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Hi All,
I'm from over on the .train group and I have recently created some
instructions for a few train MOCs. The steps are in place in the DAT file but
my POV skills are a bit lax. I tried to render and I don't have enough
experience in placing cameras and lights.
Would anyone be willing to partner with me to create a small ray-traced
rendered instruction book? I'll even do the rendering if you just set up the
POV file... or whatever.
SteveB
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STEVEBAR wrote:
> Would anyone be willing to partner with me to create a small ray-traced
> rendered instruction book? I'll even do the rendering if you just set up the
> POV file... or whatever.
What would be better is if there were a utility to help automate POVRAY
rendering of MOC instruction books, kinda like what LDraw Add-On does for
LDLite instruction renderings.
Steve, do you know how much change LDAO would need in order to do this?
Cheers,
- jsproat
--
Jeremy H. Sproat <jsproat@io.com> ~~~ http://www.io.com/~jsproat/
Uh, two. Including this one.
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Sproaticus wrote:
> STEVEBAR wrote:
> > Would anyone be willing to partner with me to create a small ray-traced
> > rendered instruction book? I'll even do the rendering if you just set up the
> > POV file... or whatever.
>
> What would be better is if there were a utility to help automate POVRAY
> rendering of MOC instruction books, kinda like what LDraw Add-On does for
> LDLite instruction renderings.
>
> Steve, do you know how much change LDAO would need in order to do this?
Actually, it shouldn't take much change to LDAO.
Just an additional loop to spit out a DAT file for each step, then use L3P
to translate it, and POV-Ray to render it.
Steve
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Steve Bliss wrote:
> Just an additional loop to spit out a DAT file for each step, then use L3P
> to translate it, and POV-Ray to render it.
Sweet! Since POV renderings take a while, and that you'd need a POV for each
step anyway, I'm wondering if all the L3P output could be saved, e.g.
STEP0001.POV, STEP0002.POV, etc.
Cheers,
- jsproat
--
Jeremy H. Sproat <jsproat@io.com> ~~~ http://www.io.com/~jsproat/
Uh, two. Including this one.
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Sproaticus <jsproat@io.com> writes:
> Sweet! Since POV renderings take a while, and that you'd need a POV
> for each step anyway, I'm wondering if all the L3P output could be
> saved, e.g. STEP0001.POV, STEP0002.POV, etc.
It is much more sane to use POV-Ray's animation system to do this
automatically. That way, you could issue one POV-Ray command and render
all the instruction steps in one run, using only one POV-file.
I have suggested this to Lars C Hassing, explaining in detail what needs
to be added to L3P, but it doesn't appear that he has implemented it.
It's a simple matter of using the available "0 STEP" information in the
DAT files. I can post the details here if anyone are interested.
Fredrik
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In lugnet.cad.ray, Fredrik Glöckner writes:
> Sproaticus <jsproat@io.com> writes:
> > Sweet! Since POV renderings take a while, and that you'd need a POV
> > for each step anyway, I'm wondering if all the L3P output could be
> > saved, e.g. STEP0001.POV, STEP0002.POV, etc.
> It is much more sane to use POV-Ray's animation system to do this
> automatically. That way, you could issue one POV-Ray command and render
> all the instruction steps in one run, using only one POV-file.
Selective rendering of parts based upon the animation clock value or something
like that? Cool, I didn't know POVRay could do that. Is it a preprocessor
macro thingy, or something else?
I was thinking, however, more along the lines of being able to adjust the
camera angle for individual steps after POV generation but before rendering.
i.e. most of the steps' images would be viewed from the same angle, except for
those few which would need angle adjustment by hand in order to see those pesky
out-of-the-way pieces.
> It's a simple matter of using the available "0 STEP" information in the
> DAT files. I can post the details here if anyone are interested.
Oh, yes, please! :-,
Cheers,
- jsproat
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"Sproaticus" <jsproat@io.com> writes:
> Selective rendering of parts based upon the animation clock value or
> something like that?
Yeah, you got it! I used the POV-Ray clock to make an animation a year
ago, so I learned a bit about it. I'm sure you've all seen it before:
http://www.math.uio.no/~fredrigl/space/
If I get the time, I'm planning to make another animation, but don't
hold your breath! ;-)
> Cool, I didn't know POVRay could do that. Is it a preprocessor
> macro thingy, or something else?
It's the POV-Ray language, really. It's actually quite powerful, albeit
a bit awkward to use.
> I was thinking, however, more along the lines of being able to adjust
> the camera angle for individual steps after POV generation but before
> rendering.
Oooh! That can be done too, you know, but it will take more work.
Simple use the clock trick with the camera statement, and change it in
the steps where you need to have the model turned.
