Creative Workflow Hacks

64 bit issues running osascript from terminal

Dale — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:20:11 +0000

If you use osascript to run applescript from the command line, you may have run into errors looking something like:

Error loading /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types: ... no matching architecture in universal wrapper

This is due to osascript running in 64 bit mode and being unable to load a 32 bit addition. A quick fix is to force osascript to use i386 architecture, like so:
arch -i386 osascript path/to/applescript

In addition, you can now eliminate the error referenced above by downloading the latest 64 bit Adobe Unit Types.osax from the Adobe site.

Here’s hoping the 64 bit transition goes smoothly for all involved. I’m thinking the performance payoffs will make these little workflow snags worth the effort.

ProRes, After Effects, Final Cut And Gamma Shifts

Dale — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:26:56 +0000

Todd Kopriva posts a handy guide on how to avoid gamma shifts in an After Effects/Final Cut workflow using ProRes 4444. Gamma shifts have been the bane of my existence over the years and Todd gives a nice step-by-step and points to some good supporting resources.

Creating Workflow Tools for the Flash IDE Session at Adobe Max

Dale — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:57:28 +0000

Adobe just posted tons of great sessions from Adobe Max. I found this session dealing with workflow, JSFL, Flash IDE panels, etc. particularly interesting.

UV Mapping and After Effects

Dale — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:49:13 +0000

Jerzy Drozda (maltaanon), in his usual understated way, introduced Youveelizer his plugin for integrating UV Mapping in After Effects via a Pixel Bender plugin. It’s a really nice, tightly integrated plugin/workflow/training in the maltaannon style.

If you’d like to explore the UV Mapping concept in a developer style with a little less hyperbole, take a look at AE: Projecting a Movie onto a Complex Surface where David van Brink walks you through his experiments and includes a sample AE project.

Pixel Bender is really exciting. A very accessible kernel-style image processing platform without the baggage and overhead of digging into the AE SDK. There is also a useful subset of the kernel language that works in Flash, like these 3D Normal Mapping experiments. Give it a try.

Apple updates sample code with new Final Cut Pro Apple Events

Dale — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:16:19 +0000

Apple has updated their Final Cut Apple Event sample code to reflect the new Apple Events added to Final Cut Pro 7.0.

Quite a few look really interesting and I’m hoping to dig in as soon as I get my upgrade in place.

Primal Screen website launch

Dale — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:25:43 +0000

Proud and excited about the new Primal Screen Website. A big push at the end, but I think it showcases a bunch of talented designers, animators, and developers. I still do a little whistle when I see the depth and breadth of the Primal oeuvre.

Workflow tools from Michael Cinquin

Dale — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:01:37 +0000

Michael Cinquin has developed some handy workflow tools for FCP/Pro Apps. Lots of glue code for Red, FCP,Color, etc. Most of the tools seem to be web apps which makes it handy for remote locations. I’ve been wondering lately if a lot of workflow media tools and processes shouldn’t be moving to a web service architecture? Having been doing mostly web development for a while I can vouch for how handy it is to have an API to solve a problem.

Saving a download in Safari stuck at “Displaying the software license agreement”

Dale — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:15:27 +0000

I was stuck on a fairly large .dmg download via Safari today with the Download window reading, “Displaying the software license agreement”, like so.

I’m not sure what was up, but I knew I didn’t want to take the time to re-download it. Turns out a quick right-click, and “Show Package Contents” gave me access to the .dmg and it mounted and verified just fine. I don’t think this would work with a .download that was actually hosed, but maybe a web search to this post will save somebody a bit of download time.

Conduit for Flash Pixel Bender

Dale — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:10:53 +0000

I’ve been out of the workflow flow lately doing mostly web and mobile applications (hopefully more about that later), but ran across Conduit for Flash Pixel Bender which seems to have a nice crossover from the video to the web world. I’ve always liked Conduit, a nodal compositing environment sorta like a mini Shake, and now they’ve made it easy, well easier, to work with image processing in web apps. Very cool.

Motion XML File Format documented

Dale — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:32:21 +0000

This one has taken a while, but it looks like Apple has finally documented the Motion XML format. It’s been fairly easy to reverse-engineer, but now if you’ve got questions or gotchas you know where to look to find out what the deal should be.

The section on Modifying Text is especially useful for day to day hacking.