Audio lib

Development
1

I came across a C++ library for audio manipulation. https://github.com/neXyon/audaspace

It is actually the audio library used by Blender and it is being kept as a standalone project for anyone to use.

I don’t know much about this lib but I thought that it could be interesting @chchwy

2

There is also GStreamer.

This one llooks even better because it handles video manipulation as well. It is also cross platform and it is actively developed. It is the A/V engine of Pitivi.

In “The vision of Pencil”, it is said that Pencil would integrate video layers with the possibility to edit them. This lib would make it possible.

3

@feeef Nice! although I thought that basically all things like that could be done with FFMPEG? https://www.ffmpeg.org/

I’ve been reading about their differences and Gstreamer seems to be really nice, aside form being cross-platform, and since it has good documentation it seems to be used by “bigger” programs, so hopefully that would help to integrate it faster with Pencil2D.

Good finds!

4

One other lib that we could use and which relies on FFmpeg (and other great libraries) is MLT.

It is the multimedia engine that Kdenlive is based on. As Kdenlive is made with QT, MLT may be an even better option for us to integrate in Pencil2D.

I use Kdenlive quite often as it is my main video editor software. It is a very powerful and stable software.

5

+1 for KDEnlive, I didn’t know they also developed it in Qt! Indeed it might prove a great solution for Pencil2D. Great job!

6

The advantage of using MLT is that we would have the ability to import / export an MLT XML project file that would be directly editable in Kdenlive, Shotcut and others, which are amazing editing software based on MLT. Those software could also send their “timeline” to Pencil.

It would make a very good workflow between animators and editors without worrying about exchanging their work. In this workflow, we would never have to compile or render anything to a flat output. Both the editor and animator would always share and work on independent tracks and layers.

One workflow would be :

  • The editor cuts a film and send it to the animator through an MLT XML file.
  • The animator adds some 2D animation effects over the film and send it back to the editor for the final grading.
Another workflow would be :
  • The animator animates and compose a series of shots that form an entire sequence, then, send this bunch of sequences to the editor.
  • The editor has them straight away on the timeline still being able to access different layers independently on his timeline and be able to fine tune the edit, the compositing and do the final grading.
We can imagine other very good workflows. Especially if Pencil2D handles basic editing features as it is specified in the Vision of Pencil document.

MLT could make all this possible and make Pencil go a big step forward to becoming a professional animation software.