Thanks, I'll investigate this.

Colin

"Slime" <noo### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:3cbe1494@news.povray.org...
> > So a program is obviously needed which will extract the lines from each
> pair
> > of TGA files and interlace them into a series of single frames which
would
> > then be stored in an AVI file. The interlaced AVI file could then be
> loaded
> > into a video editing package just like any other piece of captured
video.
>
> Adobe Premiere does this, but it's sort of hidden in the menus. You have
to
> import the frames as a single clip, which it does automatically if you try
> to import the first frame. Then put them on the timeline, and if you right
> click on it there, there's some option somewhere that will combine every
> pair of frames. I think it's in the video options submenu, maybe look for
> something about 'fields', I think you have to check the correct box or
radio
> button somewhere.
>
> I've done it before. If you can't figure it out from this, I can go in and
> figure it out again. I posted the answer a long time ago around here... at
> least a month though.
>
> - Slime
> [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
> [ http://www.slimeland.com/images/ ]
>
>

Post a reply to this message

> Adobe Premiere does this, but it's sort of hidden in the menus. You have
> to import the frames as a single clip, which it does automatically if you
try
> to import the first frame. Then put them on the timeline, and if you right
> click on it there, there's some option somewhere that will combine every
> pair of frames. I think it's in the video options submenu, maybe look for
> something about 'fields', I think you have to check the correct box or
radio
> button somewhere.

Unfortunately this doesn't do what is required. This option causes the odd
lines from frame 1 to be interleaved with the even lines of frame 2 making a
new output frame. Then the even lines from frame 1 are interleaved with the
odd lines of frame 2 to make a second output frame. Thus you end up with all
of the lines of all frames being used and the same total number of new
frames.

What is actually required to create an interlaced movie from a POV field
rendered sequence is for the odd lines of frame 1 to be interleaved with the
even lines of frame 2 to make a new output frame. Then the odd lines of
frame 3 are interleaved with the even lines of frame 4 to make a second
output frame. Thus half of the lines of each frame are ignored and you end
up with half the number of frames you started with (i.e. if your POV
sequence contains 200 images these need to be interleaved to create a 100
frame animation).

So it looks like there isn't a tool to perform this sort of interleaving.
I'm very surprised - you NEED such a tool to produce field rendered
animations from POV !!!

It looks like I'll have to get my hands dirty and write a program to do
this. :(

Colin



"PovRAY" <cbd### [at] my-dejacom> wrote in message
news:3cc2e4e3@news.povray.org...
> Thanks, I'll investigate this.
>
> Colin
>
> "Slime" <noo### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
> news:3cbe1494@news.povray.org...
> > > So a program is obviously needed which will extract the lines from
each
> > pair
> > > of TGA files and interlace them into a series of single frames which
> would
> > > then be stored in an AVI file. The interlaced AVI file could then be
> > loaded
> > > into a video editing package just like any other piece of captured
> video.
> >
> > Adobe Premiere does this, but it's sort of hidden in the menus. You have
> to
> > import the frames as a single clip, which it does automatically if you
try
> > to import the first frame. Then put them on the timeline, and if you
right
> > click on it there, there's some option somewhere that will combine every
> > pair of frames. I think it's in the video options submenu, maybe look
for
> > something about 'fields', I think you have to check the correct box or
> radio
> > button somewhere.
> >
> > I've done it before. If you can't figure it out from this, I can go in
and
> > figure it out again. I posted the answer a long time ago around here...
at
> > least a month though.
> >
> > - Slime
> > [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
> > [ http://www.slimeland.com/images/ ]
> >
> >
>
>

Post a reply to this message

> Unfortunately this doesn't do what is required. This option causes the odd
> lines from frame 1 to be interleaved with the even lines of frame 2 making
a
> new output frame. Then the even lines from frame 1 are interleaved with
the
> odd lines of frame 2 to make a second output frame. Thus you end up with
all
> of the lines of all frames being used and the same total number of new
> frames.


I remember coming across this problem, and I overcame it. It was a nuisance,
and I really can't remember how I did it, but in the end I closely examined
it and it was exactly right, so I know it's possible. It's probably some
other checkbox hidden somewhere.

- Slime
[ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
[ http://www.slimeland.com/images/ ]

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 2 May 2002 23:10:46 +0100, "PovRAY" <cbd### [at] my-dejacom>
wrote:

<snip>
>
>
>So it looks like there isn't a tool to perform this sort of interleaving.
>I'm very surprised - you NEED such a tool to produce field rendered
>animations from POV !!!
>
>
>
I've never been convinced that POV's field rendering is of any use
whatsoever with regard to targetting animations for interlaced devices
such as TV/Video.

I've done a few small field-rendered animations using 3ds max that
look super silky smooth when played on my TV. I did a test recently to
see how 3ds max does it.

