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Showing a movie on a screen in an animation?
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Showing a movie on a screen in an animation? // New Users
Post by alionsonny // Aug 1, 2008, 11:38am
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alionsonny
Total Posts: 26
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I don't want to flood the forum with my questions, but I can't help it :D
Ok, here is what I want to do: I have a avi movie on my harddisk. I want it to play on the screen of a computer monitor object in my scene. The final animation should be a flyaround of the monitor while the video is playing on it.
I think I read somewhere that this is possible with Truespace, but I worked thru so many tutorials recently, that I cannot remember where I saw it. The question is, how to assign a video or sequence of still images to a surface.
Any help with this would be very appreciated.
Thanks
Sonny |
Post by TomG // Aug 1, 2008, 11:51am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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It's possible using Lightworks (and I think virtualight).
Make a material on the modeler side and you can load an AVI as the texture in the color channel. You can also load an image sequence. And you can use the "mini keyframe editor" in the material editor there to keyframe changes to the material over time.
You need to check "animate texture" (I forget where, been a long time since I did that!). You won't see it animate in real-time, but it will animate on rendering via Lightworks.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 1, 2008, 5:41pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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For Workspace side, Prodigy has a script that will let you display a sequence of images to a surface around here somewhere. You'd need to convert your AVI to sequential stills though. |
Post by Steinie // Aug 1, 2008, 5:44pm
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Prodigy's animated images in workSpace
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=5820 |
Post by alionsonny // Aug 2, 2008, 3:08am
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alionsonny
Total Posts: 26
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Thanks for your replies so far. I think Prodigy's script will be of no use for me, as I do not focus in any way on reatime animation in the workspace. As long as there's no free REAL renderer in the workspace I'll have to stick to the modeller, even if I find working there is clumsy ;)
But I think I have to learn a lot before I can do what I want. I CANNOT get behind the system of texturing and assigning materials at all. In all other modellers I ever touched, material building and assigning was a straightforward task. IOn Truespace it seems to be hell. Man, I heared about shaders for games before, but I have no clue what all the stuff means. If it is as complicated as it looks, I think I'll use Truespace for modelling objects and do all other works in Cybermotion or Bryce.
Seriously, I spent the last night watching tutorials and trying to get a material done, that would have taken me a few minutes in any other application. It allways looks awfull. Reflections, transparency seems to have some weird stuff I am not able to get. Do you hear a bit of frustration out of my words. You are right ;)
Not to talk about any texture animation tricks. I could not find a single setting... wait... there was a weird icon that showed a little thing with mediaplayer controls which had to do with material animation. But it didn't work in any way.
Ahh, and while we are at complaining: Why is the Z-Axis, which is in all other 3D Applications the depth axis, in Truespace the vertical axis? This is the most weird coordinate system I ever came across.
So if anybody has any ideas what I may have missed (maybe another tutorial) so I can't get behind the materials, please let me know. I am awfully confused by shaders, textures, materials.... that's damn complicated in Truespace...
Thanks
Sonny |
Post by prodigy // Aug 2, 2008, 3:17am
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prodigy
Total Posts: 3029
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Cheers Sonny.
As tom mentioned, Lightworks (modelside) support animated textures (avi) and you could render your movie without problems.
The other option is make a step forward and spend few bucks on Vray plugin that is an excellent solution (price~quality~speed)
And use that animated texture script untill caligari support Avi like in model side.. :rolleyes:
Your choice :)
Take care! |
Post by alionsonny // Aug 2, 2008, 3:32am
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alionsonny
Total Posts: 26
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As tom mentioned, Lightworks (modelside) support animated textures (avi) and you could render your movie without problems.
If I only could find the settings. As I said, I am completely overwhelmed by what work it seems to be to build a sinple material. Either I am getting something awfully wrong, or materials are the most complicated thing at Truespace :D
The other option is make a step forward and spend few bucks on Vray plugin that is an excellent solution (price~quality~speed)
Yepp, but I am a poor freelancer with major cashproblems. The price of the renderer is about 1/5 of what I earn in a month. So to me this is currently a rather big investition. And I know Truespace since a week, so I don'T know now if it really pays.
