Image to ASS v0.1

[pitty]

Name: Image to ASS Draw commands
Version: 0.1
Created by Diclonius85 from Diclonius Subs

Description: convert an image (bmp/gif/jpg/png) to pure ASS draw commands.

Download: http://diclonius.ro-anime.net/image2ass.zip

To do:
- improve the interface
- support image transparency
- improve the generated code

Check it out and let me hear your opinions about it.

The program is released AS IS without any warranty (might release the source code later)

[Starks]

Very clever...

[日本ひきこもり協会]

Good job. It really works well and on top of that, the generated .ass file isn't large at all.

[[darkfire]]

I tested it out and not bad. Even though motion will be tedious to do It is possible to do. It looks like you detect the color of every pixel and its opacity and use a square shape to duplicate it.

[diclonius85]

Well, finally managed to make some time to register here.

Originally Posted by [darkfire]

I tested it out and not bad. Even though motion will be tedious to do It is possible to do. It looks like you detect the color of every pixel and its opacity and use a square shape to duplicate it.

Well, just like u said it, however, there's no opacity detection in it (i hope to add it soon). The rest is just like u said, I simply read every pixel from the image and draw the pixel with the specific color at the proper position.
The motion is going to be a bit tedious, but I made the program to be able to include an image in the subtitles without much work. If you need more effects for the image, there's always other types of programs that can add images to the video stream with different effects.

I'm going to try to optimize the code a bit to decrease the ammount of code generated.

I'm open to suggestions on how to improve the convertor.

[PlasticYakuza]

I have to say I am rather impressed. Could see this being useful for a number of people.

[Starks]

It's the ethical person's alternative to pirating Adobe After Effects.

[Sylf]

I still can't see the benefit of using this over loading the source image using avs. Someone care to enlighten me?

[xat]

For automation purposes (if you really dare to) you'd technically have more freedom to perform transforms.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by Starks

It's the ethical person's alternative to pirating Adobe After Effects.

no it isn't and you have to know it
what the christ made you think of this analogy anyway

edit: technically you can do very very interesting things with Animate() in Avisynth as well :>

[D404]

SVG support would be lovely..

[Starks]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

no it isn't and you have to know it
what the christ made you think of this analogy anyway

edit: technically you can do very very interesting things with Animate() in Avisynth as well :>

I know plenty of karaokers that can work miracles with the draw command... Ever see Xat's work on the Simoun OP? Thousands of lines of code...

[edogawaconan]

I still don't understand what's the point in doing flashy karaoke though...

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by Starks

I know plenty of karaokers that can work miracles with the draw command... Ever see Xat's work on the Simoun OP? Thousands of lines of code...

Yes, but this is not related much at all, other than using the same command. And I still don't see how the heck this does motion tracking, blur effects, masking or other things that AFX is good at but ASS is bad at.

edit: this program isn't really all that useful for transformation fun either, because it just directly translates pixel-for-pixel and each line in the input gets its own ASS line in the output, which gives you all kinds of funky limitations... so like Sylf said, I don't really see the advantage of using this instead of just overlaying with Avisynth.
For most karaoke purposes you want rather simplistic shapes anyway (especially since this program doesn't support transparency yet and can't tell the difference between a shape and its background), and those are easier to do with an ASS drawing program, of which there is at least one.

[xat]

Maybe this might work a bit more favourably if it converted bodies of color (maybe tweakable by threshold) instead of taking a pixel for pixel approach?

[diclonius85]

Version 0.5 is out.

Here's the list of changes:
* Improved code.
* Added binary transparency support.
* Changed code generation to one pixel per line.
* Added alpha transparency support (based on bitmap mask file).
* Added PNG alpha transparency support.
* Changed style name from "Default" to "Image".
* Interface redesigned.

Download: http://diclonius.ro-anime.net/image2ass.zip (506 KB)

The program is released AS IS without any warranty.

[adrianmak]

I tested by creating a jpg image in white background color.

I used "Binary transparency" tab to load my jpg image, checked "use transparency" and select color to white.

However the result is bad as shown below.

[TheFluff]

say hello to jpeg compression artefacts
use something lossless like png instead

[diclonius85]

Originally Posted by adrianmak

I tested by creating a jpg image in white background color.

I used "Binary transparency" tab to load my jpg image, checked "use transparency" and select color to white.

However the result is bad as shown below.

TheFluff is right. JPEG's use a lossy compression format that introduces quite a bit of artifacts to the image.

I will see if I can include a Tolerance value to compensate for these artifacts.

[pichu]

Now that's an idea...

When I first looked at this thread yesterday, I was wondering why would anyone do from png/bmp/jpg to .ass; most people will try to convert from svg/emf/wmf/ai to .ass draw commands since they're all in vector.

But, I noticed that from rasterized image to .ass may not be a bad idea if it works. I saw people mentioning about using it in karaoke, but I don't think it's feasible in karaoke at all. In .ass typesetting, we sometimes do need to extend horrible signs, signs with gradients and shades. It's extremely difficult to do so without a proper package. Bitmap has been very easy to do with the help of photoshop, paintshop pro, or gimp, thanks to layer duplication, clone stamp techniques, and basic paintbrush.

I conducted one test on this program with my already-made sign in photoshop with aftereffects (ae is used to precisely zoom the sign). This sign is zooming, so the program won't be feasible in this area, unless you can make .ass on a sequent of images, but then why bother when you can overlay the video instead? :P So it seems to be more applicable to static signs.

The following is an image with its png (alpha-enabled) overlay: (It's taken from an unreleased Froth-Bite's Sky Girls episode since I have that image on my screen)

(How I made that image? I duplicate the area and paint it through - a one minute job. I normally apply noise-reduction filters to the original video to enhance the overlay. And yes, tolerance-level will help reducing the size of the .ass file greatly.)

Spoiler for Some Screenshot:

Your program produces: (I'll get to the details soon)

Spoiler for Some Screenshot:

The correct overlay:

Spoiler for Some Screenshot:

---

It looks pretty good, except the .ass file is like a bit bigger than 5MB heh.

It appears that the program didn't handle the transparencies accurately (or maybe it's vsfilter's fault). Can you care to check it? Thanks. I probably have some transparencies layered there because I want the plate blended in correctly, but other than that, keep up the good work for .ass typesetters.

-pichu.