Thank you

[sebarious70]

Just wanted to say thanks to Darby and whoever else is working on this. It's a nice small app that I use constantly to read EXR sequences I render from Blender overnight. Both versions, 2 and 3, do the job just fine without having to open heavier programs just to preview how the render went. So thank you. If there's a donation link, please reply with it.

[darbyjohnston]

Hi! Thanks for the message, I'm glad you find the software useful. If you have any feature suggestions feel free to create GitHub issues for them. I'll probably setup GitHub sponsors for people who would like to donate, but it may be a couple of weeks before it's ready.

[sebarious70]

You're welcome. There's one thing I can't find in the new version. In version 2, when I loaded a sequence that had missing ranges, or even one that I had set the step in Blender to 2, or 6 for example, DJV2 would load all that as consecutive frames. That made it much easier to have a quick look at what was rendered and being able to preview it, even if it was at much faster speed because obviously many frames were missing.

But in DJV3, it doesn't behave like that. If my first frame is 0 and my last one is 1400, it will load that length, and when I press play, I get flashes of rendered frames, or all the frames in a specific range if they were rendered consecutively. Is there any way to make it behave like version 2?

And one other thing I can't find is how to add bookmarks in the open dialog like in version 2, which was very useful.

[darbyjohnston]

I should probably add an option to toggle between the two behaviors, I think both can be useful. It would also be nice to have an auto-reload option for viewing in-progress renders. A couple of related issues:
#489
#416
#32

I also created an issue for adding custom shortcuts:
#547

[sebarious70]

Cool! The only other thing that makes me use DJV2 instead is that in that version, it defaults to convert EXR sequences from linear to sRGB, so it's more convenient. DJV3 has the ability to load the OCIO config file, but it has to be loaded each time. It would be great if whatever is chosen stays there until the user changes it, which in my case it would stay the same unless there's a new version of Blender released, so a new config.ocio has to be loaded.

I noticed that in one of the folders there's a license for Blackmagic Design. Is there a plan to support Blackmagic cards at some point? Is that what would show under Devices? That's empty, at least for me. But I have a Blackmagic card, so an output to it would be fantastic.

Thanks again for all your hard work.

[sebarious70]

Sorry, I meant a link that I can add to my build scripts, so the SDK can be downloaded as part of the build process. Maybe I'll send BMD an email and see if they provide that for developers.

Oh so if you put it along with your files it doesn't work? Because if your goal is to have the most updated SDK, I can set a reminder to check once a week and if a new one is posted, I can send it to you.

That's great to hear about the speed, is that with EXR sequences?

Yes, and they are EXR sequences with almost all the passes, so they are very heavy. Each frame is close to 200 MB. In DJV2, that can take a while to load, even if they are on a NVMe drive. But in DJV3 they load much faster, the only drawback is having to select the OCIO again and the color space for it and all that, which you said you will set it to keep the settings in a future revision, so that's great. Hell, I wish BMD would do that for Fusion, because every time I have to add an OCIO colorspace node, I have to do the whole thing all over again.

If you don't mind me many another suggestion, I prefer the way sequences show in DJV2 and most programs, which is the name of the file and then the first and last frame, rather than seeing the list of frames like this:

If the folder has only one sequence it's not a big deal, but you rendered several sequences to the same folder, it's much easier if you have each sequence showing as one file. Just a suggestion.

[darbyjohnston]

It's a bit large to include in the repo, but thanks for the offer; I'll reach out to BMD and see if they have a direct download link.

The EXR speed up may be from the new "multipart" support, it's supposed to handle layers much more efficiently.

I agree about the file sequences, it is a lot easier to browse. I'll look into adding it back.

[sebarious70]

I agree about the file sequences, it is a lot easier to browse. I'll look into adding it back.

Thanks! One idea that just occurred to me. I just opened an EXR sequence I left rendering overnight. For some reason, frame 850 didn't render, it's all black. This is not uncommon in Blender, it doesn't happen all the time but it happens. Now, there's a button on the toolbar to reload the whole sequence. My suggestion is to put another one that reloads just the current frame, that way it saves time by not having to reload all the frames, which would be especially useful if it's a rather long sequence of 1400 frames like the one I'm working on now.

[darbyjohnston]

That's a good idea about just reloading the current frame, I created an issue to keep track of it:
#551

[sebarious70]

That's a good idea about just reloading the current frame, I created an issue to keep track of it: #551

Awesome, thanks! I like that in this version when you go to File > Layers, it shows a submenu with all the layers. Very useful for when I forget to set Blender to render the composite.

Just out of curiosity, if I wanted to see the code, what would I need to open it with? Visual Studio Community 2022? Not that I would understand 99% of it, but learning code is something I have on my bucket list, and I imagine it's much easier if I start with a program that is not gigantic and that I already know, at least just to take a look at it and see if I can catch a thing or two. I already downloaded the code from here, but I don't know where to begin.