And use that animated texture script untill caligari support Avi like in model side.. :rolleyes:
You mean in Workspace? But first I have to learn about using scripts in Truespace. Another thing I didn't get behind yet. Yes, I am at a point, where I am a bit frustrated :D ;)
How much time did you guys put in to learn about all the stuff that must be IN THE HEAD for working wth Ts? |
Post by trueBlue // Aug 2, 2008, 3:41am
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trueBlue
Total Posts: 1761
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Chapter6 Surfacing – Model View| 52
6.3.10 Animated Materials
Materials can be animated in much the same way as geometry by setting keyframes and recording the material/shader properties at each of those keyframes. To begin animating materials, click the material animation icon to open the keyframing controls.
13727
Click the record keyframe icon (the red circle) at frame 0, then use the spinner control to select the frame you wish
to create a keyframe at. Edit the material, and then click the record keyframe icon again to create the new keyframe. Moving through the frames one at a time reveals the effect of the animation as one material gradually fades or blends with another. Click and drag up from the record keyframe icon to select the delete keyframe icon. |
Post by W!ZARD // Aug 2, 2008, 3:51am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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S'funny how different things trip up different people in different ways! I found the LightWorks material editor to be one of the greatest and easiest of the tS 6.6/modeler tools to get a handle on. Bryce, in comparison seemed ridiculously complex!
The first thing I would suggest (along with the usual RTM and check out the free tutorials) is that rather than tell us what is wrong with the program try telling us what it is you are trying to do with it and you'll find plenty of helpful folk here. Specific questions generate specific answers.
I feel your frustration - we've all been there at some stage!!:D That's wht these forums are one of the very best resources you could have for learning tS.
3D in general, and tS in specifics, are complex systems - you will not master it in a week - or even two - but there is thousands of hours of combined experience available to you right here. The best advice I can give you right now is to ask specific questions.
Also BTW - I'd recommend you don't fall into the trap of dismissing tS real-time renderer as 'not a REAL renderer'. It is extremely powerful and can do wondrous things that any traditional ray tracer renderer couldn't begin to do. I'd suggest you think of it as a different type of renderer, capable of different types of things.
Hope This Helps |
Post by alionsonny // Aug 2, 2008, 3:52am
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alionsonny
Total Posts: 26
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Thanks Trueblue. Seems I overlooked that part. As I said I am a bit overwhelmed by some stuff regarding materials. So as soon as I get any material done I want to build, I'll concentrate on the tutorial you mentioned. |
Post by alionsonny // Aug 2, 2008, 4:00am
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alionsonny
Total Posts: 26
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Wizzard, I am not a newbie to 3D modelling. I did my first raytracing images using Cinema 4D on my Commodore Amiga 500 about 1995. I worked with many of the major tools around and I was able to get around the basics of any new proggie in about two weeks. Some things are the same everywhere. Truespace seems to go different ways than other applications at quite some parts. For exanple that thing with the Z-coordinate which is the depth coordinate in most other 3D apps... in Truespace it is the vertical coordinate, which is Y in other apps.
I confess, I did not read the documentation in depth, as this is usually not neccessary to start. Maybe one has to eat each word of the documentation for Ts. We'll see.
I asked some questions to take advantage of the knowledge in this community allready. I think 3 fat questions are not bad for the start and I have billions of them ready to fire up. But I really don't want to flood the forum. Wait and see: It will not be a long time and you all will have enough of the strange questions by that weird german guy *LOL*
For the part with the realtime renderer: I think I do not get some of the purpose yet. As I see it, it is just to give a great visual feedback while working in Workspace. Can I save images of the realtime renderer? Then again: Most stuff one can build in workspace does not really look like a real photorealistic 3d scene. It looks to me allways like "yeah, this is a great modeller window" but I never saw a picture of a realtime render that could mess with a proper raytracing result. Let's take, for example, a sinple bathroom (mirror,metal creamics). Can you realtime render this in the workspace, so it can mess with raytracing images? And as I said, I saw no way to save realtime renderer images, aside from taking screenshots or filming it with a desktop-cam application. I am sorry, if I am wrong here. But if, I just did not get behind it yet, because all I see, is people doing realtime renders that do not look like the thing could mess with a Raytracer, suck as Maya Cinema or Lightwave. The only part of Ts of which I saw the kind of results I want, is the renderers in the Modeller. |
Post by TomG // Aug 4, 2008, 3:44am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Real-time renders can be saved to file, either images or animations. There is a Render To File option in the small toolbar (bottom right in the standard layout) which will do just that :)
As for getting images that compare to raytracing, I'd be happy with either of these two as final images from any render engine
http://www.caligari.com/Products/trueSpace/tS75/brochure/tS76_images/MarcelBarthel_GreenGarden4_s.jpg
http://www.caligari.com/Products/trueSpace/tS75/brochure/tS76_images/MarcelBarthel_RT2.jpg
(the small size is just due to these being prepared for being on a web page).
