I have a great variant of the slate generator that I am creating in-house (but will gladly add it to the board once it gets a bit more evolved).
Right now, I am rendering everything on the command line, and have two macros to handle the slate generation. Problem is, I need to enter the shot number and version, amongst other variable, in about 63 places each. While it's mostly visible on the command line, if I miss one just one, I may have to re-render a fair chunk. So I want to try to consolidate the variables (shot number, version, etc.) into one master text file (hopefully for the entire project), so that I can simply change one file and then set the night's renders on without worry.
I've checked the AddTextFile macro and find it much too complex to comprehend (I'm not a programmer, but I can /bash/ out a basic script). I don't feel the need for horrendous error checking, or making sure that any accented character will work (I would like to, but alas, I'll just use non-accented equivalents for now).
So what it boils down to is that in the macros for my slates I'd like to be able to define the variables (and perhaps declare them as well) in a text file elsewhere.
Example (non-working code!)
CODE
image mySlate(
define and populate variables = foo.txt // includes var1 and var2
)
{
slateText = AddText(0,"{var1} & {var2}",...);
}
As it stands right now, I have {var1} etc. declared in the macro itself, and either use the UI or the command line to set them as needed. Too much room for error.
Cheers,
Martin