Remake 0.6 Released

I am happy to announce the release of “Remake” – unified build system for animation projects.

Download: download.tuxfamily.org/morevna/m … es/remake/
Tutorial: wiki.github.com/morevnaproject/remake/tutorial

“Remake” is open-source solution used in animation production to maintain sources of animation footage. In fact it consist of two parts - template of animation project and a tool for rendering (and re-rendering) sources in a smart way.

Typically animation project contain footage files which are closely related with each other. When some file in the project is changed you have to re-render it together with all files dependent from it. It is very common that finding those dependencies is a tricky task and in most cases the safest solution is to re-render everything, which is time-consuming. “Remake” automatically tracks changes, detects dependencies between footage files and renders them. It is similar to build system used to compile software, such as “make” and others with the exception that you don’t need to write any configuration files with a list of dependencies for each file.

When managing animation project with “Remake” you don’t need to keep rendered footage with the project - it always can be easily re-rendered from the source files with a single command. That’s especially important for teams collaborating on the project online. The bandwidth required for transfering project files is reduced dramatically, as there’s no need to transfer rendered files together with sources. Every collaborating person renders sources himself, choosing preferred resolution he is comfortable to work with. In such cases “Remake” is most effective when used with some version control system (svn, git, etc.).

“Remake” is build around a particular toolchain. Currently it is supports “Synfig” (blender.org/) for 3D animation. Complex compositions where 3D is mixed with 2D are supported as well. For footage sequence editing also used “Blender”. “Remake” is modular system and can be extended to use with other software.

If you are about to start your own animation project with mentioned open-source tools (or already have one) it is good idea to try “Remake”.

Currently “Remake” is used in production by the Morevna Project (morevnaproject.org/).

wow… i never tough this would happen soon, it’s a shame that i can’t make use of it, mostly because… well… i have no projects to share =p, great news!

Looks very interesting, might be very useful!
I must try it when I get some spare time.

Hah I’ll give it a go since I already have a project to finish.

Remake 0.2 is out!

Download: github.com/morevnaproject/remake/downloads

Changes:
* Support for the Blender 2.5x.
* New “-t” option to run multiple jobs in parallel when rendering footage.
* New “snapshot” feature – you can save the current rendering as video file to track your “work in progress” changes. This feature is especially useful when your project is under version control. See manual page for more information.

Great! I’m looking for your feedback. Please consider to use the latest version (remake-0.2).

Hi Zelgadis,
I’ve been using remake, after using the tutorial. I’m making a small project with lots of small scene files (its closer to a power point presentation than animation, really) which get frequent changes. I found adapting the tutorial to my project a little confusing at first, however re-reading the tutorial after doing it has cleared a few things up.

Using remake is really good, and easy once I understood how it works. It really frees you up from keeping track of what needs re-rendering once changes are made.

Ryan

Thank you for feedback, zenoscope. I’m happy it working for you. ^____^

Remake 0.3 is released!

Download: github.com/morevnaproject/remake/downloads

Changes:

  • Support for rendering Pencil files (*.pcl). You need modified version of Pencil provided by MorevnaProject to have this feature working.
  • New rendering mode: “stereo”. We were sponsored by our friends from CifroCity company to develop this feature by their request. You can use this mode to create 3D stereoscopic rendering of your Blender scenes. Just create two cameras for left and right eye and name them as “Left” and “Right” respectively. When launched in this mode Remake will automatically render both views and stitch them into video file suitable for watching with your favourite 3D stereo player. See manual page for details.
  • New rendering mode: “deps”. In this mode Remake will render dependent files only, but not the file itself. Very useful when you working with video sequence file (project.blend): “remake deps project.blend” will make sure that you have all footage rendering up to date and you don’t have to waste your time waiting when full sequence will be rendered.
  • New “-c” option to select camera to render from in Blender files.
  • Support for processing mp3 files (will output as wav).
  • Compressed Synfig files (*.sifz) now supported as well.

Congratulations!
Great tool for the animation pipeline !\o/
-G

Remake 0.4 released!

Download: download.tuxfamily.org/morevna/m … es/remake/ (deb/rpm packages)
List of changes: morevnaproject.org/2012/02/18/re … -released/

Remake 0.6 released!

Download: download.tuxfamily.org/morevna/m … es/remake/ (deb/rpm packages)
List of changes: morevnaproject.org/2013/07/21/re … -released/

Great news…
With Remake welcome to the workflow …
Hope i will one day so an animator than i can test it ! :wink:

anim(:ya!

Zelgadis. Just wanted to say that you’ve been doing an awesome job with Remake so far! This is extremely useful, especially in commercial projects.

At first I used to think I’d never need this; but now that I’ve tried it, I wonder how I’ll ever live without it!

@tushantin:
I’m happy to know that Remake is used by someone else except us. To be honest, I thought that we are only ones who use it. ^^" So I’m really happy to know that it’s useful to you. ^__^

Hi!
@Zelgadis
Any slight chance that Remake might perhaps maybe could be ported to Windows, cos it’s a great piece of software esp in long, whether or not commercial, productions.
Greetz!

Hi, darkspace65!
There are high chances that you can use Remake on Windows through the Cygwin environment - cygwin.com/
Just use the Cygwin console to run remake commands.
Also, you probably will need to adjust system paths to your synfig installation using the command like like

export PATH="C:\\Program Files\\Synfig\\bin":$PATH

so Cygwin console can find synfig.exe binary.

Just tried Cygwin out of curiosity, so thought I’d update. Windows-based paths won’t work well. So if you’re trying to locate files on C:/ (assuming your Synfig binary is at C:\Program Files\Synfig\bin ) then you’re likely to type something like:

export PATH="/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Synfig/bin":$PATH

Also, make sure you install “Make” from the same installer you install Cygwin. In the installation process, you’ll find “make” in the “devel” bit in Additional Packages dialogue box.

Anywho, that’s just an update for anybody stuck. :slight_smile:

EDIT: I DID however run into a new problem. Got this error message, despite having the official 2.68a windows installer version.

FATAL: Installed version of Blender have no FFMPEG support! Please install Blender version compiled with that feature enabled.

Hi, Tushantin!
We have fixed the issues mentioned by you and now Remake can run on Windows (through Cygwin).
Please checkout the latest version from github - github.com/morevnaproject/remake/commits/master
Good luck!