George script & layer export

[lvictorino]

Hi,
My team and I are thinking about buying TVPaint for our next production.
However I have hard times finding documentation / Tutorial on George.

Our needs are simple. We're making a game where character animations are displayed using several layers.
Something like this :

In this example, the body is on a layer, and the eyes on another one on top of the body and using several frames.

We want to work on animations using several layers, but create a script that is able to export every layers in specific directories using special names and properties (export the layer position, size, name in a JSON file for example).
Is it something possible in TVPaint using George?

Thanks for your help.

[Elodie]

Hello ! You can find more information about George here : http://wiki.tvpaint.com/index.php?title=George

We want to work on animations using several layers, but create a script that is able to export every layers in specific directories using special names and properties

What you need does exist already (we've made a script for other studios which had the same request). I'm not in the office any more so I will send you this on Monday. Hopefully you can wait a little more (after waiting a couple of days because of the hosting issues... )

(export the layer position, size, name in a JSON file for example).

We've never been asked to export data for JSON and as I'm not a developer, I cannot tell if it's possible to do so.

[Fabrice]

Hi there,

Have you tried the .csv export that is in the (Clip / Layer Structure) tab of the Export panel ? (TVPaint v11)
If it doesn't work for you, we can maybe customize a script for you. Let us know.

[lvictorino]

Hi, thanks for your answers.

Have you tried the .csv export that is in the (Clip / Layer Structure) tab of the Export panel ? (TVPaint v11)
If it doesn't work for you, we can maybe customize a script for you. Let us know.

As I said I'm thinking about buying TVPaint, so I can't actually try anything (except if there is a demo version somewhere that I missed :S).
Does the CSV contains the layer names, position, and sizes? Maybe sublayers?

Thanks.

[Fabrice]

Thierry will post an exemple for you.

[lvictorino]

Awesome. Thanks!

[Thierry]

I'll post an example tomorrow morning
By the way, it seems to me you are french (?). Maybe can we have a phone discussion about it tomorrow ? >> TVPaint office : +33 3 87 17 35 98

[Thierry]

Here's an example: https://owncloud.tvpaint.com/index.php/ ... tBA88LGuAM

There's the projet (one from our Content and Examples), the CSV file generated by the export, and the layers' images exported in separated folders (link available 1 week).

[D.T. Nethery]

Hi there,

Have you tried the .csv export that is in the (Clip / Layer Structure) tab of the Export panel ? (TVPaint v11)
If it doesn't work for you, we can maybe customize a script for you. Let us know.

Hi, Fabrice -

I have just now noticed this topic.

Is it possible to customize the CSV export so that only the instance names are exported to the columns of the Excel spread sheet file , but the additional numbers (layer and frame numbers) in brackets are NOT included , so the sheet is not as cluttered , to improve the readability of the Excel spread sheet ?

For example , the way it is now if there is an instance on frame 9 named "B-9" , the CSV export has additional numbers inserted in front of B-9 :

[001][00009]B-9

I posted about this in Feature Requests , here: https://www.tvpaint.com/forum/viewtopic ... 21&t=11240
with screen shots showing what I am requesting.

[Clément]

Hi there,
The JSON export might actually be what you are looking for. A simple script should be able to parse the data it embeds very easily and format it into excel spreadsheets if the current layout doesn't match your needs, and you can indeed customize the export in order to discard layer name and frame number.
I could expand on that if you think it is suitable for your needs.

[D.T. Nethery]

Hi there,
The JSON export might actually be what you are looking for. A simple script should be able to parse the data it embeds very easily and format it into excel spreadsheets if the current layout doesn't match your needs, and you can indeed customize the export in order to discard layer name and frame number.
I could expand on that if you think it is suitable for your needs.

Yes, please do expand on that .

See the long thread about it here : https://www.tvpaint.com/forum/viewtopic ... 10&t=11132 (touching on the Japanese "timesheet" function, the .CSV export , and also the JSON export) trying to solve Janet Perlman's immediate need, but this sort of function she was asking about is something that would be useful for me , too.

Because JSON respects the instance names from the timeline when it exports the images , I would like to know how to get that data from the JSON file to an Excel spreadsheet , discarding the layer name and frame number in front of the instance name.

[D.T. Nethery]

Hi there,
The JSON export might actually be what you are looking for. A simple script should be able to parse the data it embeds very easily and format it into excel spreadsheets if the current layout doesn't match your needs, and you can indeed customize the export in order to discard layer name and frame number.
I could expand on that if you think it is suitable for your needs.

Yes, please do expand on that .

See the long thread about it here : https://www.tvpaint.com/forum/viewtopic ... 10&t=11132 (touching on the Japanese "timesheet" function, the .CSV export , and also the JSON export) trying to solve Janet Perlman's immediate need, but this sort of function she was asking about is something that would be useful for me , too.

Because JSON respects the instance names from the timeline when it exports the images , I would like to know how to get that data from the JSON file to an Excel spreadsheet , discarding the layer name and frame number in front of the instance name.

I'm still interested in knowing more about how the JSON export could be used to generate an Excel spread sheet that has only the instance names in the columns , but not the layer name and frame number .

Also, It would be a great help to have a full tutorial on using the JSON export function. There are things about the folder naming structure and file naming structure with all the various brackets [ ] and % and various numbers 04, 05 , that I don't really understand ... an example is given in the pop-up inline help : -%5ii-%08in ... Ok, but what do those numbers and symbols mean ? Why does entering those specific numbers and symbols make a difference ? If I change the numbers to something different, like -%4ii-%06in , does it have an effect ? The only way to find out for now is trial & error testing ... with no tutorial explaining the parameters for the JSON export in detail it makes for slow progress by trial & error to figure out how to configure it.

.