It shouldn't be too difficult. You can use L3P to generate additional
camera statements if you are unsure about them. Give L3P the arguments
you want (the viewing angles) and cut out the relevant portion of the
POV-Ray file to include in appropriate #if and #end statements. And
Bob's your uncle!
Fredrik
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In lugnet.cad.ray, Fredrik Glöckner writes:
> "Sproaticus" <jsproat@io.com> writes:
> > Selective rendering of parts based upon the animation clock value or
> > something like that?
> Yeah, you got it! I used the POV-Ray clock to make an animation a year
> ago, so I learned a bit about it. I'm sure you've all seen it before:
> http://www.math.uio.no/~fredrigl/space/
Yes indeed I have. :-,
> > Cool, I didn't know POVRay could do that. Is it a preprocessor
> > macro thingy, or something else?
> It's the POV-Ray language, really. It's actually quite powerful, albeit
> a bit awkward to use.
Yeah, and the docs aren't the best, either. Do you know of any decent
tutorials for the 3.1 language? Online or book would be great, but all I've
seen is stuff for 3.0...
Cheers,
- jsproat
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"Sproaticus" <jsproat@io.com> writes:
> Yeah, and the docs aren't the best, either. Do you know of any
> decent tutorials for the 3.1 language? Online or book would be
> great, but all I've seen is stuff for 3.0...
I've simply used the POV-Ray 3.1 manual, which has a tutorial on most
major features, and a nice reference. It can be gotten from
http://www.povray.org/ftp/pub/povray/Official/Docs/
Fredrik
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Fredrik Glöckner <fredrik.glockner@bio.uio.no> writes:
> It is much more sane to use POV-Ray's animation system to do this
> automatically. That way, you could issue one POV-Ray command and render
> all the instruction steps in one run, using only one POV-file.
I suppose some of you may want to try this out, so do something like
this with your POV-Ray file, as generated by L3P. Identify the portion
of the file where the "0 STEP" lines are present and add #if and #end
statements like this:
// [DAT lines in step 1]
// 0 STEP
#if (clock > 1)
// [DAT lines in step 2]
// 0 STEP
#end
#if (clock > 2)
// [DAT lines in step 3]
// 0 STEP
#end
#if (clock > 3)
// [DAT lines in step 4]
// 0 STEP
#end
:
:
The instruction images can then be generated with POV-Ray's built in
animation capability
povray +I lego.pov +O lego.png +W400 +H300 -J +KFI1 +KFF17 +KI1 +KF17
to render 17 steps, say. The output images will be numbered lego01.png,
lego02.png, ..., lego17.png.
(These are UNIX style command line options. I really have no idea what
this looks like in the Windows world. Check the manual.)
Fredrik
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In lugnet.cad.ray, Fredrik Glöckner writes:
> // [DAT lines in step 1]
> // 0 STEP
> #if (clock > 1)
> // [DAT lines in step 2]
> // 0 STEP
> #end
> #if (clock > 2)
> // [DAT lines in step 3]
> // 0 STEP
> #end
> #if (clock > 3)
> // [DAT lines in step 4]
> // 0 STEP
> #end
> :
> :
The main file for, say, SKETCH.DAT, shows up as a union block
named sketch_dot_dat. I suppose that a post-l3p tool could just read in the
POV output file and parse this union and insert the clock-checking logic. The
same tool could also spit out the command-line for POVRay with all the
animation parameters... Hmmm, I smell a perl script in the making...
[Quoted from http://www.lugnet.com/cad/ray/?n=425 ]
> It shouldn't be too difficult. You can use L3P to generate additional
> camera statements if you are unsure about them. Give L3P the arguments
> you want (the viewing angles) and cut out the relevant portion of the
> POV-Ray file to include in appropriate #if and #end statements.
This part might actually be more difficult to automate without changing L3P.
Not to mention, it further confuses an already well-obfuscated camera block.
:-(
> And Bob's your uncle!
Actually, Bob's my dad. :-,
Cheers,
- jsproat
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"Sproaticus" <jsproat@io.com> writes:
> The main file for, say, SKETCH.DAT, shows up as a union block named
> sketch_dot_dat. I suppose that a post-l3p tool could just read in
> the POV output file and parse this union and insert the
> clock-checking logic.
Yes, this should be perfectly appropriate. Perl would be a good tool to
do this. Of course, it makes more sense to do this conversion in L3P to
start with... If we can persuade Lars to do it!
On the other hand, I don't like using POV-Ray to generate instruction
images -- I think that too much information is lost when discarding the
information about the edge-lines. So I prefer LDLITE to render
instrucions.
> Actually, Bob's my dad. :-,
Well, that should make it all much easier! :-)
Fredrik
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Well... I know it's been a while...
