Design Process : Roadmap

For this milestone to be reached, the basic subsystems of Lumiera need to be designed, the most important interfaces between the parts of the application exist in a first usable version, and all the facilities on the rendering code path are provided at least in a dummy version and are capable of cooperating to create output. Based on Lumiera’s design, this also means that the basic frame cache in the vault layer is working. And it means that a media asset and a clip can be added to the internal session representation, which is then handed over to the builder. Probably it’s a good idea to include basic playback/display of the rendered frames within the GUI while they are created.

For this milestone to be reached, the fundamental operations you’d expect from a video editing software can be accessed by a user (not a developer!). This means that the basic distribution/release model is set up, a user is able to compile Lumiera or install an existing package. Moreover a user should be able to create/open a session file (without any quirks), add some media (probably only a limited number of media types will be supported), and then perform the most basic operations like positioning, trimming, copying, playing and finally rendering the timeline. Once this level of functionality is achieved, the integration phase is closed and Lumiera has reached alpha level.

For this milestone to be reached, users should be able to get real work done with Lumiera. Especially, a basic asset management should be in place, Lumiera should be able to handle the most common media types, the user should be able to perform common editing tasks (add, move, copy, splice, trim, roll, slide, slip) both by direct manipulation within the timeline, as by using the conventional two-viewer setup with in/out points. Moreover, it should be possible to attach effects (probably still just some limited kinds of effects), apply simple transitions and control the layering and overlay mode on output. Similarily, the elementary routing capabilities and the handling of multiple sequences should be suported (probably still with limitations). The framework for automation handling should be in place, while there may be still limitations on automation/keyframe editing. Having implemented roughly this feature set indicates that Lumiera can enter the beta phase.

For this milestone to be reached, Lumiera should be a reliable tool for productions with a deadline. Lumiera 1.0 is not the “dream machine”, but users should be able to complete simple productions. We should be able to promote Lumiera to professionals without remorse. The GUI should be mature, undo/recovery should work airtight, performance should be ok-ish and output quality without any glitches. Plugin authors can rely on stable interfaces and backwards compatibility from now on, up to release 2.0

We deliberately don’t set any date schedule. Releases happen “when they are ready”. We may decide to do sprints on a short-term timeframe, but it doesn’t help promising things we can’t plan and calculate reliably. In an commercial setup, you have to commit to features and dates, but you also control a certain budget, which gives you the means to make things happen. In Free Software development, we have to be patient and wait for great things to happen 😇

Thus the proposal aims to set up just a very coarse and almost self-evident roadmap skeleton, but also to discuss and define criteria up-front, which allow us to determine when we’ve actually reached a given level. Furthermore, the proposal provides a list of features which can be savely excluded from a given milestone.