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View Full Version : choosing frames from a avi file

dosealas
06-30-2005, 06:45 PM
hi gang,

and a warm welcome to all you talented scripters! i need your help...

i am working on a cartoon project, where we will be rendering from 3dsmax...

the characters will be modeled as 2d jpegs with bones attached but the hands will be jpegs with no motion, i have an animation i have rendered with 30 frames of different hand structure..

for ex. frame 1 is "hands open" frame 2 is "hands closed"...

if for example you watch this file with a media player you see all kinds of different hands frames passing very quickly...

now to my needed help, is there a way 2 write a script to tell max to only use a frame of the frame sequence file (avi file), for example i want max to render frame 3 (hands showing ok sign) from my hand avi to render for 30 frames and the i want to switch to frame 2 (closed hands) and i want it to render for lets say another 50 frames in max.

i hope i made myself understood..is there a way?

thanx in advance
marktsang
06-30-2005, 07:36 PM
this is not the way you should be thinking about it - you are making things more complicated then they should be - why bother with unessecary scripting if you do not know how to script
render as separate images (targa, tiff, jpeg, ect) and write an .ifl file with the list of images you want to use - if you want to hold a frame just repeat the image name for the number of frames you want to hold for

image00001.jpg
image00002.jpg
image00003.jpg
image00004.jpg
image00004.jpg
image00004.jpg
image00004.jpg
image00004.jpg

ect...
then open the .ifl file instaed of the avi in the material editor

mark tsang
dosealas
06-30-2005, 10:55 PM
thanx for the answer mark,

but the thing is we dont know which frame to use before we animate the character,

the thing we are looking for is speed, we want to be able to animate the jpeg files on the run, think of how many different positions your hand converts to in a normal conversation.

we want to be able to see things in max, without using any other software that will slow the process.

so scripters? any scripts?
marktsang
07-01-2005, 12:41 AM
hi,
hhmmm im not sure if this kindof fuctionality is built into the bitmap texture map -
i would still go with the ifl method but would write a script to write the ifl and create a UI with buttons for each pose that updates the ifl and reloads it when you press any of the buttons - it should be fairly straight forward

mark tsang
magicm
07-01-2005, 10:00 AM
I used this plugin "Bitmap Texture 2" a couple of years ago, but it seems it hasn't been updated since max 5...
It's a replacement of the Bitmap Texture which let's you control the current frame in the animated texture.

Click here (http://www.maxplugins.de/max5.php?search=Bitmap%20Texture%202) to search maxplugins.de for this plugin.

- Martijn
dosealas
07-01-2005, 12:33 PM
thanx martijin,

checked it out, unfortanetly it doesnt support max7.

back to the drawing board. :)
DIMO
07-01-2005, 09:02 PM
I have sent you a new compile.Check your mail. I have lost the code of my old plugin. So this compile won't load scenes that were made with the max5 bitmap2. That's the reason I didn't upload it to maxplugins.de. Perhaps I will sent it to David Baker nevertheless because already a few people asked for it.
magicm
07-01-2005, 11:37 PM
Perhaps I will sent it to David Baker nevertheless because already a few people asked for it.

That'd be great Dimo. I found the plugin very useful!

Cheers,
Martijn
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