CineCast - A Win10 x64 App for creating Feature Film End Credits Rolls [Developed in PureBasic]

[Tawbie]

Hi everyone,

Prompted by threedslider's post "Any list professional program coded in PB?", viewtopic.php?t=85045, I decided to share my story.

THE MOTIVATION:
When creating a credits roll for a film, I have found that although video editing platforms typically provide enormous flexibility for positioning text, the process is largely manual and time-consuming. Given that feature film end credits rolls are usually laid out in well defined structures, surely, I thought, it should be possible to create an app where you can virtually just type in the credits and relegate auto alignment to software. Such a tool would save filmmakers significant time (and money). Bear in mind, I am referring to complex multi-column credits rolls as typically seen in feature films.

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS AND CHALLENGES:
The main focus was on the User Experience. How to create a workflow whereby the user can focus on the credits roll design and text entry but leave the mechanics of the text and graphics layout to software. Entering credits on a spreadsheet-style input form was, to my mind, archaic and did not provide the tactile feedback of directly typing on the project canvas. The workflow also had to enable changes to be made without rework - such as moving blocks of credits around (cut/paste), changing fonts, font styles, relative font heights, font colors, capitalization, margins, spacing, etc... without retyping any of the credits. The other key challenge was being able to change the credits roll duration without creating flicker, ever. This required a new and processing-intensive algorithm to be developed and to be coded to run in real time. Other software challenges included support for real-time previewing of credits rolls at up to UHD (4K) resolution and 60Hz. And of course, relevant industry standards were supported.

The design, development and testing of the CineCast app took several years, and as usual, was far more complex than anticipated. However, PureBasic rose to the challenge and was a delight to use throughout, albeit with additional direct Win API calls and some ASM.

THE PRODUCTS:
⦁ CineCast [Studio Edition]: A full-featured professional (Hollywood-calibre) version requiring a license key.
⦁ CineCast [Indie Edition]: A FREE version, designed for independent filmmakers on tight budgets. (No subscription, No registration, No Ads).

VIDEOS:
I invite you to view the following short YouTube videos to see the CineCast Workflow/User Experience in action.

CineCast [Indie]: https://youtu.be/Z4wbJT4EcEk

CineCast [Studio]: https://youtu.be/QVMw0wWvImw

The Apps can be downloaded here: https://cinecast.com.au/download

And, there is a lot more info and many more videos on the CineCast website: https://cinecast.com.au

My thanks to the PureBasic Forum which was very helpful throughout the development process; and of course to Fred and the team for developing PureBasic.

I welcome and would be most interested in feedback from the PB community.

Cheers,
John

[dige]

Looks very impressive. Wish u good luck with the project!

Kind regards

Dige

[mrbungle]

Very impressive. PB can create commercial quality tools for sure!

[PBJim]

My thanks to the PureBasic Forum which was very helpful throughout the development process; and of course to Fred and the team for developing PureBasic. I welcome and would be most interested in feedback from the PB community.

It's quite an achievement, well done. I hope the project attracts plenty of users for you. Incidentally, how was the voiceover made?

[Mijikai]

Congratulations, that looks really good!

[idle]

looks very good, thanks for the write up and posting.

Back around ~2004 I did a simple 3D video fx engine in VB6 and OpenGL, all that remains is a very low res test video of the particle engine and rendering video onto a cube. You added objects to the scene graph with drag and drop, billboards, 3D shapes, text, particles engines, lights, set textures, actions like zoom rotate translate along the time line and once you were done it spat out a video. It was pretty neat and then I managed to lose the source which took out the back up too from a power spike.
https://atomicwebserver.com/particals.wmv

[Tawbie]

Thank you all for the kind words and encouragement.

...Incidentally, how was the voiceover made?

The voice over was made with Vegas Pro 365's AI Text to Speech.

... It was pretty neat and then I managed to lose the source which took out the back up too from a power spike...

The wmv demo is quite impressive. Really sorry to read about your losing the source code. There's a lesson there for all of us. I maintained 3 version-controlled backups throughout the development process but media failure is always a real concern.

I also quickly learned that for a project that spans months, let alone years, even the author can have difficulty remembering how certain parts of the code work or why certain decisions were made. Good, clear documentation is critical and worth every minute it takes to write.

[idle]

... It was pretty neat and then I managed to lose the source which took out the back up too from a power spike...

The wmv demo is quite impressive. Really sorry to read about your losing the source code. There's a lesson there for all of us. I maintained 3 version-controlled backups throughout the development process but media failure is always a real concern.

I also quickly learned that for a project that spans months, let alone years, even the author can have difficulty remembering how certain parts of the code work or why certain decisions were made. Good, clear documentation is critical and worth every minute it takes to write.

Thanks, It was intended to make cheap adverts and titles, a similar application at the time was bluff tilter, which still appears to be going today.

It was a bit of a horror to have both the PC and NAS drive get fried. Thankfully there's large usb and cloud storage today.

Your project is very slick and I'm sure I've come across your company name CineCast before, if not here somewhere else.
Seriously impressed.

[Fred]

Congrats for this achievement, it looks very good ! Best luck for your project

[Rings]

wow, looks very good.

[ChrisR]

It’s a beautiful project. A great idea to offer a complementary, simple and user-friendly tool to video editing platforms, I hope for you that it will find its audience.

[Tawbie]

Thank you Fred, Rings and ChrisR for the good wishes.

... A great idea to offer a complementary, simple and user-friendly tool to video editing platforms, I hope for you that it will find its audience.

You're spot on. That is exactly how I am positioning CineCast; and indeed, the greatest challenge is in getting to the right audience.

[Catdaddy]

This looks absolutely awesome.

[Tawbie]

This looks absolutely awesome.

Thank you. PureBasic is indeed a powerful tool.