And there are plenty others were those come from :P I always forget which of Wizard's works are real-time and which rendered, I think this one was real-time:
http://www.caligari.com/Gallery/ImagesGallery/2007/nov/image.asp?Cate=GImages&img=3407&email=wzrd@xtra.co.nz&name=Stephen%20May
You can simulate refraction and reflection too in real-time now. If you must have genuine reflections, then indeed raytracing is the way to go, and that is why there are the two offline render engines provided in the installation.
The Me shouldn't be too tricky Model side. Four channels, one for color, one transparency, one for bump mapping, one for reflectance. In each, you choose the shader you want, then you choose the settings for that shader.
Materials are painted onto the object all at once, or by face or face selection, or using Paint Over Existing Material to change all faces with one material into another.
Once you get to grips with that, you can add layers, and animation.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by alionsonny // Aug 4, 2008, 4:21am
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alionsonny
Total Posts: 26
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Tom, thanks for your reply. So, those pictures of the realtime renderer look amazing. I just saw no way to get those results by now. I really have a hard time with surfacing/texturing as everything seems to be scattered all over the place functionwise. I spent some hours understanding the editing of materials and got somwhat like a green glass material out of it and even that looks everything but realistic. I couldn't get any of my many bitmap textures on, for example, a simple cube. I loaded some of the predeifined materials on some objects and tried to adjust the texture UV mapping. But the controlls for doing that on the modeller side are as clumsy and inaccurate as the modeller navigation itself. I begin to hate the modeller with passion. I don't get why some folks prefer the modeller over the workspace.
Caligari Team, do me a favor: Merge all Modeller features into the workspace and get rid of the modeller side. I would rejoice and sing Haleluja if you do this :D
Today I'll take another look at surfacing/textures. I hope I do not run amok after this *LOL*
A question: If I render images/animations to file from the Workspace, can I blend off the widgets for rendering? Having the widgets visible in a final product would be not so great ;)
Ahh visibility... while we are at it: I have a cube and a sphere in a scene. For convinience I want to make either sphere or cube invisible in the workspace, so I can concentrate on the other object fully... how to turn off visibility of an object?
And, Tom, just to make sure I really understand what you mean (my english is far from being perfect): What do you mean with "genuine reflections"?
Thanks
Sonny |
Post by TomG // Aug 4, 2008, 5:09am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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The workspace uses shaders to simulate reflections. Real reflection and refraction only happen with raytracing, which is too slow for real-time (at present). So if your scene is one of a cabinet full of glasses and shiny trophies, you'll likely want to go to an offline renderer if you want photorealism, to get the reflection and refraction giving photoreal results.
Widgets don't show in real-time renders. Some light types still show but can be made invisible using their properties (see other threads on that). Same applies for your question on cube and sphere, a search for "invisible" will turn up threads with screengrabs etc on where the invisible checkbox is for objects (in the stack, click Show Object Attributes, change that dialog to Advanced rather than Default, exposes options for Invisible, Cast Shadows, etc).
HTH!
Tom |
Post by alionsonny // Aug 4, 2008, 5:36am
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alionsonny
Total Posts: 26
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Thanks again!
For the invisibility: I allready read this thread
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=6023&highlight=invisible
yes, and strangely now I can find the setting that I didn't see the first times I read this thread.
Not a very straightforward way to hide an object IMHO. ;) |
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