Kaleider Scripting

The Scripting feature makes it possible to design and refine choreographed performances of Kaleider effects and movements.  It can also be quite useful for digital artists, since it provides a simple way to preserve all of the information needed to reproduce created images.  (A Remake Script can optionally be saved along with a saved image, and later used to recreate that image.)  While Record is activated, Image, Movie, Control, Effect, Tiling, Room, Mapping, Colors, Pattern and Combo Actions are captured as a Recorded Sequence.  Recorded Sequences can be saved as Script files.  Play can be initiated to play back either the currently loaded Script file or a Recorded Sequence.

The Script Control and Editing screen provides versatile functions for loading, saving and editing Script files and Recorded Sequences:

A Script consists of a series of recorded Actions.  Typically, an Image Action occurs first to load or revert a source image.  Alternatively, a Movie Action could load a Video File, Video Device or Image Sequence.  A Control Action might select a Surface and/or set Mask/Mandala appearance parameters.  Then an Effect Action is applied to create an effect.  One or more Tiling Actions might then perform shifting motions on Effect Tiles.  Room Actions are recorded to describe the 3D environment and movements within Rooms.  Mapping Actions specify how the Mapping feature might be included.  Colors Actions control how colors are shifted when Animate Colors has been activated.  Pattern and Combo Actions are used to process Pattern and Combo events.

Editing functions make it easy to refine Scripts and experiment with different Action combinations.  Cut, Copy, Insert, Append, Delete and Modify operations can be applied to selected Actions within either the current Script or a Recorded Sequence.  These might be used, for example, to splice portions of a newly recorded sequence into an existing Script.  Modify can be used to change certain Action characteristics (or just to view information about Actions).  Specific pictures can be recorded to load as souce images in Scripts, or Load Next Image can be specified to load the next image in the current Image Gallery or Image Directory.  (Effect and Tiling Actions can be automatically scaled to adapt to source images of different dimensions.)  Tiling and Room movements can be trimmed or split into multiple Actions, perhaps with different options and characteristics.  A different Surface type might be chosen.  Mask/Mandala appearance might be altered by switching to a different Shape or Stencil.  And so on.  A portion of a Script or a Recorded Sequence can be played by unchecking the Play All box and entering the range of Seq numbers to be played.

Automatic Effects can consist of any mixture of Random Effects and Scripted Sequences, making it possible to design performances that are totally random, entirely choreographed or some combination of both.

Scripting might be considered an alternative to capturing screen sequences as video recordings (to file formats such as AVI, MPEG, WMV, etc).  However, there are some significant advantages with Scripting.  Very little CPU overhead is incurred while recording a Script, and the resulting Script file is miniscule compared with any sort of video recording of comparable length, resolution and quality (by a factor of at least 10,000 to 1).  The same Script could be applied to different source images, possibly of different dimensions, allowing for a great deal of variety and flexibility.  Scripts can be easily edited and refined.  You might decide to remove unsatisfactory Actions from a Script, record better sequences and splice those in.  Segments might be inserted or appended from one Script to another.

Of course, it's also possible to capture Kaleider display sequences to Video files!  However, even when creating a Video it can be very helpful to first record action as a Script, experiment with and refine the Script, and then activate Video Capture while playing back the Script.