#Help w Lightwave to DCTV
35 messages in this thread
Help –
I recently bought a DCTV to shoot animations out of my video toaster 2.0 with
Lightwave 2.0.
Is there some software utility available for converting Lightwave animations to
the DCTV format?
Steve Wagner
Steve,
The program you're searching for is called Rend24. It will except your LW RGB's
as they come out of the Toaster, and then compile them into a DCTV animation.
The you can use a viewer like Viewtek, or View, or even Player (it comes with
DP IV) to play the anim though the DCTV. Good luck!
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Except, Mike, I think he was looking for a conversion from Lightwave anims to
the DCTV format. AFAIK, there is no utility that will read the individual
frames from a Lightwave-generated anim and convert them to RGB or DCTV pics.
Your solution to just render the frames out as RGBs and then compile them into
a DCTV anim is the only way to go.
Sean Hannon
Ad Rats – Stamford, CT
Hi Sean!
<<Except, Mike, I think he was looking for a conversion from Lightwave anims to
the DCTV format.>>
Oh. I miss understood his message. But you're right. I don't know of a
converter that'll take LW anims & make DCTV anims. And why would you need it?
I'm still waiting for Hank T. to give me a date for the first LW/Toaster user
group meeting here at my facility. He's been extremely busy with the Special
Olympics as you know. He should have some interesting Flyer experiences to pass
on when he's through.
I'll keep you posted.
Say hello to Bill C. for me!
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Mike,
>…that take LW anims & make DCTV anims. And why would you need it?
I suspect the only reason would be if his harddrive space is at a premium and
he can't make space to render a lot of 500-900k RGBs.
Yes, Hank's been a busy man. He called me in to help out with the animation
for the Special Olympics, and it's been a crazed week up at the Media Center in
New Haven. Like being at ground zero in a busy newsroom the size of a phone
booth. Sorta. Anyway, between myself and the tremendously talented Sean
Maynard, we got the project done. Bill has been having some serious back
problems, but he managed to come up to New Haven, and we shot an interview with
him talking to our CG character, the Running Man. (He's based on the Special
Olympics logo of a runner breaking through the finish banner). Hoefully, Hank
will fire the starter pistol on the LW/Toaster group soon. See you later.
Sean Hannon
Ad Rats – Stamford, CT
Sean,
<<He called me in to help out with the animation for the Special Olympics, and
it's been a crazed week up at the Media Center in New Haven. Like being at
ground zero in a busy newsroom the size of a phone booth. Sorta. Anyway,
between myself and the tremendously talented Sean Maynard, we got the project
done.>
I had heard that Hank and Ken Boehm had found someone to make animation for the
Special Olympics. I'm glad you were involved. Wish I could have been.
Who's Sean Maynard? Is he local to us? Would he be interested in attending our
meetings?
Tell Bill I understand his back pain. I also had a back injury (ruptured disk
between 6th & 7th cervical vertebra), which has cost me much in the way of
pain and money. Give him my best, would you?
Hope to see you, and you work, real soon!
Take care,
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Yup, it's a disk thing with Bill, too. He went in for an MRI today to get a
definitive answer. I will pass on your regards.
Sean Maynard is a professional LW animator working out of Waterbury. I hope
that he will attend our LW SIG as he is the exactly the kind of person that I
would like to see involved: someone who really knows their sh*t and yet has
just enough holes in his LW expertise to make the sessions worthwhile to him.
Let's get this happenin'!
Sean Hannon
Ad Rats – Stamford, CT
Sean,
<<someone who really knows their sh*t and yet has just enough holes in his LW
expertise to make the sessions worthwhile to him.>>
That's a pretty good description of all of us. That's why I approached Hank
about starting the group. We can learn so much from each other. Each of us has
strengths due to the unique projects we've worked on. I've only met a few
animators that greedily horded this information, hoping I suppose, to stay one
step ahead of the competition. How absurd! We can all become better animators,
and there's going to be plenty of work to go around in the next 5 -10 years.
Wouldn't you agree?
Tell Bill ice works better than heat on the disk for relieving the pain.
Take care,
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Here, Here, Mike!
I couldn't agree more. I always try to convince people that this should be
an industriy based on networking. I am constantly conversing with people that I
have met at User Group meetings, or have been to one of my classes. Some of
them I am in direct compotion with. But I want them to feel that if they ever
have a question they can call me. And that usualy goes both ways.
Brad Hayes
Hayes Visual Communication
Hi Brad!
