Hello. Firstly, that pop up is not saying that AE crashed, only that it may APPEAR frozen. Secondly, make sure you have a comp selected when you press squirt and that there are no special characters in the name of the comp or the path of the project file.
Thank you for the detailed report! From what you've shown me, I believe the issue lies with ImageMagick (convert.exe) it looks like it is unable to open the intermediary AVI file. Can you check that convert.exe isn't being blocked by Antivirus? It is in the gifsquid/bin folder
Sorry for the delay getting back to you, I've uploaded a debug version of GifSquid that may give us more information about your issue. It is version 0.80b
Hello. I'm away from my PC for the next few days, but I'll get a new version uploaded which has more debugging features. Hopefully it will help us get down to the issue.
Generally you should launch scriptUI scripts from the "Window" menu in AE, not from the "File" menu.
The error you are seeing can be caused when the script is not fully installed (you must unzip everything in the zip to your ScriptUI folder). It can also be caused by using an unsupported OS.
Can you check for a file called "squidyavi.bat" inside c:\programdata (this is a hidden folder). If it exists, can you open it in notepad and paste the contents here? If it doesn't exist, try restarting AE, reopening your project, and manually clearing the render queue.
BTW, where did you buy the script from? I have never charged more than $5 for it, and you said you bought it yesterday but I don't see any transactions in the past 6 days.
Also, if you haven't yet, come join the High Quality Gifs discord where lots of people share help and advice. https://discord.gg/Yzcw7Q
Do make sure that your comp is selected before attempting to "squirt" a gif. It should add a render to the queue, render it, then use the rendered Avi to create the gif.
Hi Volive, I'm sorry you're having issues. Old versions of Gifsquid are no longer supported, but we can try to get you working. The first thing you'll need to do is replace the 'GIFsquid.bat' file in ScriptUI Panels\GIFsquid with the one here https://gist.github.com/hellphish/95a16d940f96a0bf8f6f3b3d16258708
Next, make sure you have imported the PNG sequence output template from the zip file, instructions are in the readme.
Last, before you press Squirt, be sure you have a comp selected in the project panel.
0.6 doesn't generate a squidyavi.bat file and should not be queing an AVI file. It should queue a png sequence, and the file it generates in programdata is called 'squidy.bat'
No, that is not how you should install it. You should unzip the entire zip file to the Script UI folder, not just the jsxbin file.
Close After Effects
Unzip everything in the zip file to the the "ScriptUI Panels" folder.
On After Effects 2015 this is usually at "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2015.3\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels" If you are upgrading, overwrite any existing files.
Open After Effects
Go to "Edit->Preferences->General..." and make sure "Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network" is checked.
Open Project CuddlePhish by going to Window->Project Cuddlephish. We like to dock it on the right!
c:\ProgramData\squidy.avi is generated by the plugin after rendering your comp to an AVI. It sounds like the render is never kicking off, but there is a workaround: Manually queue your comp for a render to AVI, and set the render location somewhere project-agnostic, like c:\projects\GIFs. Render your comp out, clear the queue, and delete the render. Squirting should now work.
The reason this workaround works is because GIFSquid/CuddlePhish render to the last location you rendered to.
Also if you haven't already, join the High Quality Gifs discord where lots of folks share tips and give advice.
the "can't find path" is normal, it just means there were no files to clean up. After that the "nothing happens" is your gif being made! It is very slow and there is no progress bar.
Framerate issues are usually from trying to compress at an invalid framerate for the gif format. Stay between 25 and 50 fps for good results.
Great write-up with pics! After the avi renders, the script will convert it to a gif and delete the avi. It uses the last location you rendered to, so for now just set a location for the avi and render it manually, then delete the avi. Now gifsquid should be able to do everything itself. To be clear, when you squirt the gif, it queues up an avi, renders it, converts it to gif, then deletes the avi.
I was able to fix it in my test scenario. Here is how you can fix it on your side.
Please make a backup of the GIFsquid.bat file found in "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2015.3\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels\GIFsquid".
Right click the GIFsquid.bat file and select 'edit'
Press Ctrl-A to select all the contents, then Delete to clear out the file
Hello, I apologize, I didn't see your reply until now. I'm working on a solution that you may be able to implement, but please understand that I am not able to provide much support for older versions. One of the reasons newer versions of GifSquid don't support transparency is because it was so problematic to deal with. That said, i'll try to work out something for this particular case.
it looks like you are missing wmic from your system path. Verify that you still have your windows directory and system32 in your PATH environment variable.
I did some testing on version 16.1.1 and it still works. There haven't been any major changes to the API. Can you try installing again, unzipping all the files and folders and checking the AE option to allow scripts to write files.
Hey somberoww, I'm sorry you're having trouble! it seems like you're doing everything right here so I'm not sure what could be wrong. double check that virus scanners aren't interfering with the .exe files in the gifsquid/bin flles. somtimes updates can detect these files as harmful since i'm not a big time developer.
I think you may be on to something. I've heard reports of Windows Defender flagging some of the binaries as malware. GIFSQUID uses FFmpeg and imagemagick (convert.exe) so double check those files still exist in the Gifsquid/bin folder
good advice about the malware. I just want to point out that the modal dialog says that AE may appear to crash, not that Gifsquid has detected a crash or anything. It stems from a bug in AE where scripts that launch the render queue cause AE to stop updating the UI.
There is no such thing as a 60fps gif file, unfortunately. Most 60fps "gifs" are actually mp4 files. GIF files don't use a framerate internally, they use a frame delay, which is how long to display each frame before moving on to the next. This delay can only be specified in 10ms increments, and 60FPS = ~16ms delay. If you are trying to make a smooth GIF file, I recommend no higher than 50fps.
So, usually it ends up making a folder called "GIFsquid_Output" in the same folder that your last render went to. If you can't find it, try adding your comp to your render queue manually and check the output folder (no need to actually render, just check the path) and then check for the Output folder there. Another option is to search the drive for "*.gif" and sort by date modified. Usually the folder is opened for you after the gif is done rendering, but sometimes it fails to open the right folder. I've seen this happen when the project is saved in the root of a folder (like T:\project.aep)
