CTPro - Animation question -- rotation speed

CHROMiX ColorThink
1

Thanks for adding the animation feature in. It’s quite nice.

A few questions:

  1. When I render the 3D Graph window into a movie I thought I could control the speed of rotation by adjusting the frame per second, or changing the speed that the 3D graph spins and have the movie duplicate that speed.

What I’m finding is the graph spins the same speed – FAST – no matter what settings I’m using.
I realize this is the first iteration but I can’t seem to make it rotate 360 degrees either … if it starts at the blue it doesn’t rotate all the way back around to the blue. It’s as if it only goes 270 degrees.

Also, if I spin the graph counter clockwise, the movie still spins clockwise and at it’s own speed. Would there be any way to have the settings look at how the graph is spinning then adjust itself so the movie matches up with the 3D graph window?

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance

2

I’ll answer my own question.

After noodling with it for a while I’ve come to realize a few things regarding animating the 3D Graph:

  1. To get the rotation all the way around (i.e. if you want to do a loop without jumpy spots near the end) you need to make sure the frame count is exactly divisible by the frame per second setting.

Example: If you set up for 30 frames per second, you need to put in 120 frames to make the graph go all the way around relatively smoothly.

  1. It seems no matter what you do, the graph will take 4 seconds to rotate. The only control you have is the smoothness. The speed is constant but you can determine how many ‘tweens’ by using multiples of the frame-per-second setting you use. Remember, the more frames, the larger the file.

  2. I’ve found Sorenson Basic compression with the High Quality setting to be very, very nice. It’s every bit as good as the Apple Pixlet compression at a fraction of the file size. It seems to work great with smooth surface shaded 3D graphs. To compare file sizes: A 120 Frame rotation without the background grid is 1.8MB in Sorenson vs. 13.9MB in Apple Pixlet.

  3. The background grid adds tremendously to the size of the movie. Turn it off unless you really really really REALLY need it.

  4. Stay away from Cinepak unless you have a good reason. The picture quality is awful.

I’m going through analyzing the best compressions for different graph types and if interested I will post screenshots comparing originals to each of the compression types. I’ve essentially finished medium quality and am saving frames from the high quality movies. (I’ll call it personal exploration). :slight_smile:

3

Is there a way to save a Quicktime movie so that it will play on a Windows Media Player? Doesn’t appear that there is a format that WMP will support.

4

Flip4Mac - flip4mac.com/ - is supposed to be able to do this. You need Quicktime Pro I think. I haven’t tried.

Also ffmpegx may have some converters in there somewhere.
ffmpegx.com/