I'm sure I'm preaching to the chior here, but, in a sense, we're all competing
with each other, since today's projects can be completed and modemed (or
Fed-Ex'd) from just about anywhere in the world. Soon it won't be locale that
will determine if you or I get the client. It'll be the work. Get ready to
start sending out demo reels electronically 'cause it's going to happen!
Another advantage of joining a group of animators is spillover work. Often
local production companies, who may have an inhouse graphics person, simply
don't have the time or expertise to complete a complicated animation. If
they're aware of you, you'll get a call, cause they don't want to say no to
their client.
Take care,
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Mike:
>>>Get ready to start sending out demo reels electronically 'cause it's
going to happen!<<<
Holly Molly Your a genius! I'm working with some peope who are curently
Building a WWW home Page with C-U-C-Me live video. What if you as an animator
just had a home page with your demo real running on it all the time , Pricng
info and your E-MAil address to contact you all linked toghether. Thank you
Mike I have a new Quest…….
Brad Hayes
Hayes Visual Communication
Mike,
I found out just how open the LW community can be about sharing the wealth
when I started that "Video Pricing" thread last year. Lots of stuff happens
when you don't work in a vacuum.
Sean Hannon
Ad Rats – Stamford, CT
Sean,
I've only been on Compuserve for about six months. What was the "Video Pricing"
thead all about?
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Well, Mike, it happened like this…
I asked the $64 million question that I figured would be either met with
silence, or a few cagey deflections. The question was, what are people like
ourselves charging their clients, and how do they determine their pricing
structure with so many variables involved in the creation and delivery of the
end product.
To my incredulous delight, many people chimed in with pages and pages of
detailed structure, anecdotes about business growing pains, and lots of advice.
I saved the thread to disk, and if I can find it in my small haystack, I'll
send it to you.
Sean Hannon
Ad Rats – Stamford, CT
I've got enough HD space to render 80-120 RGBs. I will try that, use rend24 to
convert the RGBs to DCTVs and then run it out to tape. Should be fun. If I
only had the cash for a 4000 . . . .
>I've got enough HD space to render 80-120 RGBs. I will try that, use >rend24
to convert the RGBs to DCTVs and then run it out to tape. Should be >fun.
Rend24 has a feature that will let you delete as you go, so you can render to a
small drive and not have to worry about storing ALL the 24-bit iffs. At least
that is what I remember, it has been a while since I have used Rend24 and DCTV.
Yes – I noticed that there was an option to render to RGB. I will try it and
see how it turns out. Thanks for the help!
Steve
Mike, Sean –
Thanks for the suggestions. I will let you know how I make out.
Steve
Mike,
I can't seem to get Rend 24 to render something I can use. Do I render an
animation file, or a bunch of frames? What player do I need to use to play my
Rend 24d animation with. I'm just full of questions (among other things).
Thanks in advance for any additional advice.
Steve
Steve,
Do your frames have a title with consecutive numbers (a sequence)? If so,
Brilliance or DPaint has a spot in the load box to specify the number of DCTV
frames, which will be loaded and you can play and save as an anim.
I hope this helps, if not, post the specifics and someone is sure to be
helpful. I have been using AGA, 256 and DCTV rendered LW anms for quite awhile
using ADPro for batch rendering. But a number of programs will do as well.
Brilliance will work more directly with DCTV than DPaint.
Al Berman A.C.E.S.
Amiga Computer Enthusiasts Southwest Ct.
Thanks for the tip.
I will give it a shot and let you know how I make out.
Steve
PS – Do you know how to decompress a "binary" file?
Steve, If I can help in any way, let me know. I have Rend 24 but have never
used it because ADPro (and other programs) batch render so much more
conveniently. If you are still stuck and you give me more specific details on
where you are stuck and what software you have, perhaps, I could be more
helpful.
Good Luck:
P.S. How you decompress a "binary" file, or any other file, depends on what
compression protocol was used to compress it.
Al Berman A.C.E.S.
Amiga Computer Enthusiasts Southwest Ct.
I have ADPRo ver 2.0 but did not know it batch renders. I was able to use REN
24 to get an all the frames rendered to DCTV format. I next used a utiltiy I
grabbed to make an animation file out of it. It took a bit of doing, but I got
my FIRST animation done. It looked a bit jerky, but next time I'me in
Lightwave I hope to fix that . . . .
Thanks for the help – Steve
I'm glad you seem to be making some progress but its not clear where the source
of the "jerky" anim is.
Incidentally I checked my copy of rend 24 and it seemed to do a good job
rendering a complete DCTV anim ready to be run as an anim on DPaint, Brilliance
or any player that can handle 16 color Hi-Res.
