What's New in Chalice?

New in Version 2.0

Version 2.0 of Chalice has substantial performance improvements to computation speed and memory use, which will make it faster for interactive use, especially with large images.

The user interface has been revamped to be clearer and more consistent. For example, the node menus have been reorganized into new categories, and in some cases renamed. Many parameters have been relabeled to make them more obvious.

New features include a file proxy system, integration of motion blur into transformation operations, expanded grain-related tools, and a new time-stretch node. New stand-alone tools included with Chalice are 16-bit paint and a pair of image file utilities.

Note:
Refer also to the release notes section of the chalice readme document for the latest and most detailed changes list.

Performance Enhancements

Improvements in computation time and disk access will both speed up performance. Chalice 2.0 features direct I/O and a new caching system, which reduces memory swapping. In addition, the caching algorithms are smarter about what to save and what to give up. Monitors can now slice images, which also reduces memory consumption. See also "Memory Usage in Chalice " in chapter 4, "Key Concepts ."

Platform Support for Linux

Chal2.0 will render on Linux running on both Intel and Alpha platforms.

New Stand-alone Tools

Chalice 2.0 comes with a ready-to-run version of GIMP, the Open Source paint software . Silicon Grail did not write GIMP, and does not support it. To answer the need for a 16-bit paint package that can work with Chalice, however, we have packaged it with the Chalice distribution. The program can be found in /usr/grail/gimp.

GIMP is not automatically installed with Chalice; you must tell the installation program to install it. Refer to the installation instructions in chapter 3, "Setup ." For more information on the GIMP program itself, see the separate readme document included with GIMP.

Chalice 2.0 also comes with two file utilities: A new tool called fconv (frame convert) will convert and renumber ranges of frames. For usage details, type fconv at the prompt.

And a new tool called fcp (frame copy) will read in an image of one format and copy it to a different format. It uses the image suffixes to determine format, unless overridden. Type fcp to get usage details.

New Features

See also the "List of Changes by Node " at the end of this chapter for other new features specific to a node operation (such as motion blur incorporated into Transform).

Proxies

The Disk Input node has a new tab which allows the user to create and use low resolution proxy files for the full resolution input files. Proxies are helpful in two types of situations. One is when the full resolution files are not available, as with CG elements that are tested at lower resolutions than the final shot. These low-res tests can be used to start setting up the shot. The other situation is when all the elements are available, but the user wants to speed up interactivity by working with smaller versions. See the new manual section "Using Proxies in Chalice " in chapter 12 for more detail.

Monitors

Monitor and flipbook options have been refined and improved. For example, the A/B Wipe function no longer asks for confirmation before cooking the B image, and a new hot key (F9) has been added to snap an image back to the center of the monitor display.

And monitors can now use slicing: large images can be processed in strips, which reduces memory consumption and speeds throughput. See also chapter 8, "Monitors and Flipbooks ."

Chal Options

The existing -f option can now use the name of the Exec input instead of its number, if desired. The new chal -t option will display the average time for computing frames, and chal -j will execute the file sequentially (rather than interleaved, which is the chal -i option). For a list of all options, refer to appendix A, "Chal ."

STED

In the Chalice Space-Time Editor, channels can now be saved as raw ASCII data, and raw channel values can be imported into existing channels. See also chapter 9, "Space-Time Editor (STED) ."

Changes to the User Interface

Both the Chalice main menu bar and node menu bar have been reorganized and menus have been added or renamed. See also chapter 10, "Main Menu Bar ."

  • Preferences and Layout settings are better organized in the Chalice main menus.
  • New categories have been added to the node menu bar for easier access to nodes.
  • It is now easy to simultaneously change the way multiple nodes appear in the workspace (size, icon image display) using the Layout Menu .
  • License tracking reports can now be generated by picking the appropriate command from the new Admin Menu .

Other changes include improvements to error reporting--now only the source of the error turns red, instead of all the nodes in the error path. Also, the nodes have been redesigned to make the error flag easier to spot in a crowded layout.

A large, consistent resolution menu is now available throughout Chalice. And UI colors can be customized by each user in a resources file.

Name Changes to Nodes

Some nodes have been renamed in 2.0 and in some cases two nodes have been combined into one or a single node has been split into two separate nodes:

Apply Track has been split into Match Move and Stabilize .
Blur and Low Pass have been combined into a single Blur node.
Combine is now called Channel Swap .
Field is now called Deinterlace .
Linear Xlate is now called Linear Remap .
Meters is now called Pixel Meter .
Xform is now called Transform .
Cineon to Linear is now called Cineon Insert .
Cineon from Linear is now called Cineon Extract .

New Nodes

Two new nodes have been added to Chalice 2.0: the Degrain Node , which provides sophisticated grain removal using frequency analysis, and the Time Stretch Node , which changes the length of a clip.

List of Changes by Node

Color Node : Ramps now dither by default to avoid banding in 8-bit or 16-bit gradients. A popup menu of possible resolutions has been added as an alternative to keying in XY values.
Color Correct Node : You can now match levels of two separate images in the Contrast Stretch layer automatically by picking representative pixels in the work monitor.
Corner Pin Node : Clearer labels in the node panel.
Crop Node : Changed from specifying two corners to specifying a corner and a size. Added icons for ease of use.
Disk Input Node : New file proxy section allows you to create or point to existing proxy images. Sequencing has been expanded. The default Cineon conversion has been changed from "insert" to "remap." For clarity, the format option tabs are now disabled unless they are relevant to the input imagery. Now supports HD-resolution (1920 x 1080) YUV files.
Disk Output Node : File specification has been split into separate tabs for final output and temp output. For clarity, the format option tabs are now disabled unless they are relevant to the selected output format. Now supports HD-resolution YUV files.
Exec Node : Clearer node panel. Can execute finals, or low resolution temps.
Grain Node : Library of presets for common film stocks added. Node panel updated.
Scale Node : More filtering options. Rewritten to be considerably faster.
Sharpen Node : New filtering options added.
Transform Node (formerly "Xform"): Much faster. New motion blur option. More filtering options. Allows specification of pivot point, which applies to both rotation and scaling operations. Allows specification of transform order.
Xpresso Node : Now works from bottom to top (i.e., 0,0 is in the lower left corner of image), to be consistent with the rest of Chalice. Orientation in Y can be switched, however, for backward compatibility.

Deleted Nodes

Two nodes have been deleted from Chalice 2.0. The Black & Rolloff In and Black & Rolloff Out conversion nodes were removed because they became redundant. (The Bit Reduce and Bit Expand nodes provide the option of using the black-and-rolloff operation.)




Table of Contents | Index



Copyright 1996-1999 by Silicon Grail Corporation