shake import tips and tricks

[kyzr40]

I usually run into a whole number of of problems while importing ssf files created in silhouette. Any small thing can trigger a complete project to not import at all.

some work arounds

export each spline one at a time, on importing them into shake you can usually find the one that is causing the prob. once that is done

step 2 try to copy and paste the spline and delete the old one.

step three look for any unclosed points along the spline shape

step four export out a silhouette shape file and re import that, then export out a ssf file.

these usually help me find the problem and correct it until now I have a shape about 575 frames long none of those problems exist anyone else have tips or tricks. Im not about to have somone redo a 570 frame roto. tech help!

[perryk]

The shake ssf format is extremely primitive.

Can you describe in more detail the problem you experience and could you email the offending ssf file (and if possible) the sfx project to support@silhouettefx.com?

Thanks

[jbills]

FYI, I do a fair amount of this, and have not had one single problem exporting to shake since updating to Shake v4.1

[marcop]

If you need to send a Silhouette project to us, you should send it to the following address: sfxsupport@silhouettefx.com

If the shapes were created in After Effects and imported into Silhouette, you can experience problems upon export to the Shake or gMask formats.
AE has an option called Preserve Constant Vertex Count Option in the General Preferences dialog. Make sure this is turned oln when creating shapes that will be imported and exported with Silhouette. Otherwise, the shapes won't properly export.

[kyzr40]

I sent the problem file to support. thanks for getting on this for me

[kyzr40]

one more work around. adding shapes to layers is a bad idea. for exporting to shake. seems every layer deeper you add your shapes it about doubles the file size.

[perryk]

Not double, no.

If a shape has no parents or all its parents have no transforms, only the shape's actual key frames are written to the SSF file.

If a shape is on a layer that is transformed, SSF has no way of representing the transform, so every frame of the shape must be written in its entirety. No matter how many transformed parent layers a shape has, it will produce exactly the same amount of output.

You are probably seeing the huge difference between an untransformed shape and a transformed shape (only key frames versus all frames).

This is a limitation of SSF, not a limitation of Silhouette.

[jbills]

if you're having issues with old shake 4.0 choking on large ssf outputs, you're right, you CAN cut the file size way down, perhaps in half or more, if you pull all of shapes out of tracked layers, export the tracks to shake, and recreate the tracking hierarchy on the shake side. you have to be VERY careful you set the reference frame to the same frame you applied the track on in silhouette.

perry's right - it's not silhouette's fault - the ssf format is just extremely primative.

what would be fantastic is instead of exporting a .ssf - if silhouette would consider exporting a .shk - a full blown shake script. This would overcome thei limits of the crappy ssf format. The Shake code obviously is dead in the water, so it's not like there'd ever be any updating after the exporter is coded. would be a nice "fire and forget" solution to those poor suckas still working in shake.