SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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)

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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

Tutorial 1 (basics)

The extraction password is shown in the image below.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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. :cool:

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.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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!

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

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

Awesome work.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

Thank you very much for your feedback, I am glad you liked it and found the tutorials useful.

Here comes the third one. Probably this is going to be the last "instructive" tutorial. Maybe I will be uploading a last one explaining in general terms the features not covered in the previous tutorials (except those being self-explanatory), but nothing else.

Tutorial 3 (miscellaneous)

The extraction password is attached in the image below.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

I unzipped the content and clicked the application:

"This app can't run on this PC"

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

This is most likely because you are using a 32-bit Windows OS. The program has only been compiled for 64-bit systems.

I happened to find a couple of bugs with not-so-tested features while I was doing the last tutorial. Since now I am developing the 1.1 version fixing these bugs, I will try to compile it also for 32-bit systems and release it for both architectures once I fix them.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

You're right, I was looking at "x64 processor" but it's a 32-bit.

Don't want to rush you in any way, but I'm looking forward to if you can ever make the other version. Thanks!

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

I have already compiled a 32-bit version. You can find it in the first post or downloading it here:

SWGenGUI-1.1 (32-bit)

For those using the 64-bit version, it is also recommended to upgrade to the newer 1.1 version:

SWGenGUI-1.1 (64-bit)

As for the 32-bit version, I am afraid to tell that you may experience random crashes when trying to generate the video. The encoder used in this application (x264) is very RAM consuming and it easily reaches the maximum 2 GB RAM limit that a process is allowed to reach in 32-bit OS. I have spent many hours trying to figure out why these crashes happened, thinking there was an error in my code that somehow went unnoticed in the 64-bit version, but I finally found out that it was due to that limitation.

In order to avoid as much as possible these crashes, you should avoid encoding with a resolution of 1080p (1920x1080), and instead encode with a resolution of 720p (1280x720) or any custom resolution below that one. You can change these settings in Edit/Setup. Anyway, I will upload soon the last tutorial focusing on all these features not covered in the previous ones.

In short, unless you are using an old processor with x86 architecture (32-bit) forcing you to use a 32-bit OS, stick to the 64-bit version of the application.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

And here comes the last tutorial:

Tutorial 4 (advanced)

The extraction password is attached in the image below.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

New version 1.2. Focused mainly on improving the performance of the 32-bit version.

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

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

New version 1.3. All changes are indicated in the first post.

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

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

You know, it's weird. I'm compiling the MP4 files as instructed in the first tutorial video, but the resulting videos don't seem to compile or load properly, as there's no imagery at all when I go to view them.

Re: SWGenGUI (the shrinking automator)
 

This is most likely because your player does not accept encoded videos with YUV444p pixel format.

Go to "Edit/Setup..." (or press "M") and in the "Pixel format:" field, change "YUV444p" by "YUV420p". That should do the trick, albeit the quality will be significantly lower.