I created a small animation and want to render to a file in order to view it in either Real or Divx but can't seem to find the info. I have been saving it as filename.$F.pic or .avi and it saves 300 files..one for each frame..but is there a way to merge them and play them back in one file as a video.

Thanks in advance,
Pete

I am assuming that you are on Windows. To combine all your images into an .avi file, you will need to use the command line tools. I'll try to outline a series of steps for compressing into DivX on Windows since I've done that before. I'm doing this off the top of my head so please point out any mistakes.

- I am assuming that you have the DivX codec from www.divx.com
- Make sure that you rendered out your images in a resolution that is evenly divisible by 4 in both width and height. This took me awhile before I figured out that the DivX codec was incapable of encoding arbitrary sizes. I just did a web search and apparently if you have the Flask DivX encoder, it only encodes resolutions that are divisible by 16.
- I'll assume that you rendered out your sequence as filename.$F.tiff. If your file sequence was rendered out differently. Then substitute with the appropriate file name below.
- Ok, now from the Start Menu, go to Programs > Side Effects Software > Houdini 5.5.xxx (ie. where you launch Houdini from), and choose Command Line Tools
- This brings up a DOS prompt with its enviroment initialized to use Houdini's command line tools.
- Use the cd command to change your current working directory to where your pictures were rendered. If you've have never done this before, you might want to type help cd first. For example, if you rendered to cmypics. Then type cd /d cmypics
- Now type mcp -f FSTART FEND filename.$F.tiff -o -r FPS -w WIDTH -h HEIGHT filename.avi. Replace FSTART with your first frame number, FEND with your last frame number, FPS with your frame rate, WIDTH with your picture width, HEIGHT with your picture height.
- A dialog will pop up asking you to choose your encoder after entering this command. Find the DivX codec and press the OK button.
- That should be it. You may be tempted to use other codecs to compress but I've found that very little of the default codecs that comes with Windows have encoding capability and even then, poor compression or poor quality. Of course, if you have some other encoding capable codecs installed, then you might want try those but no guarentees.
- Note that if you want more details on how to use mcp, the command is mcp - (that's a single hyphen after mcp)

Hope that helps.

Thanks edward, I'll give it a shot. Now by Command Lines Tool are you refering to the Textport?

Pete

No, I mean go to the Start button at the bottom left corner of your screen. Start > Programs > Side Effects Software > Houdini 5.5.xxx > Command Line Tools. It's in the same menu from where you launch Houdini.

Yeah, I figured it out after a little trial and error. I'm going to try it right now and will let you know how I made out.
Thanks,
Pete

Me again edward. I have a small problem..it tells me it can't read in file #1 of 1. Could it be because when I render the file it saves it as a .picnc file ( non-commercial)?

Pete

oh yeah…. then use filename.$F.picnc instead then.

I tried that..same problem.

Try this:
mcp -f FSTART FEND filename.$F.picnc -o -r FPS -w WIDTH -h HEIGHT filename.avi

All on one line replacing FSTART with your first frame number and then FEND with your last frame number. If you use $F, then you need to give it a frame range. Replace FPS, WIDTH, HEIGHT as mentioned above.

Edit: er, I meant .picnc of course.

That was it, I owe you a case of beer. I really appreciate it.
Thank you very much. I'm going to cut and paste this somewhere where I'll have it.
You're the man.

Thanks again,
Pete

No prob. Ok, so for anyone else who is interested, I've modified the original post to take into account everything so you should be able to just save that somewhere for future reference.

edward
No prob. Ok, so for anyone else who is interested, I've modified the original post to take into account everything so you should be able to just save that somewhere for future reference.

How about 9 months in the future? :wink:

Thanks for putting this up for us n00bies!

bringing forward again for us nobbies!

If you use $F, then you need to give it a frame range

what do u mean use a frame range explain plzzzzzzz



helppppppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you use $F, then you need to give it a frame range

what do u mean use a frame range explain plzzzzzzz

mcp -f 1 300 …. (for example) for a range of ONE to THREE HUNDRED