Adding AVI file

[greg]

Hi,

 

I'm very new to A:M and for the past week or so have been doing the tutorials. In the end I would like to add animation to an existing movie file, currently wmv. I understand I have to convert to a supported AVI format before I can proceed. If I add a supported AVI file as an image, how do I get that movie to be the plane of existance for my characters and their movement? I figured I might as well practice with something close to the final product I am looking for.

 

Thanks.

 

Greg

[the_black_mage]

so you mean putting a movie on a plane or model?

 

you can apply it as a decal...you know how to use those right ?

[greg]

Hi,

 

I am trying to learn about all of these topics, like decals and that. What I have been able to do is load a jpg file and have a character move around the picture. Although, the render quality was pretty bad. For the most part I would like to insert a video stream into A:M and have a character interact within the video stream. When I inserted the jpg file I inserted it as a layer. I don't want anything else in the camera view except the video stream and my character. With the jpg it worked fine once I got rid of the ground and resized the image to block out the light.

 

Is there a manual available for A:M? I have the book that came with the product, but that seems to just go through the tutorials, which I have done a few of them a couple of times to get the hang of A:M. But is there a book that explains what things are and their relationships to each other? For example, what is a choreography, are there any constraints, can a character be pinned to more than one path in a chpreography, etc? I like to experiment as much as anyone, but having something to digest about the basics and how to do things would be nice.

 

Thanks.

 

Greg

[Stewie]

Hi,

 

I am trying to learn about all of these topics, like decals and that. What I have been able to do is load a jpg file and have a character move around the picture. Although, the render quality was pretty bad. For the most part I would like to insert a video stream into A:M and have a character interact within the video stream. When I inserted the jpg file I inserted it as a layer. I don't want anything else in the camera view except the video stream and my character. With the jpg it worked fine once I got rid of the ground and resized the image to block out the light.

 

Is there a manual available for A:M? I have the book that came with the product, but that seems to just go through the tutorials, which I have done a few of them a couple of times to get the hang of A:M. But is there a book that explains what things are and their relationships to each other? For example, what is a choreography, are there any constraints, can a character be pinned to more than one path in a chpreography, etc? I like to experiment as much as anyone, but having something to digest about the basics and how to do things would be nice.

 

Thanks.

 

Greg

 

i believe, what you do is import the video into one of your folders then drop it onto the CAMERA SHORTCUT, this puts the image,movie in the plane of the camera

[bighop]

I've tried doing this too and have not had much success. Here is a tutorial about doing just that. When I tried to import my video, just one picture came in. I never tried to put it between the camera and the ground.

 

http://www.hash.com/users/ed/tutorials/fpm/fpm.htm

 

Read that over.

 

Andy

[greg]

Hi,

 

The biggest problem I had been having was the CODEC being used to write my AVI file. The CINEPAK compression CODEC seems to work fine for what I have done. I inserted my AVI video as a layer and moved it into the camera focal range and set it's size to fill the camera shot. That is what I want to do. You also may have to adjust the angle at which the camera views the video. I have also had a problem with frames not showing as loaded but that may be a memory problem becuase when I move through the frames and then go back the frames of the video are there. And, when you render the video the video shows up.

 

Another thing you have to work with, and I haven't really began to tackle this is lighting. When I rendered a short sample the video appeared to bright.

 

As I get better at this and find out more about how to do this, I'll post back to this message or to another one.

 

Thanks,

 

Greg