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I like to share my experience about the first animation I did with POV 3.5
(using SMPOV and ~6 GHz).
So as I was told kindly, I went to
http://povray.org/resources/links/3D_Animation_Utilities/
and decided to use (from all those) two utilities (the once most up :-):
a) AVI-creator from http://www.bloodshed.net/avi.html to prouce a raw AVI
b) avi2mpg1 from here: http://www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1/ to convert the (69 MB
AVI into a 5 MB MPG)
c) Because I have three PC's and 5 CPU's I rendered the source-BMP's with
POV 3.5 using SMPOV (http://www.it-berater.org/download.shtml).
Then I started to make my first OWN MPG.
So anyone who is intrested to do such thing can read here what troubles are
"on the way".
1. SCENE:
I decided to render the prism (source downloadable here:
http://www.it-berater.org/download.shtml ...)
with just a subtile change that makes the prism rotate nicely in the video:
***************
box { // Cube002
<-1, -1, -1>, <1, 1, 1>
scale <1.5, 1.5, 1.1>
rotate -clock
translate <-1.05, -1.05, 0.0>
}
(watch the variable "clock" which is changed every frame a bit)
***************
2. RENDER:
(this part is mostly intresting for those who render the animations using
SMPOV because that speeds up the process a lot.
If you're not intrested in this part jump down to (4.).
I have three machines to render, two of them have each 2 CPU's( 1x1800+,
2x2GHz,2x800 PIII).
So I decided to split into 8 tiles with SMPOV cause I tried to prevent that
the 800 takes a job and
makes me wait till its ready, while all other CPU's are long time ready.
So after all exactly that happend. If the weakest machine gets the hardest
Job, you may wish you had choosen smaler tiles.
But this problem is not really a problem cause I can leave oth the weak
machine next time or make smaller tiles.
Next thing was: I decided that 3600 Frames would suit me fine. And of course
I used SMPOV,
cause my scene did not contain visible Radiosity-effects.
In SMPOV (Link below) its easy to put in the values for the animation:
Resolution: 320x200, 8 tiles but not stripes, the best is often 2*4
(Radio-Button: "Oct-render S").
Then "enable animation processing":
1 ... 3600 for frames and 0 ... 360 for initial & Final clock. The later is
the range clock-variable.
So I let it run, after all I realized that SMPOV together with POV-Ray
generates quiet a lot of files
in the COM-Folder (where all Temp-Files are generated through which the PC's
communicate with each other).
This happens when the picture is rendered in 8 tiles:
My calculation: 3600 Frames, for each Frame SMPOV generates
- 8 "ini-Files" with the "Job-description" for the renderagents on the
diffrent PC's/CPU's,
- 9 batch-files (one for each of the 8 tiles plus one for picpend.exe to
append all of the eight tiles to one picture (& copy it to its origin-dir)
makes together 60.000 Files. However after "cleanup" (when the process ends)
they are not left of course.
What happens is that it can take quiete a while for the COM-Folder to open
while the process runs.
3. WAITING & Restarting:
At that point i decided that it took quite to long and that I should stop it
and reduce the value for "Render depth" to 5.
However some of the processes were ready so there should have been already a
small movie for me even when I interrupt it.
So I first had to close the renderagents an all machines before closing
POV. Otherwise Renderagent would
notices that POV is ready and starts a new Instance. Second stop POV-Ray on
all machines.
Now SMPOV noticeds that all instances ended, and (that is corect) strated to
append all the tiles to pictures.
Was nice to see that this even works very good in bigger projects.
However at that point the programm noticed that there were tiles missing.
(Of course they were missing cause I interrupted the process).
So I had two choices, wheter end the whole process or press around >1000
times "OK" :-) (one time for each missing tile).
However there are numerous tools out there that can press a button. I used
DBC\doer\OK ( DoButtonClick ...)
So after I saw a nice film in the TV I could go on.
4. MAKING THE AVI
Now I had 3600 BMP-Files in my source-folder. I thought o going on making
the AVI with AVI-Creator.
What I realized next is that AVI-Creator does not allow to add more then
~200 Pictures in ONE STEP to himself.
And when doing this he exchanges the first and the last frame (maybe thats
good for something).
So I had to make 18 steps and echange a lot of files ... I asked myself if I
am really the first person to make a bigger video with this program.
No drag'n drop .. ok that gave me the chance to look the rest of the film
while my TT adds the films automatically.
A small script had to put the files (4 by 4 by 4 ...) till all 3600 are
added. Intreesting enough to see that if I add 4 pictures,
the first and last are not exchanged by AVI-Creator. As that is not of big
interest for most people, (the TT is not yet publicly avaiable
however it shall be soon) I place the script at the very end of this
message.
So that way I looked the rest of the film while the pictures are added to
avi-creator.
And ok, the AVI was created. It had around 69 MB at all. The first part of
the film was perfect
while at the end the missing tiles made some holes in the picture.
5. CONVERTING TO MPG
That part seemed to be more easy.. But it wasn't.
When creating the AVI I decided to make a frame-rate of 60. Now it showed up
that
avi2mpg1 only likes selected frame rates as example 30.
Good Luck, I had not to do that all by hand again. So I went back to Step 4
and created a new AVI with a framerate of 30.
Then I called this "One-Liner" BATCH FILE to make an MPG from an AVI.
avi2mpg1 -n -m4 prism_160.avi
Which uses quite a lot of time even on a 2 Ghz CPU.
After all the resulting video has now 4,3 MB ! So I could sent it even with
e-mail anyone who wants to see it.
Currently I am using my experience out of this to make a newer, smaller
which shall be placed on my web-site.
What I can say is, that it looks really fine if that prism rotates ... & I
hope many of you can now use my experience from here to make own,
small mpg.
It works with POV-Ray 3.5 and it looks GREAT !
--Theo
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Distributed Network-Rendering or Local SMP-Rendering on all CPU's you have.
With SMPOV und POV-Ray 3.5. * Download free at:
http://www.it-berater.org/smpov.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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VAR\$$FMB=20001
new:
VAR\$$FMA=prism-$$FMB
VIC\$$FMB
VAR\$$FMC=prism-$$FMB
VIC\$$FMB
VAR\$$FMD=prism-$$FMB
VIC\$$FMB
VAR\$$FME=prism-$$FMB
STW\tanitoolform\avi-creator
TMS\File
SMS\Add
STW\#32770\open pictures
SPC\edit\*
RST\"$$FMA" "$$FMC" "$$FMD" "$$FME"
TDL\100
STW\#32770\open pictures
MEL\
VIC\$$FMB
IVV\$$FMB<23601
GOTO new
EVV\
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