Preparing Animated Presentations
HowTo Guide
Making Title Screens
Title screens are single frames that are displayed in between movie animations that give a brief description of the following simulation's relevant information. The title screen is generated from a text file that has the name *.title. These files can be created and viewed while sitting in front of any of the Center's SGIs but to create the movies, one must be sitting in front of einstein.
Create a directory where the .title files will be stored (title directory)
Download and copy this template file to the title directory
cd to the title directory and type: Title &
Make sure there are no windows near the title box. Anything close to it may get copied to optical disk when the output gets recorded.
Type: Blue 65
Put the mouse pointer on the title box and hold down the right mouse button to select one of the .title files.
After viewing the template, make multiple copies of it. Edit these copies accordingly. DO NOT edit the original. Title is kind of quirky and if you try to create one of these .title files from scratch, or cut and paste into a .title file, it may not get read into the title box. This probably happens when extra spaces or Tabs get put in. So start from one that works, copy it, then make modifications.
The format for the .title files are as follows:
The 1st entry on a line refers to the font style. ( For a list of different fonts, type: ~matt/nvs/src/fmen on the command line.)
The 2nd entry is the fontsize.
The 3rd entry is the color.
A dot ( . ) means that the previously used value for this entry will be used or the default if no values were specified on the lines above.
Setting Up Video Equipment
To record to 8mm tape, the images must first be recorded to a rewritable optical disk. This medium is only used as an in-between step because it allows the user greater organizational freedom. The plan will be to record all of the title screens to disk followed by all of the simulations (this order is most convenient). The user can then have these images cued up in any order such as: opening title, title1, simulation1, title2, simulation2, etc. This will be the order that they will finally appear on the 8mm tape.
Turn on the Panasonic Rewritable Optical Disk Recorder (it's at the far left of the table with the video equipment)
Take an optical disk cartridge from the bookshelf and gently insert it into the recorder (the machine will take it from you)
Turn on the Sony T.V. and set it to Video 1 (Gets input from the optical disk machine. Video 3 gets input from the Sony video 8. This will show you what the video 8 is recording.)
Find space on the optical disk:
Put the Panasonic Rewritable Optical Disk Recorder in REC mode and it will search the disk for blank frames. When a blank frame is found, the machine will stop scanning. The R# displayed on the T.V. is the number of blank frames that is at the present location on the disk. If this number is less than 1000 or so, then exit REC mode and press SCAN-> which advances to the next part of the disk. Press REC mode again to determine the number of frames. Repeat until R# is ~ 1000
Put the Panasonic Rewritable Optical Disk Recorder on-line
Login to einstein and set the background to black
To record title screens, select a title in the title box. Make sure there is nothing near the title box, and that the mouse pointer is on it (so it appears blue), then press the Print Screen button and the title will get recorded to one frame of the optical disk
Cue up the rest of the titles and record them to disk. Once finished, remove the title box by clicking the mouse on it (if a title is being displayed) then press escape
To record ser output:
- Start ser
- Put cursor on ser window
- Press F1 (or pull down the menu in ser and select video/video)
- Pull down the menu in ser and select video/enable
- Put ser display to first frame by pressing shift g then entering 1
- Select the type of marker
- Get ready to start by pressing shift a
- Press middle mouse button to start recording. KEEP CURSOR ON SER WINDOW!!! or the optical disk won't stop recording at the end of the simulation.
The optical disk will record the images sent to it and will produce a .video_trace file with the format:
frame# begin...frame# end...playback speed (1 is normal)
Make a sequence file by cutting and pasting lines from the .video_trace file. Put the lines into this new file in the order desired for presentation (opening title, title1, simulation1, title2, simulation2, etc). Simulations can be listed twice if desired. Setting the playback speed to 2 will make the simulation run at half of the normal rate.
To record Explorer output:
- Movies are made from Explorer output: .rgb files. If you haven't created any, make sure the Explorer map contains the module: CaptureImg0. Enter in the appropriate info into this module with 100 740 100 596 for: Xleft Xright Ylower Yupper, respectively. When this module is enabled, it will capture anything within this specified portion of the screen.
- If this module isn't in the map try the following: Put the output of the Render module to the input of the CaptureImg0 module. Connect the output of the CaptureImg0 module to the input of the For module. Make sure that the input of the For module has Current Value set to index. This will ensure that an .rgb file will be created for each frame.
- From a shell, type the command: frame 100 740 100 596 &. This will bring up a frame that will show the above region. It is a good idea to have this command aliased as Frame. Once the frame is up, move the Render window over top of it. Anything displayed in the Render window which is within the boundries of the frame will get captured. So make sure there are no borders, xterms, or any other unwanted things in this region or they will get captured and be in your movies!!!
- Once the Render window is positioned, put the mouse pointer over the frame and press the Esc key. This will make the frame disappear so it won't get captured.
- With the module set to enabled, refire the map and the .rgb files will be created.
- To put the .rgb files onto disk, make sure the Panasonic Rewritable Optical Disk Recorder is on then type: rgbplay -n base -b begin# -e end# -r
where base is the base name of the file (i.e. base=foo if the file is foo001.rgb). The begin# is the number of the first file to be recorded to disk (i.e. 001). The end# is the number of the last file to be recorded and the -r is the flag to record.
Putting the Images from Optical Disk to 8mm
Put 8mm tape into the video 8 recorder (located to the far right on the video table)
Press Pause and Record together on the Video 8
Type: ldrps sequence file
where _sequence file_ is the one you made from the .video_trace
Wait until the title or movie appears in the title box, hit return to make the optical disk begin playing, then unpause the video 8. Do it in this order to avoid the initial distortion that occurs the instant the optical disk begins to play.
For information about other software used in the Center, see the
Center for Relativity Software Guide