CineBlast – User Interface

User Interface (UI) Overview

The CineBlast interface is designed to be both intuitive and powerful, logically guiding you from basic setup to advanced options. The main window consists of a Top Menu Bar, three main Tabs, and a Footer for primary actions and license status.

Top Menu Bar

Located at the very top of the window, the menu bar provides access to general information and help resources.

  • About Menu:
    • Contains the About CineBlast window.
    • Clicking this opens a dialog box that displays the plugin’s version, name, and copyright information.
  • Help Menu:
    • Contains the Documentation window.
    • This provides a quick way to access the online documentation website.
Main Settings Tab

This is the main control panel for every playblast. It is divided into five logical groups.

1. Capture Setup

Here, you define the fundamentals of your shot.

  • Camera: A dropdown menu to select which scene camera to use for the playblast.
    • Click the 🔄 icon to refresh the list if you add or rename cameras in the scene.
  • Resolution: Choose the final video’s resolution. Options include:
    • HD Presets: HD 540, HD 720, and HD 1080 for standard outputs.
    • From Render Settings: Automatically uses the resolution defined in Maya’s Render Settings.
    • Custom: Enables the Width and Height fields to input a custom resolution. Both values must be even numbers (e.g., 1280×720, not 1281×721)

2. Output Configuration

In this section, you decide the format and quality of the output file.

  • Preset Radio Buttons: For a rapid workflow, you can choose from four presets that balance speed and quality:
    • Preview (Fastest): Ideal for quick previews (H.264 + JPG).
    • Fast (Balanced): A good compromise between quality and speed (DNxHD + JPG).
    • Production (HQ): High quality for important reviews (ProRes + PNG).
    • Best (ProRes + TIFF): Maximum quality, ideal for compositing (ProRes + TIFF).
  • Video Codec: If not using a preset, you can manually select the video codec (e.g., ProRes, H.264). Note: The DNxHD codec is not supported for resolutions below 720p; the “HD 540” option will be disabled if selected.
  • Image Format: Select the format for the temporary images generated before video encoding. This choice affects quality and speed. PNG and TIFF are lossless formats, ideal for motion blur.
  • Image Quality: This slider only becomes active for image formats that support variable compression, such as JPG. For formats like PNG, quality is managed internally by the compression level.

3. Motion Blur Settings

This is CineBlast’s signature feature.

  • Enable Motion Blur: Check this box to activate motion blur simulation. This option requires the Pillow and NumPy Python libraries to be installed (see the “Settings Tab”).
  • Quality: A dropdown menu to define the motion blur quality. A higher number of “substeps” produces a smoother, more accurate effect but significantly increases render times.
4. Watermark

This section provides the master switch for CineBlast’s powerful watermarking feature, allowing you to protect and brand your work. It’s designed to give you a quick way to toggle the feature on or off globally without losing your detailed configuration.

  • Enable Watermark: Checking this box activates the watermark overlay on your playblast output. When enabled, CineBlast will use the detailed settings configured in this section, such as your logo file, text, position, and opacity.

5. Advanced Options

Options for file and folder management.

  • Include Scene Audio: If checked, CineBlast will include the active audio track from Maya’s timeline in the final video.
  • Keep Image Sequence: If enabled, the plugin will not delete the temporary frames after encoding. Instead, it will save them to a dedicated folder (images/kept_playblast_sequences) and rename them sequentially (e.g., SHOT_NAME.####.png), ready for use in compositing software.
  • Show Maya Ornaments (Grid, etc.): When checked, the playblast will include Maya’s native viewport overlays (like the grid, resolution gate, etc.). Note: This option is automatically disabled when the “Burn-in Overlay” is active to prevent visual conflicts.
  • Open Movie/Images Folder: Two buttons to quickly open the folder for final videos (movies) or temporary images (images/playblast) in your Maya project.
  • Delete Temp Images: A cleanup button that deletes all temporary folders generated by CineBlast.

Burn-in Tab

This section allows you to write text and metadata directly onto your video, an essential feature for reviews.

  • Enable Burn-in Overlay: The main checkbox to turn all text overlays on or off.
  • Apply Standard Preset: A convenient button that automatically fills the fields with a standard selection of information (like project name, shot, user, and camera).
  • Text Fields: The interface is divided into areas corresponding to the corners of the screen (Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left). You have two lines available for each area.
    • You can write custom text.
    • You can use the dropdown menu to quickly insert dynamic placeholders. These placeholders are automatically replaced with the corresponding metadata at render time.
    The available placeholders are:
    • {camera}: Name of the selected camera.
    • {date}: The current date.
    • {user}: The artist’s name (set in the “Settings” Tab).
    • {project}: The project name (set in the “Settings” Tab).
    • {shot}: The shot name (set in the “Settings” Tab).
    • {department}: The department name (set in the “Settings” Tab).
    • {focal_length}: The focal length of the active camera.

Multi-View Tab

This tab allows you to create playblasts that combine multiple camera angles into a single video, perfect for showcasing animation from different perspectives or for technical reviews.

Playblast Layout

This section lets you choose the arrangement of your camera views.

  • Single View (Standard): The default mode. This creates a standard, full-screen playblast using the camera selected in the “Main Settings” tab.
  • 2 Views (Side-by-Side): Combines two camera views horizontally into one video.
  • 3 Views (Split Left): Creates a video with one large view on the right and two smaller views stacked vertically on the left.
  • 4 Views (Quad View): Creates a classic four-panel split screen, with a camera in each quadrant.

The Auto Framing checkbox, when enabled, automatically fits each camera’s view to the currently selected objects for every frame. Disable this for full manual control over each camera’s framing during the playblast.

Camera Assignment

This section appears whenever you select a multi-view layout (2, 3, or 4 views). It allows you to assign a specific camera to each panel in your chosen layout.

For the selected layout, use the dropdown menus to choose which camera to display in each corresponding view (e.g., “Top-Left View”, “Right View”, etc.). The dropdown lists contain all standard and scene cameras available in your project.

Settings Tab

Here, you can personalize the tool’s behavior and manage its dependencies.

User Preferences
  • Info Fields: Artist Name, Project, Shot, Department. The information entered here is used by the placeholders in the Burn-in Tab.
  • Date Format: Choose the date format (DD-MM-YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD, etc.) that the {date} placeholder will use.
  • Font Size: Sets the font size for the burn-in text (Small, Medium, or Large).
  • Enable automatic version increment: If enabled, CineBlast will not overwrite existing files, but will add an incremental version suffix (e.g., _v001, _v002) to the video filename, ensuring you never lose previous work.

Dependency Status
  • This section is critical for the Motion Blur feature to work correctly.
  • It displays the status of the Pillow (PIL) and NumPy libraries: Found or Missing.
  • If a library is missing, you can click Check Dependencies / Show Instructions to display the command needed to install it via your system’s terminal.

Dialog Footer: License & Actions

The bottom part of the window contains the final controls and license information.

  • License Status: On the left, a label displays the current status of your license (e.g., Trial, Licensed, Expired). The adjacent Manage License button opens the activation and license management window.
  • Reset All: Resets all settings across all tabs to their default values.
  • Save All: Saves the current configuration as the default for the next time you open CineBlast.
  • Start Playblast: The main action button. It begins the entire playblast process using the current settings.