Render multiple frames with a script

Started by MicWit, January 07, 2007, 09:55:26 AM

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MicWit

In Terragen, it was possible to open a script file to render multiple frames with the camera in a different location each time (In the rendering window animation>execute script). This was great to use with blender, as you could export the terrain, move the camera where you want it in blender, and then create a script to be rendered in terragen, to use as the background with shadow maps.

In terragen 2, I cant find anywhere you could put in a script to render multiple frames. Is there support for this, or is there going to be support for this?

I know there are no plans for animation in the preview version, but I would have thought that would be for keyframing in terragen (camera/atmos settings etc).

Thanks,
MicWit

Oshyan

The current *free* version does not support animation, but you can already purchase the Deep + Animation version which does support basic keyframing, sequence output, etc. To get multiple camera views rendered you would simply move the camera to each desired position, add a keyframe at each one, and increment the current frame by 1 each time, then use Sequence Output and set the number of frames equal to the number of keyframes. This would essentially avoid the built-in keyframe interpolation (since there are no intermediate frames) and only render out the specific camera points you specified. But again this would require the animation version which is only available for purchase at this time.

- Oshyan

MicWit

So this means that there is no support for a script input with pre-set locations? It would all have to be done manually, frame by frame.

Don't suppose there would be a way of opening the terragen exe with a string that contains the location of the saved terragen file, the camera co-ordinates, and the output filename/destination?

I only do 3D as a hobby at the moment, otherwise I would purchase the animation version, but its out of my budget as a student.

MicWit

Oshyan

The free version can't load any such script, no. The Nuke .chan format is supported by the Animation version and this would allow you to import a series of camera positions. There are a number of programs that can now export to this format, or you could learn how to write it manually yourself. But really it would probably be fastest just to do it with keyframing in TG2. The only reason not to would be if you wanted to sync it with another app, which I gather may be your aim with Blender. Import/export capabilities are still in development and communication with other apps like Blender should improve in the future.

There is commandline support but it is currently non-functional. This will be addressed in a future update.

- Oshyan

MicWit

Any chance that the commandline interface will be available in the free version? For people who do animation as a hobby, being able to use the free terragen for backgrounds is great, and I know when I look for paid work, if I had experience in terragen 2, I would be buying it the first job I could use it on.

MicWit

Oshyan

The commandline should be available in the free version but animation would still be disabled. In theory you could use a separate batch file to load and render multiple .tgd files to work around this, of course.

- Oshyan

MicWit

hmm, this would mean that the camera would have to be put in the correct location in each .tgd file, or could the same .tgd file be opened multiple times, with a different location for the camera in the commandline each time? This wouldnt be an animation feature -  ;D

Oshyan

The camera would have to be set correctly in the .tgd. I don't think you can directly pass parameters such as camera position through the commandline. That would be fairly complicated since there can be multiple cameras.

- Oshyan

MicWit

What about if the camera name was passed via commandline as well, and it puts the "new" co-ordinates (would overwrite whatever is there) into that camera location? (any keyframes for that camera would be deleated if on that frame) Then in the commandline, what frame is to be rendered can be passed as well to overwrite any animation setup.

MicWit

Oshyan

Given the ability to have keyframes in the .tgd, to call keyframes from the commandline, and the other animation capabilities already present or planned, this seems like a fairly special-use feature. Why not just write your keyframes into the .tgd?

- Oshyan

MicWit

Because I will be exporting them from blender, and shadowmaps in blender, each frame would need a keyframe so that it would be exactly correct, or the shadow maps wouldnt line up.

MicWit