< Previous | Contents | Manuals Home | Boris FX | Next >

Types of Scripts

Sizzle supports three different script types: importers, tools, and exporters.

The importers read an input file, typically to add a new object or tracker path to the scene. An exporter examines the scene, producing an output file that will later be read by a computer-graphics or compositing package. Sizzle tools examine the scene and optionally make changes.

Since any script can read or write files, the distinction between types is somewhat arbitrary, but SynthEyes provides specialized amenities for the varieties, such as sticky export file names for exporters.

Import scripts appear on the File/Import menu, export scripts on the File/Export menu, and tools on the Script menu.

The scripts are placed in the scripts folder, usually located within “C:\Program Files\BorisFX\SynthEyes 2024” or /Applications/BorisFX/SynthEyes 2024” or "/opt/BorisFX/SynthEyes2024" or in a user-specific folder. You can quickly get to either folder with the two menu items at the top of the Script menu. You can also move the system script folder with the Scripts preference; that is worthwhile if you need to change or hide system scripts, or want an easy way to have all users see the same set. Be sure to do a Find New Scripts after changing the preference.

SynthEyes mirrors the folder structure into the menus, so you can create subfolders of related scripts and have them turn up inside a submenu. This can help reduce clutter and let you keep straight different versions of scripts, or distinguish standard scripts from your custom ones.

To tell which type of script is which, the header lines are different:

//SIZZLEI .ext Human-readable importer name [An importer for . ext files]

//SIZZLET Human-readable tool name [A tool]

//SIZZLEX .ext Human-readable exporter name [An exporter for . ext files]

SynthEyes will prompt for the file name for importers and exporters. Any script can read or write additional files if it needs to, by calling the appropriate I/O functions within Sizzle.

After running any script, you can undo its effect if desired.

< Previous | Contents | Manuals Home | Boris FX | Next >