SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)

[swfn]

This is a project in which I have been working these last years in part of my leisure time. It consists on a program which, given a background image and a bunch of rendered PNG pictures, automatizes shrinking/growing and/or zooming in/zooming out procedures in order to generate animations in a video file; nothing more, nothing less.

Initially it was conceived just for my own use and "delight", being the initial version just a command-line application reading a file with a bunch of numerical data involving coordinates, zoom values, proportions, and so on. These projects were so tedious to create, and finally that forced me to learn GUI programming, which generated as a result a friendly graphic interface after some months of learning and development. For this reason, now that this application ended up with a more intuitive interface, I have decided to share it with you all.

Do not expect a program doing miracles, it just does what it does: size, zooming and position manipulations using static images. The good point is that, once the pictures are readied in Photoshop (namely, removing the background and replacing it by transparency), the preparation of a project of this kind takes only few minutes.

In the next days I will be uploading some written tutorials with practical examples about how most of its features work. Until then, you can download it and try tweaking the most basic features by yourself.

Current version: 1.3

Download links:

SWGenGUI-1.3 (64-bit)
SWGenGUI-1.3 (32-bit)

This program is portable and thus it does not require installation, it suffices with just extracting the zipped contents. It is compiled for 64-bit Windows operating systems. The application is written in Qt-C++ with MinGW and its source code is attached, so that anybody with programming skills can compile it with their own environment.

I will be also uploading updates/new versions as long as I discover new bugs, improve existing features or implement new ones.

******************************* CHANGELOG: *******************************

v1.3:

• Portable version through static linking. Less space and no more DLL dependency.
• Bug fix involving incorrect group index when switching between scenes, which could lead to crashes.
• Added missing information when saving/loading projects, regarding changes in SW overlapping order between scenes, which was mistakenly not taken into account in prior versions.
• Minor interface improvements.

v1.2:

• Added a new feature to encode in a separate process (enabled by default in the 32-bit version and disabled by default in the 64-bit version), selectable in Preferences. Allows a larger allocation of RAM for the encoding video subprocess, very important in 32-bit processes (which are limited to 2 GB of maximum data allocation).
• Interface improvements.

v1.1:

• Included a 32-bit version.
• Automatic zoom adapting after changing the resolution of an existing project.
• Fixed video format switching issue.
• Fixed "Redistribute SWs..." action.
• Bug fixes.

****************************** OLD VERSIONS: ******************************

SWGenGUI-1.2 (64-bit)
SWGenGUI-1.2 (32-bit)
SWGenGUI-1.1 (64-bit)
SWGenGUI-1.1 (32-bit)
SWGenGUI-1.0 (64-bit)

[swfn]

Here is the first tutorial. It covers the most basic features.

Tutorial 1 (basics)

The extraction password is shown in the image below.

[Doll-Elf]

error downloading: This file has been downloaded too many times.

[swfn]

Oh my goodness, why do the WHOLE set of current file hosting servers suck so much? Trying right now on MEGA. Let us hope it does not complain with the exe file of the package or the password protection of the tutorial...

I will edit the links once they are ready (if the uploads don't fail, of course).

Edit: Updated links. You may try downloading them now. If the file hosting servers keep ruining my links, I will consider creating public torrents for all the current and future stuff.

[qzar9999]

I'm way too fuckin' tired to try this out tonight.

But I'll admit I'm intrigued.

You should probably also know the download worked fine for me from MEGA...but when I try to run it, it says it's missing three .dll files. It says it's missing "Core," "Widgets," and "Gui." They're right there in the directory, but they each have a "d" on the end of the filename. Can I just rename them, or am I misunderstanding something?

EDIT: Tried that, didn't work. Evidently it needs the regular and "d" versions of the files. So I don't know if something is missing from the 7Zip, or what happened.

[swfn]

Thanks for the report and I am really sorry for that. I copied the wrong DLLs from a prior version that I was using for debugging purposes (that's why some DLLs had a "d" at the end of the one and it was asking for the file without that "d"). Now this version should work, please confirm when possible whether I am correct or not, the link is now updated with the new version.

[Vicky Mouse]

I feel like this is a real sw ray and we're all mad scientists. lol.

[swfn]

Originally Posted by Vicky Mouse

I feel like this is a real sw ray and we're all mad scientists. lol.

I have felt that way more than once while developing the code, especially after the first major implementation successes. Too bad I was not wearing a white coat and fogged glasses with spiral patterns.

By the way, the second tutorial is ready, it covers the group feature and some other topics:

Tutorial 2 (groups)

The extraction password is attached in the image below.

[Doll-Elf]

I really don't understand the appeal of using a more defined system with a lot more complexities for a very simple scale change for images superimposed onto another image.

[swfn]

Well, if I understood well what you were trying to say, that's actually not the case.

When you generate the video after finishing a project, the shrinking/growing, zooming in/out and/or movements animations actually happen between the scenes and appear on the resulting video. The computation of these transitions between the scenes is performed frame by frame while the video is being created. Therefore, the scenes are not merely superposed between them; obviously it would be a pointless effort to make a program for just the mere purpose of overlapping still images.

[qzar9999]

Well, I can confirm the updated download works properly, but I've not had time to actually use the program yet.

Will get back to you when I do, but in the meantime, thanks for sharing!

[Jaran]

This is really well done and the tutorials are clear and easy to follow.

Awesome work.