Xion Community

First, thanks to you Cliff and the whole Xion Community.
I just found Xion two days ago and I am in awe - absolutely brilliant!

For us poor b$#gers who use PaintShopPro (PSP) and don't have PhotoShop:

Animation in Xion depends on layer sets, which are not supported in PSP. Is there any way you could simply add the equivalent of layer sets that could be handled by skin authors using PSP?

Suggestion would be a marker layer above or below the animation header -- I think a layer named <Layer set> might be the way to go. This is basically HTML format and comes to mind because when a layer set (in a PSD) is loaded into PSP the animation is concluded with a layer named </Layer set>.

Hopefully such an approach would minimize modifications to Xion's parsing code, since otherwise the syntax would be untouched.

I just posted my first skin attempt "Lava Lamp in a Box" where I have used the VU meter functions to create a semblance of animation in the background. It works quite well but is not as sophisticated as some of the incredible skins available. I would really love to get into some animation for my next skin.

Anyway, just thought I'd add a suggestion.

Once again, very many thanks for Xion -- such great work.

GIMP is free, saves as .psd's, and I'm 99% sure it allows layer sets (haven't touched it in years, so I can't remember)

http://www.gimp.org/

While i'd usually just disown stuff like this, i'm in a pretty good mood right now.

It's true that Xion's limited to only two programs at present time. While that might not be a bad thing, it certainly narrows down the list of possible skinners by a bit.

Now, as far as your suggestion goes, it's not a bad idea. Empty layers with names could certainly work somehow. The problem is, is it efficient in the end.

Cliff might come up with something better, so hang tight.

Hi MW_Xion and welcome to the Xion Community!

I'm happy to hear you're enjoying using Xion!

As to your request for PSP, its unfortunate that PSP doesn't support the layer sets. The </Layer set> that you see is actually embedded in the .PSD file as the name of the ending folder layer internally by Photoshop.

It should be possible to add support for this for you in the way you've described. Performance won't be affected at all as Xion will just interpret it and convert to a standard animation. The major problem I foresee is making any kind of complex animations. Without Layer Sets that you can expand and contract in the PSP interface it would be a nightmare of layers to wade through.

You might end up accidentally inserting a layer in an animation without realising it, especially if the animation frame length requires you to scroll through the layer window to get from the start to the end of the animation.

Thoughts?

Cliff

OfficerMike07 Wrote:GIMP is free, saves as .psd's, and I'm 99% sure it allows layer sets (haven't touched it in years, so I can't remember)

http://www.gimp.org/

OfficerMike07, thanks for the response.
I will check out GIMP as you suggest -- "free" is always good!
My real concern was less with the price of the software, but rather with the time invested in a given tool -- I happen to have used PSP in various versions since it was first released by JASC -- I guess one likes what one gets used to! I know that PhotoShop is the tool of choice but I haven't yet made the switch -- and I am sure there are others who haven't.
My thought was that the ability to do animation in PSP (and other tools that might not support layer sets) might be a way to further expand the use of Xion.
Anyway, thanks again.

Cliff Cawley Wrote:Hi MW_Xion and welcome to the Xion Community!

I'm happy to hear you're enjoying using Xion!

As to your request for PSP, its unfortunate that PSP doesn't support the layer sets. The </Layer set> that you see is actually embedded in the .PSD file as the name of the ending folder layer internally by Photoshop.

It should be possible to add support for this for you in the way you've described. Performance won't be affected at all as Xion will just interpret it and convert to a standard animation. The major problem I foresee is making any kind of complex animations. Without Layer Sets that you can expand and contract in the PSP interface it would be a nightmare of layers to wade through.

You might end up accidentally inserting a layer in an animation without realising it, especially if the animation frame length requires you to scroll through the layer window to get from the start to the end of the animation.

Thoughts?

Cliff

Cliff, thanks for the response. I am really enjoying Xion -- can't thank you enough! Being able to create and tinker with skins in this way is really exciting -- a damn clever idea using layer names as part of the command syntax.

As for PSP, I agree it's a shame they don't have support for layer sets -- PSP supports PSDs almost completely but layer sets get flagged as an unsupported feature. I'm rather surprised that they wouldn't try to fully support all of the features of PhotoShop, which is the industry leader and their competition. Maybe they do in the later releases -- I have seen very few useful features added to PSP, so I have chosen to remain back level on release 8 (played with later releases but didn't find anything that got me to switch up).

It was the fact that PSP interpreted the closing of a layer set with a blank layer called </Layer set> (obviously pulled from the internal PSD syntax) that suggested continuing with the HMTL-like theme. I can see that you get hundreds of requests for new features, so I wanted to go for something that would have the least potential impact. Also, my thought was that the ability to do animation in PSP (and other tools that might not support layer sets) might be a way to broaden the use of Xion.

I have never used layer sets in PhotoShop so I can't really comment -- I'm sure it would be clumsy with flat layers in PSP. I created a skin using the VU meter functions to create a proxy for animation, and that was probably worse. The nice thing is that I have a really good tool for simulating my experiments in near real-time, it's called Xion! I simply save to a PSD, then drag and drop to an active Xion window -- and presto!

Cliff, once again many thanks and g'day mate.

Completely out of topic, but

Every time you say PSP, i think PlayStation Portable. :/

logokas Wrote:Completely out of topic, but

Every time you say PSP, i think PlayStation Portable. :/

YAA - Yet Another Acronym

Context is everything! Now a PSP skin for Xion -- that's an interesting idea! I should look in the library. Maybe I could create a PSP skin in PSP.

Thanks.

I exlcusively use paint shop pro, and i make all my graphics in paint shop pro too.

Make graphics -> make layers (seeing as its the exact same concept as layer sets...) and then open it up in gimp or photshop, merge the animation into a layer set and save. this has been my process all along... But its not the best. Having "native" layerset support for psp is a great idea (seeing as PSP can do layer grouping in the window).

Ill look into the psp exporter for psd, i wonder why it fails at layers if its a simple fix!

I really don't know what I am doing wrong. I create the .psd file in Jasc PSP and Gimp and Corel Painter 11 but when I drag it, I can't see any controls. I don't know about this layers thing. I don't understand how it works and I know that's the key. Anyone here can explain to me in english? I am using Corel Painter, Gimp and Jasc Paint Shop Pro just to remind you. I don't get why I can't see the controls, play, pause, stop, etc

Topic hijacking is not nice. You have your own.