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Before we venture off to FractalLand, here is a complete re-render and re-edit of the 2001 slit scan movie using the transparency map approach suggested by Robert. The distinct banding is mostly or completely eliminated. Where banding does appear, it looks like it is part of the effect, not a hard-edged standing wave. https://youtu.be/dujQGB-2EXw 2001-soft-edge-slit-scan-composite.mov

I want to add some information related to Netrenders Event Commands that allow us to run batch files and programs after a job completion (or frame completion). This process can allow use of other programs to post process output from Animation:Master's Netrender and help us understand how we can do the same basic process without Netrender as well. There are three basic components of this process: 1. Set up the Event Command in Netrender 2. (Optionally) structure a (textual) batch file to take arguments from Netrender and pass them on to other programs 3. Run the desired programs and processes This does assume a basic understanding of running Hash Inc's Netrender and how to use a text editor (to create batch files) Setting up the Event Command in Netrender Here we've selected Job Completed rendering as our trigger event. Commands added here will be executed upon successful completion of a rendering job. Note the arguments/variables that Netrender can pass to other programs; pool name, job name, time of completion, number of frames rendered, elapsed time of rendering and the output folder files were rendered into. In this example our command will pass all of these arguments to a Windows batch file where we can then use those as needed. Note the specific formatting of the path where the program, in this case a batch file is identified in quotes with extra back slashes to account for one slash being an escape character. If or location was deeper in the directory structure we might need to repeat that pattern thusly: "F:\\deep\\deeper\\stilldeeper\\runme.bat" The arguments we will use as variables later are then added after that command: %p %j etc. The (Optional) Batch File A Windows batch file is simply a text file with the .bat extension that can be used to run useful commands at the command line. Note that a batch file can be ran independently of Netrender so in many cases we might simply run the batch file rather than wait for Netrender to run it. Here we do want to pass information from Netrender to other programs so we want to take advantage of that capability in batch files. So we open our favorite text editor and create a text file named "runme.bat". (as that is referenced by Netrender via the Command Event. In our runme.bat batch file we might create something like the following: I won't explain everything here but the important part is that we are allowing Netrender to run a script that in turn can now run other programs. Here we take the passed arguments from Netrender (the %1, %2, %3 and other arguments) and use them to set up variables we can use elsewhere in our batch file. In this way we can refer to something recognizable like "UsethisVery SpecificVariableName" rather than %8 which we may forget what it references. Note that %0 references the current program being run which in this case is our batch file. So next we use 'set' to store the arguments from Netrender as recognizable variables. Here I've used the echo command just to display information to the screen. In the case of our story this might be the program we run where we use those variables. Each time the batch script encounters a variable it uses that variable's value in its place. I've added the pause command at the end to make sure the user has a chance to see everything and acknowledge the information before the program closes. Pause can be given specific messages after the command but by default simply asks for a key to be pressed in order to close the program. Running the Program (Program Output) Here we see what our automated batch script has produced: Rather than just output text or information we might prefer to convert an image sequence from PNG images into a GIF animation, or an MP4 video... scale images up/down... run backups... feed the cats... or any crazy little thing we can dream up. Running some of these useful options, such as using FFMPEG to modify, convert and merge images, video and audio is what we will try to explore next.