[Plugin] Camera Recorder v1.7 UPDATED 11-19-09

[CadFather]

hey Chris. I am afraid, the buttons of the toolbar end up blank.

the zip file, you posted contains a ruby file called 'clf_center_on_origin.rb' and a folder with the Camera Recorder files.
within this folder there is the camera recorder ruby, several images and an empty folder called 'images'.
but no matter, where I placed the images (within the images folder. or the images folder directly in the plugins folder) it doesn't seem to be working

Thank You Chris - this is something i wanted for a very long time..

any thoughts on the above?

[Chris Fullmer]

yeah, clf_camera_recorder_loader.rb and the clf_camera_recorder folder go into the plugin folder.

All .pngs and the clf_camera_recorder.rb script file go into the clf_camera_recorder folder. THe IMAGES folder also goes into the clf_camera_recorder fodler, and it should be empty. It is there only as a default location to export images into. It should not have any of the icons in it.

If you do that, it should work like a charm. I recommend not using winzip to unzip your files if they are not automatically unzipping with tehir full folders and paths. Just use the built in windows explorer if possible. Its superior to winzip in so many ways.

Let me know if that does not work. I suppose there could be some other unknown issue?

Chris

[CadFather]

yes but like plotparis said, there isn't any loader

just some clf_center_on_origin.rb

am i missing something?

[Chris Fullmer]

I missed that litle fact, sorry guys! I didn't put the right file in the zip. I'll fix it in a little bit.

Everyone who downloaded the first version got the loader, and that is why it is working for them. Everyone who is trying to install this version fresh is left without the loader.....sorry!

Chris

[CadFather]

cool.. thanks Chris!

[Chris Fullmer]

ok, the download files have been updated. And it includes the new icon set. Please redownload! Thanks for your patience,

Chris

[CadFather]

[spence]

This is a very nice addition to SU, thanks Chris, your work outstanding.

[CadFather]

Chris, at some point it may be useful to add 'stop playing the animation'

at any rate, this is a genius script.

[plot-paris]

Chris, at some point it may be useful to add 'stop playing the animation'

is it possible to change the play button to show a stop button when the animation is running?

[Chris Fullmer]

Yeah, thats a good idea and I think its possible to do. I could do a play/stop button. If this plugin ever gets any editing capabilities, then forward and backwards 1 frame would be nice too.

Chris

[solo]

Now the inevitable question...

This plug-in will record raw SU output as a series of images, what will it take to get it to play nice with a render engine so that a rendered animation is possible?

Kinda like recording all the frames as camera scenes so that it can render them sequentially.

[Chris Fullmer]

Thats a good question. I'm not sure how render engines have implemented animation support. I would guess that it will be fairly simple to get it to work. Do they just need a scene for each frame?

I was also wondering about separate program like VUE. Do those softwares have a standard camera path file type that I could export this to? That would be itneresting also.

Chris

[solo]

I'd think Vue would be able to use this if an exporter could be worked out, there is a script that Alex made which exports SU camera's into Vue.
Currently Vue is interchangeable with XSI, MAX and C4D as far as camera animations go.
Vue has a bezier type camera path creator.

[solo]

Actually I thing that if you can make the path editable, I could use it in Vue as a camera path.

[TIG]

In a rendered TwilightRender Animation it processes the Model's Scene Tabs and 'betweens' between them... so an additional option/button to 'Add Frames as Scene Tabs' which then adds the needed page (scene) tabs would be very useful too...

[Chris Fullmer]

Do we know how many scenes a model can have before it explodes? Its easy to make thousands of frames with this plugin. If I convert them all to scnes, is that going to do some massive damage? or is SketchUp ok with that?

Chrs

[solo]

I say try and see...what's the worste thing that can happen? Bugsplat? I get them often enough one more won't hurt.

[TIG]

If your model dies with 1000 then set that as a limit ?

[Ecuadorian]

Walkthroughs look best when the motion is slow and smooth, not jerky and with sudden changes. I've rendered SU animations with 50+ frames in-betweened between scene tabs, and they look good. I used only 18 tabs for a full minute of video. What matters is that the path must remain more or less smooth and not become too obviously polygonal. I used RickW's flightpath2 for that, and this Camera Recorder promises to be more intuitive.

[xrok1]

nice plug!

how does SP send animation to the render engine? it doesn't make scene tabs!

[Chris Fullmer]

all right, I've finally got this updated with some substantial help from Jim who had to explain to me how to escape backslashes in windows paths.

This version I tweaked a few things that could work differently on a Mac. Please if any function does not work on a Mac (or PC too), let me know. I tried to test it all on my PC, but its possible some of the tweaks for the Mac might not have gotten worked out yet.

So here's whats new:
UPDATES v 1.7 Nov. 19, 2009

• Added the ability to export frames to scenes
• Script now remembers user settings from SketchUp session to session

When you click the export icon, you get to choose scene or images. So you can export to images like before, or export each frame to a scene. I think that will help get this animation to export to renderers like twlight Podium, VRay, Kerky, etc. I'd be interested in seeing a quick rendered animation if someone gets one done. I was imagining you could record at 15 frames per second. Then export to scenes. Then set you SketchUp model animation transition time to 1/15, which is 0.067. And to get a value below zero in the animation transition time in the model info window, it has to start with a 0. So .1 does not work. 0.1 will. Maybe you don't even need to do that, I suppose I really don't know how the renderers are using scenes to export their animations.

So anyhow, check out the new version. And of course let me know about bugs and problems, thanks!

Chris

[Panga]

Damn Chris !! This one rocks...It'll help me so much in my work in order to make quick preview of my animation path for my boss !!

Just another time saver. Thanks.

[Chris Fullmer]

Great, glad it worked!

Anyone who renders have a chance to see if this new version helps make it work with renderers? Anyone?

Chris

[rod1233]

Hi Chris Fullmer
There is a problem I have please help
When I download clf_camera_recorder-v1.7
Knowing that I've downloaded in advance and did a wonderful job, but not what happened Lardy
A copy of the problem
Note
When I download clf_camera_recorder-v-1
The device Ballowavqp it
Please help in this problem
rode

[Chris Fullmer]

It looks like you do not have the files put in the correct locations. In the plugins folder, you should have a single file and a folder

clf_camera_recorder_loader.rb
clf_camera_recorder <---FOLDER

And inside the folder you should have the file:

clf_camera_recorder.rb

along with all the icons.

So check to see if that you have everything installed correctly and let me know if it works.

Chris

[rod1233]

Hi Chris Fullmer
Thank you for the attention
And I would like to tell you in detail the problems of
At first you download the files as explained and you are quite successful and after two days .. got this error after you have downloaded the Camera Recorder v1.0
And succeeded in it and when I try to download Camera Recorder v1.7 the result is an error
I do not know what is wrong please help

I hope you send the file to my email
rod1233@hotmail.com

Thanks

[rod1233]

Hi Chris
I think the problem in the size of the file in the image
clf_camera_recorder. employer
Because I do I replace the file Shahu Camera Recorder v1.0
The success
Please help

[Chris Fullmer]

You should delete all camera recorder files. Then re-dnwload and re-install. See if that helps. I think that mighty do the trick. let me know how it goes,

Chris

PS What is your native language?

[rod1233]

hi Chris
I have deleted all the files and the files you have to re-descend again, and I encountered the same problem
I do not know if the file size minus
I repeat, when I put the files for the first time the result was quite successful, but know what happened to get that error


I speak the Russian language