FFMPEG

[Fletch]

you have to uncheck "Fit to view proportions"

[ntxdave]

Thanks Fletch. I will give that a try later today. I thought that checkbox was only for what you see on the screen and did not have anything to do with the size of the images being generated. That is where the real problem is.

As I showed in the previous post, the images being generated are not the size that I keyed in. I got a reply from Fredo on the SketchUcation forum that, yes FfMpeg has a problem with images that are odd sizes and that is what has been happening.

[Fletch]

"Fit to view proportions" takes the size you input and re-sizes it to fit the proportions of the SketchUp view.

Notice that the rendered image holds the 640px dimension, but changes the other dimension so that it fits the proportion of the SketchUp view.

[ntxdave]

Yes, unclicking the "Fit to........" solved the problem. I was able to create a video that includes 2 animated gif textures (not good enough to share here).

I did encounter one more strange thing though. For some reason, the version I downloaded from the FFmpeg site (the one you had provided) still did not work correctly. I used the version Fredo provided in his Animator forum on SketchUcation.

When I get some more time, I will make a video I can share and will try to do a little more research on why the FFmped version from their site did not work.

It has now become a little bit of a challenge and I would like to be able to provide some feedback here that might help others develop movies with Twilight Render.

[Chris]

FFMPEG is probably constantly changing. It is possible that it has changed in such a way as to not be compatible anymore. Please let us know if you are able to determine any more about the issue.

[ntxdave]

I will. Not sure when I will get to do anymore but when I do, I will share what I can

Thanks for your patience. I like TR and try to promote it when I can so my goal here is to try to help show what can be done.

[ntxdave]

Still another update.

Just out of curiosity, since the exexfike I downloaded from Fredo worked fine, I set up still another folder and copied just the exe file I had downloaded from the ffnpeg site into the new folder without all of the other stuff that was (I.e. the bin sub folder along with other stuff). Now I have just the new folder I had created with only the ffmpeg.exe file.

Now when I clock on the Tools>FFmpeg link in the Animation Editor tool I set the link to ffmpeg as: C:\name of new folder\ffmpeg.exe. Now it works consistently.

I hope this explanation was clearer than mud.

Hopefully I can post a decent movie in the next few days (dealing with some other issues - that I do not want to go into in this forum ). I also need to refresh my knowledge of TR so that I can generate something that would not embarrass all of us.

[Fletch]

The instructions make sense, but it doesn't make sense why it would work in a folder by itself, but not in the folder with which it was packaged. In addition, it was working for you for a while and then stopped working, correct?

[ntxdave]

I thought back about this and when I first tried, I used the version of ffmpeg from Fredo's link because I knew he had it as part of his Animator plugin so that was just the version without all of the extra stuff. I later changed because of what I saw in your instructions and thought that was probably a later version and the correct way to go.

I agree that putting it in a folder by itself instead of the process from their website does not make sense. Right now though, I am going to stick to way that works. If you guys come up with an explanation, please share it so that any of us using the feature can do it correctly.

As I said in the Animated Materials thread, I am going to pursue (when I have time) so that I can learn how to use this process and develop decent interior renders.

Once again, thanks for the support you and Chris have provided on this topic. And yes, for patience in my pursuit on this topic.