and some of them are even publically available in the forum and in the CEGUI stock files.
StaticText widgets supports what you want, you can even use images in there or change fonts and colours in the text if you want. Scrollbars are supported too.
I am not sure what you mean by this. You have to specify this.
A simple "Generic/Image" widget is available in CEGUI for this purpose. You can use precreated images or even RTT textures.
You can create and destroy windows in CEGUI without issues.
Regarding the map: I m not sure what you mean, but getting the position of a click in respect to an image (representing the map) is possible in CEGUI.
CEGUI is not particularly hard to learn. There is always the forums and the chat if you got questions. For an Open Source project it is quite well documented so if you read all of the API docu, and look at the supplied samples in the sample browser, you should already get quite far. And for everything additional there is the forum (search), the IRC chat and a community wiki (mind the targeted versions of an article there though)
For a project like yours, CEGUI seems perfectly suited (this is what it was created for in the first place). Qt is not really optimal for games for numerous reasons. wxWidgets I have never used.
I'm creating a Mac app which needs a trim bar like the GarageBand and iMovie ones. I need a library to get the audio waves to draw them on a NSView. Anyone knows a good library for that?
I think he was referring to the track editor (cut/copy/paste/move).
There's a cool blog post on how to draw Waveforms by the author of the Capo audio editing software:
http://supermegaultragroovy.com/2009/10/06/drawing-waveforms/
I wrote Cocoa (Mac) code based on that, and it's not too hard. You can find that code here:
https://github.com/uliwitness/UKSoundWaveformView
Though it's far from a finished, shippable editor, it's under a permissive license (zlib) and could easily be used as a basis for a full editor.
Maibe this helps: Drawing waveform with AVAssetReader
and if the issue is to draw, then this may help: Parametric acceleration curves in Core Animation
This framework might help you out. From the examples it looks like its pretty easy to use and works well. It provides components to open an audio file, play it and draw the waveform. You might need to implement the cut/copy/paste features on your own.
I realize this is not strictly programming related, but hopefully you will let me get away with it.
My group is trying to put together a very short (2 minutes or so) "film" about a new feature to our product. The feature is trying to solve a particular problem a lot of our customers have. We do not want to go with live action for displaying the description of the problem we are trying to solve because we feel that the production value of anything we could come up with would be incredibly low and turn off our viewers. So we would like to make an animation (basically floating clip-art that is animated moving from place to place) while we have someone narrate the problem description.
While flash seems to be a good solution I have some problems with it:
I need to capture this in a movie format like avi
It needs to be captured in 1080p, 720p and regular TV def.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a piece of software that can get me where I need to go?
Free is good, but I think I could get my boss to lay down some scratch for this.
Thanks!
For just some basic here-is-the-screen-this-is-a-slide kinda thing you could use Windows MovieMaker, free and standard.
And here you have some tips on how to create your own screen-captured-AVI file for input.