qTool - User Manual

qTool is a collection of command line scripts written for CG/VFX artists. These scripts are powered by command line tools such as FFmpeg, Youtube-dl, ImageMagick, etc...

Key Features

  • Video / Converter: Any video* ---> h264/h65 MP4, Prores MOV, WEBM, etc...
  • Video / Converter: Any video* ---> Animated GIF, support transparency
  • Video / Converter: Any video* ---> Image sequence
  • Video / Downloader: Youtube, Vimeo... download any public video as MP4 or MP3
  • Image / Converter: PSD/EXR image ---> PNG/JPG image
  • Image / Converter: PNG image ---> Windows icon file ICO
  • Image / VR360: CUBE map (vray--->oculus), inject meta-data 360 map
  • Render / Redshift Batch Render (for Multi-GPU setup)
  • Render / After Effects Batch Render (utilize all your cpu cores to 100%)
  • Utility / Muxer: Change video container without changing codec (MOV <---> MP4)
  • Utility / Muxer: Add thumbnail to MP4 (meta-data only)
  • Utility / Muxer: Concat (combine multiple videos into a single video)
  • Utility / Frame Checker: list out missing frame numbers from a image sequence

  • *Any codec/format video refer to ffmpeg's latest support.

Installation

System requirement:

  • Internet connection is required during the install
  • Windows 10 (sorry no mac support at this time)
  • Powershell 2.0+ (This is pre-installed with windows)
  • Notepad++ or other text editor to modify the script [optional]
  • No administrator privilege is required

Download and install instructions:

  1. Visit https://qtool.wingstudio.com and download the installer script qTool_install.cmd
  1. Your browser may warm you about saving the script to your computer, just click “Keep” button when you see the following message:
  1. Run install script after you download it. If you see “Windows protect your PC” popup, click on “More info” link, and then click “Run anyway” button.
  1. After you open the Installer Window, you can follow the onscreen prompt.
  1. If this is the first time you install qTool, choose ‘1 - Install qTool (full install) ‘
  1. You can re-run qTool installer at a later time if you see an update on my website.

What goes under the hood of the install?

qTool is green and portable, it requires no administrative privilege to install or to use. It was designed to quickly deploy on multiple right-restricted computers at my workplace. Here are a list of actions performed by the script. 
  • Add/Modify ‘PATH’ user environment variable, pointing to qTool’s ‘alias’ and ‘bin’ folder
  • Add ‘QTOOL_ROOT’ user environment variable
  • Download the latest version of cmd tools from the official Git repositories:
  • ffmpeg.exe
  • ffprobe.exe
  • ffplay.exe
  • youtube-dl.exe
  • magick.exe
  • exiftool.exe
  • guetzli.exe