Let me know how you make out.
Al Berman A.C.E.S.
Amiga Computer Enthusiasts Southwest Ct.
Al –
I think the animation was jerky because the logo I was animating entered the
left side of the screen really small (behind a planet – LOGOS in SPACE) and
exited the screen in the upper right really BIG and not moving too fast. I
probably need to add more frames to my animantion (I only had 80) so it smooths
out.
What do you do, anyway? You sound pretty good at this stuff . . .I'm a chemist
by schooling .. . a marketing guy by profession.
Steve
Steve,
Sounds to me like you are right on track. You are rendering your frames into
anims OK and an insufficient number of frames surely would yield a jerky
animation. By the way, I favor 256 colors over DCTV or Ham-8 for many of my
anims. That is often an adequate number of colors and is faster and less memory
hungry than Ham8 and less awkward than DCTV. It allows the use of a whole
number of tricks such as cycling. Of course, it all depends on what sort of
work you are doing.
I wish it was true that I <really know my stuff>. I am a retired Physics
Professor who is stumbling along trying to create Video about Science aimed at
children. The only way I know of learning anything is to keep trying and
eventually learn from my many foolish mistakes.
Al Berman A.C.E.S.
Amiga Computer Enthusiasts Southwest Ct.
Stephen,
<Do you know how to decompress a "binary" file?>
It would depend on what was used to compress it. It should have a three
letter extension. If you tell me what that is (lha, arc, zoo, zip, et al) we
can tell you what program you need to decompress it. <g>
Asha
Another day, another million colors
Asha – it turned out to be a DiskMasher format file. I downloaded the
self-extracting file from Amivauser and hope to try it out later tonight.
Thanks for the help!
Steve
Stephen,
My previous response contained most of what I remember from using the program.
When I first started 3D animation I outputed to tape in the same way, with a
DCTV and Rend24, so I know it will work for you (eventually). (g)
Sorry I can't remember anymore.
Good luck,
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Mike –
I got it to go at last using some conversion programs I scooped of the board.
It looks good resolution wise, but the animation itself is a bit jerky.
Thanks SO much for the help!
Steve
Stephen,
I'm glad you've got it going! Remember, the less you have moving on the screen
the faster, and smoother, your anims will play from ram. IOW, if fewer pixels
have to change, it will run faster, and less jerky. The closer your camera gets
to your objects, or the more objects you have moving in the scene, the slower
your anim will play. And if you move the camera at all (which will change Every
pixel) your anim will run slowest of all. So there are some trade-offs using
DCTV and Rend24, as opposed to a single frame controller or the PAR board.
Good luck, and happy animating!
Take care,
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Yeah – maybe my budget will allow me to get a PAR board one of these days.
Perhaps I'll get me one of them new Amiga/Excom 5000s promised later this year
. . . .and a Flyer while I'm at it. BONG! Oops, I jut got hit with the
fry-pan. Ohhh that smarts!
I will have to make due with DCTV right now. Thanks for the hints.
Steve
<<Yeah – maybe my budget will allow me to get a PAR board one of these days.
Perhaps I'll get me one of them new Amiga/Excom 5000s promised later this year
. . . .and a Flyer while I'm at it. BONG! Oops, I jut got hit with the
fry-pan. Ohhh that smarts!>>
Aaah! The old frying pan, I know it well! My wife is fond of pointing out that
the equipment on my desk is worth more than my car.
Boy, the truth really hurts! <G> ;^)
Take care!
Mike,CyberGrafx.3D
Steve,
There are a few other utilities you should consider using. i'm not too sure
about the toaster file formats, but if rend24 will import them, you can convert
them to 24 bit files. You can then use IfftoDCTV to convert them to either 3 or
4 bitplane DCTV files. I believe this utility was packaged with the DCTV
software or is freely distributable. After you have the DCTV files, use
makeanim to compile them into an animation. This will create an OPCode5 anim.
You could also use makeanim7 that comes with ViewTek for a faster animation.
These shell tools are quite effective and after getting the hang of them are
easier to use than most other commercial and free solutions.
-Richard
Hmmm – I will have to investigate these options. I did get Rend24 to do what I
wanted it to do, then used some other utiltitys to make an anim file out of it.
I played it with the DCTV anim player or the DPaint player. I can't remember
which right now.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Steve
Steve,
Hope your rendering to Anim7 or the likes if your displaying on a AGA machine.
Then LoRes DCTV stuff Really cooks. Pretty easy to get 30 FPS realtime stuff
from Ram, If you got it.
Later,
….John