Chaos Player single image Issues and Version Downgrade

[jc_teo]

Hello Chaos Player Community,

I hope this message finds you well. I’ve been using Chaos Player for the past few months and have encountered a couple of issues that I’d like to bring to your attention. Your assistance and insights would be greatly appreciated.

1. Add Layer Function: When I use the “Add Layer” function in Chaos Player, I’ve noticed that it automatically creates a sequence if the file names are the same. For example, if I have 100 different still images with unique names, I would expect to see them individually. However, Chaos Player automatically sequences them, which is not the behavior I desire. Is there a way to prevent this from happening or an alternative approach I should consider?
2. Version Downgrade: I attempted to downgrade Chaos Player to an earlier version to see if the “Add Layer” issue persists in older versions. However, despite reinstalling from different sources and even attempting to delete entries in the Windows Registry (regedit), the installed version always reverts to Chaos Player 2.10.01. This makes it challenging for me to explore older versions for troubleshooting purposes. Is there a specific process I should follow to successfully downgrade to an earlier version?

I’m hoping the Chaos Player community can provide guidance and solutions for these issues. Your expertise is invaluable, and I appreciate any assistance you can offer.

Thank you in advance for your help!
​

[yolov]

Hello there!

@jc_teo

• Add Layer Function: When I use the “Add Layer” function in Chaos Player, I’ve noticed that it automatically creates a sequence if the file names are the same. For example, if I have 100 different still images with unique names, I would expect to see them individually. However, Chaos Player automatically sequences them, which is not the behavior I desire. Is there a way to prevent this from happening or an alternative approach I should consider?
  ​[/QUOTE]

  Unfortunately, there’s no way to currently do this from the interface. I think we have a note about this in our to-do list and I’ll check and add one if there isn’t.
  Fortunately, there is _a_ way to do this, but it’s only from script access. You can launch player (or attach to a running instance) from a command line, give it a path to a file and immediately follow it by the --still_image flag. You can pass multiple files, each followed by that flag like so:

  
  "C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\Chaos Player\chaosplayer_qt5.exe" --attach C:\path\to\file.0005.exr --still_image C:\path\to\file.0009.exr --still_image​
  
  

  Let me know if that’s useful in any way.

  [quote=“jc_teo, post:1, topic:116723, username:jc_teo”]

• Version Downgrade: I attempted to downgrade Chaos Player to an earlier version to see if the “Add Layer” issue persists in older versions. However, despite reinstalling from different sources and even attempting to delete entries in the Windows Registry (regedit), the installed version always reverts to Chaos Player 2.10.01. This makes it challenging for me to explore older versions for troubleshooting purposes. Is there a specific process I should follow to successfully downgrade to an earlier version?
  [/LIST]
  ​
  [/quote]

  There shouldn’t be any issue changing versions in either direction, we do it all the time.
  One thing that comes to mind is if you’re using the stable builds from our nightly server, as opposed to the official ones from the website downloads.
  The stable builds all report the same version, until the version changes (moving forward with a release usually triggers that). They have a different version in the filename, but the build itself doesn’t report the build number. So if you’re trying the stable builds, you might actually be installing different builds, you just can’t see any report of that from inside Player.
  We have it on our to-do to change that, but it’s towards the bottom of the backlog, since it’s not critical.
  However, there hasn’t been any change in the ‘add layer’ behavior, so you don’t need to keep digging down in older versions, it has always been like that.

  Hope that helps.

[jc_teo]

@yolov

Hello there!

Unfortunately, there’s no way to currently do this from the interface. I think we have a note about this in our to-do list and I’ll check and add one if there isn’t.
Fortunately, there is _a_ way to do this, but it’s only from script access. You can launch player (or attach to a running instance) from a command line, give it a path to a file and immediately follow it by the --still_image flag. You can pass multiple files, each followed by that flag like so:

"C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\Chaos Player\chaosplayer_qt5.exe" --attach C:\path\to\file.0005.exr --still_image C:\path\to\file.0009.exr --still_image​

Let me know if that’s useful in any way.

There shouldn’t be any issue changing versions in either direction, we do it all the time.
One thing that comes to mind is if you’re using the stable builds from our nightly server, as opposed to the official ones from the website downloads.
The stable builds all report the same version, until the version changes (moving forward with a release usually triggers that). They have a different version in the filename, but the build itself doesn’t report the build number. So if you’re trying the stable builds, you might actually be installing different builds, you just can’t see any report of that from inside Player.
We have it on our to-do to change that, but it’s towards the bottom of the backlog, since it’s not critical.
However, there hasn’t been any change in the ‘add layer’ behavior, so you don’t need to keep digging down in older versions, it has always been like that.

Hope that helps.

Hi,

Thank you for the quick response, and I appreciate your understanding. My previous message was based on the information I found in the Chaos Player documentation on the website, which mentioned the possibility of adding a single image as an option in the interface. You can find it in this URL: [File Menu - Chaos Player - Global Site](File Menu - Chaos Player - Global Site​).

My goal is to present around 100 different shot images to clients and create a contact sheet that displays them all on a single page for a more appealing presentation. I believe this feature would be quite beneficial for various use cases.

Once again, thank you for your assistance, and I hope that this feature can be considered for an update in the next release version. I’m looking forward to any improvements that could enhance the functionality of Chaos Player.

Thank you.
​

[yolov]

The documentation is wrong, we don’t have a ‘add as still image’ option in the interface. It’s an error from copying over from previous versions. The option itself probably got removed by mistake.
However, I think we may be able to easily introduce something helpful.

I can see how it could be useful to be able to import a number of files as still images and make a sheet out of them.
My question is - how do you imagine bringing in all the files? This will help us do a bulk still image import in a convenient way.
For example - I personally wouldn’t like to click File > add single image > browse > open and repeat that another 99 times.
I would probably want to browse and choose a folder that contains all my files or pass a list of 100 filenames in some other way that allows me to do it with the least amount of clicks.
Let me know your thoughts.