Suggestion re: cross-dissolves & EDLs

Storyboard Pro Storyboard Pro - Support and Troubleshooting
1

At our studio, SBP is used extensively in preparation for animators in Maya, and though it is a wonderful tool, I find that there are a few things that just do not work (EDL export per sequence) and some that would help a in a pipeline production:

  1. Often, cross-dissolves are used within scenes, like when we go from a day to a night BG. It would be a BIG help if dissolves could be between panels within a scene, keeping the scene structure intact.

  2. When we export for pipeline use, we use an EDL, an audio file and a reference movie. It would be practical if one could check a box so the EDL created would reflect the cross-dissolve by having both sides of the dissolve in full in there - as both sides have to be animated and rendered, even though they represent the same time in the film. So click “split dissolves in EDL” and it adds the length of the dissolve once again to the scene or scenes. This also for the sound export: click the box and it adds the length of the dissolve to the sound file so it fits with the new EDL. Right now we have to do this by hand, and it can be messy…

  3. Speaking of EDLs, the export of these does not work like exporting sound of movies, even though it says it does. To begin with, it does not give the files the right name, it just gives it the name of the project regardless of what one types. Furthermore it will not export one EDL per sequence “as advertised,” making this a manual task, as well. If this could be fixed so it works properly, that would be a big help!

2

Good afternoon A Film,

I will make sure we communicate your feedback and feature requests for 1 and 2 to our Product Manager.

Due to limitations with the EDL format, only the first four soundtracks can be exported, and sound clips that are used multiple times in the project will only appear one time in the exported sequence.

For exporting 1 clip per sequence, I was wondering where you saw the information. It can export one clip per scene or one clip per panel, but to make the scene selection easier, you can select scenes per sequences, but it will still export one clip per scene or one clip per panel. I was trying to find the information where it says it exports per sequence.

Selected Scenes
Select this option and click Select to open the Scenes Picker dialog box in which you can select specific scenes to export. You can also select your scenes per sequence if your project contains sequences.

For the filenames, the pattern is working for me. Are you typing a pattern?

%t = Project title
%a = Act name (when acts are enabled)
%q = Sequence name (when project contains sequences)
%s = Scene name
%p = Panel name
%l = Layer name (when exporting one image per layer)

If I am correct, sound clip files are copied in the export folders. They are not re-rendered with the pattern name.

Which Storyboard Pro version and build are you using?

Thanks!

Marie-Eve