Hey all, I have been using 3DS Max on windows for a few years, however I have recently begun changing over to the Linux platform. I have downloaded the Houdini Apprentice version and in a lot of ways I just had to get used to the interface and I was back in action. But there is a problem, although I can render out my image sequence just fine and I am not yet familiar enough with the command line to understand how to make mencoder /mcp to convert my image sequence into a video, I have looked at the make movie wiki but still haven’t had any luck.

I currently have 24 images in there own folder, ranging from Test1 – Test24, I have the Mplayer installed with nearly every coded available, would some one be willing to give me a short break down of how the command line actually works?

Thank you very much!
Mark

On my system only tga's can be converted to movies.

Though this page is written in German, I think you still can get the necessary commands:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/de/menc-feat-enc-images.html [mplayerhq.hu]

Georg

Thanks, that site helped however I am getting the following error with every format that I try.

___________________________________________________

MF file format detected
search expr: *.tga (png and others I have also tried)
=====Sorry, this formate is not recognized/supported========
==If this is an AVI, ASF, or MPEG stream, please contact the author!===
Cannot open demuxes

___________________________________________________

Any thoughts?

thanks!
Mark

Do you self a favour and use Blender for encoding. Free & easy.


cheers,
sy.

can blender encode from the command line?

This worked for me on Ubuntu 7.04,

mencoder mf/someimage.tga -o moviename.avi -ovc lavc

Blender eh? I have used blender for a lot of things but do you export the houdini scene into blender, or can blender convert an image sequence into a video file?

Mark

I meant you can use Blender as an image sequence converter via its composition module.

This is nothing special. I've just fixed my old OTL/ROP to work with H9. And it seems to work. It encodes in ROP context using external ffmpeg. Encoder must be in your PATH!

Usage:
Connect Mantra ROP (that was used to render files on disk) to Hpeg. There is also second hda for applying in COP context. Set and encode. Please note that many of image formats Houdini is capable to render to is not supported by ffmpeg. (pic, exr, all 16/32 bits formats etc).

This otl needs lots of work. Maybe I will work on it in a few days.
Warning: This is non-commercial hda.

cheers,
sy.

PS
This was original thread:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=8306&highlight=hpeg [sidefx.com]
ffmpeg for Windows:
http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg [ffdshow.faireal.net]
For Linux this shouldn't be any problem . Just make sure that you can call it from a shell.


EDIT:

Check Exchange for a newest version.

awesome - cant wait to test that out!!

Cheers