WMOVIE(1)

NAME
wmovie - automatically create an animated movie introduction or movie credit ending using Wavefront's Advanced Visualizer.

SYNOPSIS
wmovie [-j job_name] [-f|r|z|s] [-nd] [-fs scale] [-dest format[n]] movie_data

DESCRIPTION
This command can be used to generate a complete animated textual movie introduction or ending in one of four modes or styles. In all cases, 3-D text will be generated and animated automatically. The four modes or styles are "fade", "roll", "zoom", or "star wars" mode. These will be described a little later.

IMPORTANT: In order for this command to run properly, it must be run from within a "Wavefront" directory. To create a "Wavefront" directory, use the "new_dir dir-name" command.

The steps taken by wmovie to produce this animated movie are listed below.

1) Create 3-D beveled models of the text you specify.
2) Generate a static background for your movie.
3) Generate the motion for your 3-D text.
4) Render each frame of the entire animation.
5) Composite all frames on top of the static background.
6) Generate smooth "fades" for all transistions.
7) Optionally transfer each finished frame to the Abekas A60.
8) Optionally convert and transfer raw data images to the Abekas A60.
9) Optionally transfer the movie to the Betacam SP.

The resulting movie is composed of a number of distinct parts which include:

1) An initial fade from black to the first frame.
2) The body of the 3-D movie.
3a) A fade from the last 3-D frame to the first frame of the raw raster data.
or
3b) A fade from the last 3-D frame to black.
4) A fade from the last raster image to black, if a raw raster movie is transfered.

OPTIONS

-j job_name
    A name may be supplied which is used as the "head" name for all movie files created. If omitted, the name "movie" will be used.

-f  This will produce a movie using fade mode. For example, each line of text or group of words will fade onto the center of the screen and then fade out.

-r  This will produce a movie using roll mode. For example, each line of text or group of words will roll from the bottom of the screen and off of the top.

-z  This will produce a movie using zoom mode. For example, each line of text or group of words will zoom onto the screen from behind the camera and then fade away as the next group zooms onto the screen.

-s  This will produce a movie using star wars mode. For example, each line of text or group of words will roll from the near bottom of the screen and on to the far distant center of the screen. This is similar to that which is done at the beginning of the Star Wars movies.

-nd Normally wmovie will delete all files when they are no longer needed. This option will prevent any files from being deleted.

-fs font_scale
    Use this option to scale the text to an appropriate size. The only way to find the "correct" size is through trial and error. Start without using this option (scale == 1.0), then try scale factors around 0.6 or 1.4 -- whatever is appropriate.

-dest format [n]
    The resulting animation frames may be handled in one of two ways. First, one may wish to send the resulting images directly to the Abekas A60. In this case a destination format of abekas n should be used, where n is the desired starting frame number on the Abekas A60. Second, one may save the resulting animation in image data files on one of several available formats. These formats include rla, rle, sgi, yuv, and qtl. In this case a destination format of rle or something similar should be used.

movie_data
    This is the text file which contains the text to be animated. Each line of text may contain more than one word. A blank carriage return will separate the previous lines of text from the next. NOTE: The last line of text MUST be followed by a blank carriage return! This file may also contain a number of configuration lines in the form of keyword = value. Valid keywords and their default values are listed below.

    BACKGROUND = gray
    FONT = news-bold
    TEXT_COLOR = chrome
    DATA_FILES = undefined
    COLOR_MAP = undefined

    Valid values for BACKGROUND include red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow. These backgrounds will be made using the Utah Toolkit "rlebg" program to create a "nice" graduated fill background. One may also place an image on the background by specifying a path and its head name. For example, if one has a file ~/images/thing.gif, this image may be used as a background by specifying "BACKGROUND = ~/images/thing".

    Valid values for FONT are listed below.

Fonts similar to Times:
    news
    news-bold
    news-italic
    news-bolditalic

Fonts similar to Helvetica:
    compact
    compact-bold
    compact-oblique
    compact-boldoblique

Fonts similar to Courier:
    mono
    mono-bold
    mono-oblique
    mono-boldoblique

A font containing the greek alphabet:
    greek

    Valid values for TEXT_COLOR include chrome, gold, clouds, lake, glow, or any other texture file you have.

    The DATA_FILES keyword may be used to automatically append raw image data to the movie introduction. This value should be the path and portion of the image file names to make them unique. For example, one could specify "DATA_FILES = /work/i3a/mydir/ima". This will treat all files in mydir beginning with the letters "ima" as image files.

    If these image files have a color map associated with them, the COLOR_MAP keyword may be used to specify the location and name of the color map file. Either the "Woodward" style color map or an ASCII file of 256 lines each containing 3 values will be recognized.

EXAMPLES

An example of a movie_data file.
    BACKGROUND = green FONT = compact-italic Here are a few lines of text seperated into three groups.

wmovie -s -dest abekas 100 text_file
    Create a "star wars" movie of the text contained in "text_file" and transfer the image data directly to the Abekas A60 at location 100.

LIMITATIONS
Since this command uses Wavefront programs, it will only run on a machine that will also run Wavefront.

This command scales the text it generates to a built-in size. In most cases, the resulting movie will have appropriately scaled text. However, it cannot work for all cases -- your text may look too small or extend beyond the limits of the screen. The best way to find out is to experiment. If necessary, this code can be modified for specific needs.

SEE ALSO
wavefront(1), abekas(1),

AUTHOR
Wesley C. Barris (wes@msc.edu)
Army High Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC)
Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc.