I’ve hit something of a stumbling block.
I want to import the SWF as a media clip to ToonBoom’s timeline then essentially work in some animation layers over that.
Some SWF’s will import but come in as layers, others won’t come in at all saying they are invalid, but the SWF is externally playable.
My intention is rather simple…
1) Push video suite output to SWF
2) Import into ToonBoom timeline to develop overlay of keyframe animation
3) Remove SWF from ToonBoom and export final results with alpha transparency
4) Import that into video suite to overlay against the original full motion video at full resolution
Questions:
- What SWF version/formats are supported on import and will it work they way I presented?
- Will I instead end up having to dump each frame of video to file (like lowres JPG) then put them into the media layer/timeline to ‘mimic’ this functionality? If so, and I can get the exported files, is there a way to bulk import those JPGs into the same media layer/timeline in order?
To animate on top of video, you might want to try the following:
Using Quicktime Pro, output your video to an image sequence of JPGs or PNGs. This sequence will automatically be sequentially numbered by Quicktime on creation.
In TBS, open your project and create and image element.
Go to the first frame-cell of that image element and right click to open the context menu. Select IMPORT IMAGES>FROM FILE … this will give you a browser view and you navigate to your folder where you stored your video sequence. Select all of the images from that sequence that you want imported and click OPEN.
All of the images will be imported in order into your image element. Move the image element to the bottom of your timeline track list so that it is the bottom of the stack of elements and then you are ready to animate.
You can break the import of the image sequence into smaller chunks by limiting the frame sequences you select for import and you may find that if it is a large video that placing parts in multiple scenes in TBS makes working easier.
When you are ready to export your animation work just “uncheck” the image element of your video image sequence in the timeline and it won’t be rendered out with your animation.
Hope this helps-JK
Thanks much… I think I might be able to do the export like this from Vegas, but if not I’ll try to find my QT Pro registration and fire it back up.
Thx again. Was hoping to avoid the ‘bulk file’ madness with a SWF shortcut but whatever works at this point! 
It appears this may work with some limitations like you mention on video. Even a short film doesn’t make efficient use of memory. TBS seems to load all the TGA’s into active memory and the minute I try to move the image to the background layer it almost doubles the memory to 2.55 gig or so then goes down in flames.
Can’t really fault the app though. No way it was designed to take on that much at once. It would be nearly insane to try to do a full production in this manner. I should be using this to work with the film through the natural cuts in the video then reassemble it all in final production anyway.
I would think this would streamline everything… including allowing lots of edits for the scenes as required.
Thanks… looks like the start to something