Single unit storyboard builder

This module of SBB is used to produce storyboard from a set of bitmap files. Some 3D program can render several bitmaps, one for each animation and each frame. To produce a storyboard from this would require to copy & paste every bitmap into a blank storyboard, at the exact location it should bo.

For a 15 frames animation, it means 120 bitmaps (8 directions x 15 frames), and with all the possible animations (up to 9), it's more than 1000 copy & paste! This can take a lot of time (about 8 hours for 1 animation).

SBB automates the process, and produce the storyboard in a just a few seconds.

 

How to produce a new single unit storyboard

Files preparation and selection

First, you need to prepare the single bmp files. There are a few rules to follow.

  • All the bitmaps corresponding to the frame of a given orientation must be in the same folder.

  • The name of these bitmaps must be Name0000.bmp, Name0001.bmp,..., Name0014.bmp (for a 15 frames animation). Warning : the name MUST end by a 4 digits number, and the first frame must be 0000, not 0001, and their should not be "hole" in the name (no 0002 and 0004 without the 0003).

  • Their should be one folder for every orientation. The names of the folders must be SW, S, SE, E, NE, N, NW,  and W. Beware to place the bitmaps in the right folder to get the right orientation in the storyboard!

Click on the Browse button in the Main source folder (or background) area to open the file selection window, and select any of the bmp you want to use (you can select any one).

 

All the orientation must have the same number of frames. If it's not the case, you will get an error message
If everything is correct, the window display some information.
  • Name of the source and ouput folder. You can change the output with the Browse button.
  • Size of the frame, and number of frames.
  • Preview of the image (bottom left), and available orientations (the checkboxes in the bottom center)

Setting the options

Orientation

After you have selected the initial file, the program will check the available orientations. If a folder is missing, the corresponding checkbox will be grayed out in the interface.

If you want, you can uncheck some of the orientations. The software will build a storyboard including only the requested orientation

Size

You can specify the size you want for each frame in the generated storyboard by changing the Width and Height value (in pixels). The preview is immediately changed to show the effect.

You can increase of reduce the size, but don't forget this will change the quality of the picture, so use it only if needed.

This feature is mainly used by users who prefer to render bigger pictures with the 3D program, and reduce the size afterward, when generating the storyboard.

You can change the width and the height independantly. However, if you do not respect the proportion the result may be a bit strange.

Color substitution

Using the Colors area, you can set 2 colors. The left one will be replaced by the right one. This can be useful when the background of the bitmap rendered by the 3D program is not the one you want in the storyboard.

The colors are defined un RGB, either by giving directly the value, or by clicking on the set button to select it in the standard color selection window.

Generating the storyboard

The last step is simply to click on the button. The program build the storyboard, and the preview image changes to show the progress of the work.

Using a second layer

In some cases, it can be interesting to render first the shadow, and then the unit itself. SBB supports this feature. Here is how to use :

When generating the storyboard, SBB will first copy the background images, then copy on top of them the foreground images, and it will ignore the transparency color (magenta) when doing it.

Working with bitmaps of different size

This is done automatically by SBB

As you can see on the left, the size of the bmp is not the same. In that case, SBB will scan all the bitmaps, and will propose a frame size big enough to fit all the individual images. This is the Width and Height displayed in the Picture Information area.

An exemple of the result is displayed on the left. The size of the frames in the storyboard is the maximum of the width and height of every individual bitmaps.

Note : in this example, the color substitution option has been used to replace the magenta color by the green color, and a 50% size reduction has been requested.

Warning : SBB will automatically center individual images into the storyboard frame. This could give some minor errors.
  • First, the user must check that the useful pixels ("the unit") are centered into his images, so there will be a contiuity between the frames.
  • If the size are not even, the result may not be centered correctly. This can be seen especially with small size animation.

For instance, one of the bitmap is 52 pixels wide, but the width of the frame is 63 (because the maximum width of individual bitmap is 63). Then, the difference is 11 pixels, so SBB will put 6 pixels to the left and 5 to the right. As a result, the unit is not perfectly centred.