Ether Camera script - Render a cycling animation - from the POV of a non-cycling camera

mCasual

ready ( i hope )

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts3/mcjethercam

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History
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December 31st 2013 released
January 2nd 2014 - Added progress bar which allows interrupy Hardware renders and a button to interrupt FFMpeg

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Lets say you created a 30-frames walk or dance cycle

if you want to render 20 of those cycles,

you could use a script like bLooper to copy the figure's keyframes ( 600 keyframes times 30 bones ... heavy stuff )

or use pose preset files and import them 19 times

or render 1 cycle and loop in in a video editor -
but your camera must stay put or hurry back to its initial position when the cycle ends

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Ether-Cam will render your 30 frames cycle from the point of view of any camera. This camera can have a 300 frames travel path !

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so you can watch that cycle that took you an inordinate amount of time to create from all the angles

very fast compared to the old ways

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proof-in-the-pudding-demo-video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoRQ34QTvhg

mCasual

with the help of the freeware utility ffmpeg

this script will also help you convert series of numbered images into videos ( including ... basically all video formats and codecs )

i'll probably include frame rate and render rate controls

mCasual

almost ready

got to write the darn manual,

so users can be told 'read the darn manual'

by rude people who use expressions like 'read the darn manual'

mCasual

Ready !

https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts3/mcjethercam

i only tested on DS3 but i'll conduct tests on D|S 1, 2, 4

i bet it will work as-is

but just in case you may want to keep an eye on this thread for updates

mCasual

preparing to test it in DS4

kinda get carried away on the test scene, but it will look better on youtube with a little effort

see ... the eyes

mCasual

turns out there will be an update - because for now the hardware renders seem uninterruptable
to i'll borrow the method i used with texanim

found this while testing in DS4

mCasual

the update will really be needed

i found out that FFMpeg assumes that image sequences are 25FPS
so in my test, my 1800 rendered frames came out as a 2180 frames 30fps Video !

stay tuned - update soon, once i finish posting the big test video on youtube

and for your patience , you get to see (another) sneak-peak preview image !

mCasual

-- Update -- Update -- Update -- Update -- Update -- Update -- Update --

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History
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
December 31st 2013 released
January 2nd 2014 - Added progress bar which allows interrupy Hardware renders and a button to interrupt FFMpeg

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and there will be a movie ! Yay!

mCasual

woohoo first new Youtube video of 2014

it shows what mcjEtherCam was meant to do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I53QDybBmJ4