Anyway, it seems that you guys picked up on it and now the answer is easy
'cause -sc "#if (clock > n)" has been added to L3PAO. Thank You, Thank You,
Thank You. However I'm having trouble with telling POV-Win to render all the
clock steps. I was trolling around last night and read it somewhere but now
I can't find it. Can anyone help?
SteveB
In lugnet.cad.ray, Fredrik Glöckner writes:
> Fredrik Glöckner <fredrik.glockner@bio.uio.no> writes:
>
> > It is much more sane to use POV-Ray's animation system to do this
> > automatically. That way, you could issue one POV-Ray command and render
> > all the instruction steps in one run, using only one POV-file.
>
> I suppose some of you may want to try this out, so do something like
> this with your POV-Ray file, as generated by L3P. Identify the portion
> of the file where the "0 STEP" lines are present and add #if and #end
> statements like this:
>
> // [DAT lines in step 1]
> // 0 STEP
> #if (clock > 1)
> // [DAT lines in step 2]
> // 0 STEP
> #end
> #if (clock > 2)
> // [DAT lines in step 3]
> // 0 STEP
> #end
> #if (clock > 3)
> // [DAT lines in step 4]
> // 0 STEP
> #end
> :
> :
>
> The instruction images can then be generated with POV-Ray's built in
> animation capability
>
> povray +I lego.pov +O lego.png +W400 +H300 -J +KFI1 +KFF17 +KI1 +KF17
>
> to render 17 steps, say. The output images will be numbered lego01.png,
> lego02.png, ..., lego17.png.
>
> (These are UNIX style command line options. I really have no idea what
> this looks like in the Windows world. Check the manual.)
>
> Fredrik
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steve barile wrote...
> Anyway, it seems that you guys picked up on it and now the answer is easy
> 'cause -sc "#if (clock > n)" has been added to L3PAO. Thank You, Thank You,
> Thank You. However I'm having trouble with telling POV-Win to render all the
> clock steps. I was trolling around last night and read it somewhere but now
> I can't find it. Can anyone help?
Try adding the follwing to QUICKRES.INI located in
C:\Program Files\POV-Ray for Windows v3.1\renderer
[320x240, No AA, 10 Frames]
Width=320
Height=240
Antialias=Off
Initial_Clock=1.0
Final_Clock=10.0
Final_Frame=10
Then you can choose the "320x240, No AA, 10 Frames" render option in the
dropdown list below the toolbar in "PovRay for Windows".
You can of course add other variations of size/antialiasing/framecount,
look at the other sections in QUICKES.INI and in the POV documentation.
/Lars
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Thanks for the reply. After some research and plowing thru the POV manual I
experimented with adding simular lines to the main pov.ini file and got the
results I was looking for.
It would certainly be nice if Jeff Boen (of L3PAO fame) added the clock and
frame counts in the command line parms when you tick the checkbox the for
"-sc". He already does so much by inserting the code in the .pov file at
each "0 Step".
+KFIn Same as Initial_Frame=n
+KFFn Same as Final_Frame=n
+KIn.n Same as Initial_Clock=n.n
+KFn.n Same as Final_Clock=n.n
where the n=1 for initial and for final n=the number of "0 Step" found in
the file (just in case Jeff is reading this). ;)
It would also be really cool to have Width, Height, Antialias, and Filetype
available in the "ao" interface.
+Hn
+Wn
+A / -A
+Fx where:
+FC = Compressed Targa-24 format (RLE, run length encoded)
+FN = New PNG (portable network graphics) format
+FP = Unix PPM format
+FS = System-specific such as Mac Pict or Windows BMP
+FT = Uncompressed Targa-24 format
Happy Ray-ing
SteveB
In lugnet.cad.ray, Lars C. Hassing writes:
> steve barile wrote...
> > Anyway, it seems that you guys picked up on it and now the answer is easy
> > 'cause -sc "#if (clock > n)" has been added to L3PAO. Thank You, Thank You,
> > Thank You. However I'm having trouble with telling POV-Win to render all the
> > clock steps. I was trolling around last night and read it somewhere but now
> > I can't find it. Can anyone help?
>
> Try adding the follwing to QUICKRES.INI located in
> C:\Program Files\POV-Ray for Windows v3.1\renderer
>
> [320x240, No AA, 10 Frames]
> Width=320
> Height=240
> Antialias=Off
> Initial_Clock=1.0
> Final_Clock=10.0
> Final_Frame=10
>
> Then you can choose the "320x240, No AA, 10 Frames" render option in the
> dropdown list below the toolbar in "PovRay for Windows".
> You can of course add other variations of size/antialiasing/framecount,
> look at the other sections in QUICKES.INI and in the POV documentation.
> /Lars
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