Thumbnails for workfiles

[BigRoy]

@libor.batek

I have just to add something to it. I do prefer to have it for each workfile from simple reasons…it should be useful not for show of. So it should help artist to locate the proper workfile with visual aid and thats it. The only purpose.

So Im against single thumbnail for shot only (from latest or selected version) its just bells and whistles not being really too much of a use.

Did some more thinking and also testing out ideas and this is definitely true - you want to see the state per workfile, not for the asset/shot.

I actually even want the thumbnails laid out visually per workfile directly instead of only the right-hand side thumbnail. So preferably the list would also show the thumbnails.

I was thinking of prototyping it for now by just saving a {workfile}_thumbnail.jpg file or alike next to the workfiles, and when found that then the UIs would show it. It’d be the most trivial implementation that’d not require any database access, etc. It’d not be site-sync ready but I believe actual (non-published) workfiles aren’t anyways so I guess it’s a good start since it’s the easiest.

Then upon save for each DCC a screenshot would just be automatically grabbed from the current active viewport, e.g.:

• Maya

# psuedocode (tested now)
import maya.api.OpenMayaUI as omui
import maya.api.OpenMaya as om
view = omui.M3dView.active3dView()
image = om.MImage()
view.readColorBuffer(image, True)
image.writeToFile(f"{workfile}_thumbnail.png", "png")

# jpg actually preserves viewport background color so might be better
image.writeToFile(f"{workfile}_thumbnail.jpg", "jpg")

• Houdini
• etc.

So that however the user saves there’s no required user interaction for it.