Can the Animation tool create a true video format (.mpg, .avi, etc) instead of .html + 100 jpgs…
The Rhino AnimationTools is meant as a quick tool to examine designs and create basic animations. If you need full functionality, then you can use specialized plugins such as Bongo (http://bongo.rhino3d.com/).
Hi Rajaa,
I don’t need any special/further functionality, just a video format that I
can email to people easily.
dh
Short answer: No
There are several free, post-production utilities that can compile a set of images together into an animation like you describe. They generally include tools for captions and other tools like fade-in/fade-out and adding sound.
Rhino just creates the images files and had a simple tool for displaying them for verification.
When creating videos using the simple Rhino video tool, I usually ignore the HTML format and invoke the windows movie maker. Simply import all the *.jpg files into movie maker, review the animation then save as a *mpg.
i must agree. having people fiddling around with video editing tools to get a quick animated preview really must not be. it believe its not an extreme big deal to implement such a capability. animation means animation and not stop motion pictures.
By all means feel free to implement that. This is great for a plug-in (:
thanks 
but i believe this was a wish for a standard implementation and as such it would make great sense to probably a lot of people trying to show their work progress.
Having such functionality in a plug-in is nothing short of standard. Even more so in Rhino WIP, much stuff we do is implemented in plug-ins…
Simplest would be to just write some wrapping code around ffmpeg. Collect image sequence, set up command-line and run it.
i understand that, but still its very time consuming to run all around trying to find some plugin which fulfills a very basic need. nothing against plugins of course, but there are tools which just should not be too far away instead of torturing the poor guy who is trying to make a living from it not having time or the ability to get into the matrix of programmings.
having a simple everywhere playable video output is sure one of those needs.
sounds like a start
Hi all,
The trick here is that I am working inside a VERY tightly controlled i.t. environment. Usually I just use auxpecker, but that won’t be installed anytime (along with most indy plugins).
MS Movie maker sounds easy enough, just a tad tedious.
Dec
Regarding “basic functionality” it’s not only about wasting time, it’s also about having a tool chain stable over time. Not all plugin providers stay in the loop, and so you may get stuck with a plugin that suddenly doesn’t work. I’m saying this about basic functionality.
What puzzles me sometimes is things like this: Bongo already has a tool for doing exactly this. So McNeel already has the tool.
And as I have indicated in another recent post (no response) it’s a bit difficult to fully understand why the tools in the same product family from the same company cannot communicate with each other, and in this case, cannot borrow existing functionality between the company’s own existing set of tools?
I don’t want to be grumpy or so, I just don’t understand it.
If I were involved with McNeel I would make a simple “tool & functionality matrix” over night and (re)discover the potential increased value (and functionality) that you already have, which is not fully utilized where they could be shared among the different tools without competing with each other as separate products with different core functionality. This could potentially provide very much increased value for all. In this case the existing core functionality (the video editor in Bongo) could be wrapped into both vanilla Rhino and a GrassHopper Component.
Just my 2C.
// Rolf
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For info to make mp4 from rhino animation export:
I use ffmpeg ( free and opensource) on the linux sub sytem for windows
note: it should work also direct on windows with the ffmpeg for windows:
Here my command, assuming all my pictures are called : pict000.jpg, pict0001.jpg
change 15 for longer or shorter time.
ffmpeg -r 15 -pattern_type glob -i '*.jpg' -i pict%03d.JPG -s hd1080 -vcodec libx264 timelapse.mp4
I hope it help .
source: https://gist.github.com/alexellis/bbf2bc2a6789480fcd0031f99800df9c
Yes. There is a way to do it with a python script. I’m sure this could be refined and done entirely within rhino. I made a video about it.
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