Basically, using PAL output as an example, which is odd fields first
and 25 frames per second (also 50 fields per second),  3ds max renders
a frame with the odd lines drawn for the animation at time t seconds
and the even lines drawn for the animation at t + 0.02 seconds (i.e. t
+ half a frame). The only exception to this is the final frame where
both odd and even lines as drawn for the animation at time t.

If POV did field renderings like this animations would not need any
post processing to get the frames correctly interlaced - maybe this is
a bug with the exisitng method or, if any users actually have a use
for the current field rendering behaviour, there should be an
additional setting added to POV's field rendering options?

Cheers,

Scott

Post a reply to this message

> If POV did field renderings like this animations would not need any
> post processing to get the frames correctly interlaced - maybe this is
> a bug with the exisitng method or, if any users actually have a use
> for the current field rendering behaviour, there should be an
> additional setting added to POV's field rendering options?

the current beahvior works as designed because what you suggest requires two
scene representations to be in memory at the same time.  This is simply not
possible without reparsing, and I take it the last thing you want is to let
POV-Ray reparse the scene for every line, do you?  The solution is to use a
program that does the conversion as described by teh other posters.  Adobe
Premiere is one such program but I am sure a similar option is available in
every reasonable video editing program if one just looks for it.

    Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 3 May 2002 12:59:09 +0200, "Thorsten Froehlich"
<tho### [at] trfde> wrote:

>
>the current beahvior works as designed because what you suggest requires two
>scene representations to be in memory at the same time.  This is simply not
>possible without reparsing, and I take it the last thing you want is to let
>POV-Ray reparse the scene for every line, do you?  The solution is to use a
>program that does the conversion as described by teh other posters.  Adobe
>Premiere is one such program but I am sure a similar option is available in
>every reasonable video editing program if one just looks for it.
>
>    Thorsten
>

Hi Thorsten,

You would need to reparse for every line!!?
Surely you would parse once to do all the odd lines at time t and then
re-parse to do all the even lines at time t + halfframe?
This seems to be what 3ds max does. It first renders all the odd lines
and then all the even lines before moving on to the next frame.
Admittedly this requires two parses per frame (you could think of it
as one parse per field) The benefit of this is that you get better
temporal resolution (I hope that makes sense!) at the expense of
vertical resolution. The output on TV made my jaw drop at how smooth
movement was as compared to a non interlaced (progressive scan)
animation.

Who knows, I'm a C++ developer myself so maybe I might do a patch when
the 3.5 source come out. I've been lurking for a few years and would
like to give something back to the POV community so if anyone thinks
this would be useful then let me know.

Cheers,

Scott

Post a reply to this message

> Surely you would parse once to do all the odd lines at time t and then
> re-parse to do all the even lines at time t + halfframe?
> This seems to be what 3ds max does. It first renders all the odd lines
> and then all the even lines before moving on to the next frame.

But this is exactly what POV-Ray does!  The only difference is that it does
not merge two half frames into one image for you.  As pointed out, video
editors are able to do this, so I fail to see the problem.

    Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 3 May 2002 13:31:57 +0200, "Thorsten Froehlich"
<tho### [at] trfde> wrote:

>
>But this is exactly what POV-Ray does!  The only difference is that it does
>not merge two half frames into one image for you.  As pointed out, video
>editors are able to do this, so I fail to see the problem.
>
>    Thorsten
>

Hmm, the output images I've seen of POV and 3ds for similar animations
with field rendering turned on are definitely not the same.

I'll post some images to povray.binaries.images to show what I mean.

Cheers,

Scott

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 03 May 2002 13:05:09 +0100, Scott Moore <sdm### [at] zoomcouk>
wrote:

>
>Hmm, the output images I've seen of POV and 3ds for similar animations
>with field rendering turned on are definitely not the same.
>
>I'll post some images to povray.binaries.images to show what I mean.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Scott
On second thoughts, I won't post some images - I see where you're
coming from. <thinking out loud> If you want a 100 frame interlaced
animation you need to produce 200 images using POV with field
rendering turned on and then use another tool to interlace them into
the final 100 frames. Hmm, 3ds max is doing this final step for you.
</thinking out loud>

What I'm saying is that maybe POV could be modified to do this for
you? So if you want a 100 frame interlaced animation POV will output
100 correctly interlaced frames.

Ah well, just a thought anyway.

Bye,

Scott

Post a reply to this message

In article <vnv4du0p2ditk649ustosq2er9jueubqbm@4ax.com> , Scott Moore 
<sdm### [at] zoomcouk>  wrote:

> On second thoughts, I won't post some images - I see where you're
> coming from. <thinking out loud> If you want a 100 frame interlaced
> animation you need to produce 200 images using POV with field
> rendering turned on and then use another tool to interlace them into
> the final 100 frames. Hmm, 3ds max is doing this final step for you.

You are not the first person to be confused about this.  I suppose I small
note about this littel but important difference should be added to the
documentation...


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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