[Plugin] Camera Recorder v1.7.2 UPDATED May 23, 2013

CadFather · 13 Nov 2009, 06:07

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 · 13 Nov 2009, 08:07

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 · 13 Nov 2009, 10:55

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

just some clf_center_on_origin.rb

am i missing something?

Chris Fullmer · 13 Nov 2009, 15:11

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 · 13 Nov 2009, 15:15

cool.. thanks Chris!

Chris Fullmer · 13 Nov 2009, 15:55

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

Chris

CadFather · 13 Nov 2009, 16:20

spence · 13 Nov 2009, 16:31

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

CadFather · 13 Nov 2009, 16:52

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

at any rate, this is a genius script.

plot-paris · 13 Nov 2009, 16:54

@cadfather said:

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 · 13 Nov 2009, 17:46

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 · 13 Nov 2009, 17:59

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 · 13 Nov 2009, 18:29

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 · 13 Nov 2009, 18:33

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 · 13 Nov 2009, 18:34

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

TIG · 14 Nov 2009, 12:14

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 · 14 Nov 2009, 15:19

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 · 14 Nov 2009, 15:51

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 · 14 Nov 2009, 17:17

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

Ecuadorian · 14 Nov 2009, 19:19

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.