SAI Animation PeekQuick Animation Preview for Paint Tool SAI
version 1.8.0 by Alexander Vourtsis (
@alexandervrs)
( Introduction )SAI Animation Peek is a small utility to quickly preview layers as a sequence of animated images. In other words, it greatly helps animators previewing their work while working in Paint Tool SAI. As I work a lot with Paint Tool SAI myself in order to create frame-by-frame animations, it was a lot counter-productive to export every single layer as a PNG manually in order to test if any details were off. This tool will take a PSD file that you will be working on, and every time you save a new animated preview will be generated for you, so you can quickly preview your animation.
The problem with SAI is that the .sai file format is not under anyone's radar, plus it is not well documented, so there's no parsers out there to help, but for PSD, no matter how broken the file format is, there are some (non-perfect) solutions. ImageMagick is one of the best choices I had when creating this tool.
( Installation )SAI Animation Peek depends on ImageMagick commandline tools (which are free), to install them please go to:
http://www.ImageMagick.org/script/download.php#windowsMake sure the ImageMagick version you are installing is
7.0.7 or later( Usage Instructions )1. Open Paint Tool SAI and save your work as PSD (not SAI as you normally would do)
2. Use individual layers as frames for your animation
3. Press "Open PSD..." button to select the target PSD
4. Draw in SAI on some layers, Save the PSD, the preview will be automatically updated
*** Important note would be not to Save too fast one time after the other, otherwise SAI will throw an error. In that case, save your PSD with a different name and reopen the utility. SAI2 handles this better
5. You should now see your PSD layers animated with your set FPS
When loading the PSD, the following options affect how it displays:
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Quality - Determines the conversion quality, this might affect the Update speed the larger the value
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Exclude Layers - You may use a layer placed at the bottom of the layer tree as background to help you draw in SAI, in case you do that, you should choose to exclude the bottom layer. In the same way excluding the topmost layer can also help you if you're using some sort of guide lines or grid. You can also exclude both at the same time
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Exclude Odd Layers - Ignores every odd layer in your PSD file (e.g. layers 1,3,5,7...). Useful if you use odd layers for your frames' colors below the frame lineart & want to keep them all in the same file but still wish to preview and fine-tune the lineart
The following preview options are also available
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Color - The preview pane background color
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FPS - Determines how fast the animation plays
*
Animate Yoyo - Animates the frames back in reverse when the animation ends, useful if you want to see if your animation loops backwards seamlessly and might save you redrawing some similar frames
Check the included Readme.txt for more info on advanced settings too!
This app is free! If you are using this app and find it useful, please kindly consider a donation, thanks!

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>> Download << Updated to 1.8.0!Suggestions & feedback welcome!
