I'm testing the combination of live action (shot in MiniDV) with Houdini effects, and trying to convert between compatible AVI and the Houdini image sequences is proving to be more of a challenge then I would have imagined.

I need to get my AVI files to a series of images (TGA, TIF, etc.) Then I need to add effects, re-render. Then I need to convert the image sequences back to AVI again.

The AVI <–> image sequence conversion is something Houdini seems to be missing - does anybody else do this? What software do you use to convert?

Usualy you dont find these kind of feature on 3d software, primarely because there are hundreds of other software which specialize in format conversions and video editing. If you dont want to spend any money you should try VirtualDub (.org) it will open most files, and has a Export Image Sequence feature which spits out TARGA of WBMP with options for perfix and suffix. Very handy.. quite fast + free GNU GPL.

Cheers,

D

Thanks - I'll definitely take a look at this package.

I also found what I was look for in Houdini, which is the command-line “mcp” command for creating AVI movies from stills. Still haven't found how to convert the AVIs to still sequences, though.