High Quality Animations

[hudson888]

I know how to make high quality images, and I know how to make key frame animations. I even know how to make an mpeg from my animation.

Does anyone how do you make high quality animations?

What licenses do you need? I think that we have most licenses.

I know that I have seen it done in the past. I think we even tried it out once like you do. But I can't find any way to get a decent resolution out of the movies it appears to be able to create?

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

You have to do two things. First set up High Quality rendering to what you want in terms of lighting, material assignments, backgrounds, etc, as well as the rendering 'Method', such as 'Photo-Realistic' or'Ray Traced', etc.

Then go to View -> Visualization -> Create Animation... and when the dialog comes up and you've defined or made any changes to your key-frames and such. Select the Edit Parameters option and there you can change the resolution and even the format of the output. Note that with the MPEG-2 option you have even more control over the quality of the final video file.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[JohnRBaker]

Note that if you do use the MPEG-2 option, you'll need an MPEG-2 player. Out-of-the-box, MS Media Player, while it will play MPEG-2 it does it through a converter and the image is not as good as it could be. However, you can download what they call an 'MPEG filter' for the Media Player (sort of like an 'Extension' in a Mac System). The one I downloaded to update my copy of MS Media Player can be found at the site below:

http://www.free-codecs.com/Dscaler_MPEG_Filters_download.htm

Have fun and good luck with your project.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[hudson888]

Thanks John,

Yes I got that to work. It turned out that I was doing it correctly in the first place, but you gave me the encouragement to persevere until I found some useful settings.
I have tried with photo realistic shading thus far, I don't think it was any better with the other types but by all means let me know if I'm wrong.

But I'm still disappointed with the quality of the mpegs. They're a little dark and over-compressed for mine. I had hoped for the equivalent of the tiff files that the shader can generate. Even if the low res version was equivalent with the usual on screen graphics then I'd be reasonably pleased. In fact On screen I can see curves that I'd like to include (for measurement scales like rulers).

I managed to create a couple that advertised a decent file size of 5 megs or so, but they played back as garbage, (very colorful noise and no discernable images). The only one that worked was only 380K and as I said it all looked dark and gloomy. I found that I can mess about with it using other software which extracts a bunch of fairly reasonable if lowish resolution jpegs, that aren't too dark. Thus far I can create a half decent flash animation using those, but sadly I'm yet to discover a way to output a decent video file, wmv, mpeg or avi would be okay.

Certainly it's something to do with the encoding and compression involved since the images that made a good flash file made yet another dark looking movie using the windows movie maker and outputting a wmv file.

The mpeg2 decoder worked by the way, but then the outputs came out screwy several times in a row, so I'm thinking somethings still not right.

I created a half decent gif file out of the movie editor, but while the gif file option out of NX looked promising it doesn't move?


Best Regards

Hudson

 

[MSPBenson]

You can also create the animation as seperate frames.
This creates sequentially numbered tiff files. You can then use 3rd party programs to create an animation. This gives you much more control over the frame rate and the resolution of the output animation.




Mark Benson
Aerodynamic Model Designer

 

[hudson888]

Mark,

Thanks for the post. It is very tedious but it works. I want a minute worth of footage and I have everything calculated and ready to go, bar the processing task.

For reasons of size it is only just one revolution of the mechanism. Best to view it with replay turned on.

This is a small sample using a fairly accurate model of a Stirling Cycle Hot air engine with a universal joint coupling driving a swash plate to the crank and spherical joints at both ends of the con-rods. The engine itself actually exists, and runs simply by applying heat (usually in the form of a blow torch, to the end of the cylinders). Hot air engines are a hobby of my Father's so this project was mainly a exercise for the sake of it. Some may disagree, but in modern times the engines themselves have few practical uses.

The mechanism is all done with mating conditions.
I think it is about the most impressive demonstration that NX can probably handle. The full length lower resolution video should feature acceleration and panning rotation of the camera. I hope to post it on YouTube later in the year.

Thanks also for John's encouragement, it has in the final analysis been a satisfying project.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

Kool, but short video. And a really KOOL assembly.

You mention how long it took to get those few frames. Years ago I was involved in the production of a marketing film (and I do mean 'film' since this was back in the 16mm days). We hired a professional Hollywood film company to make the film and even hired a real actor as the 'spokesman' (every now and then I still see him in some character role in an episode of some old TV show on 'TVLand'). We even held a premiar party for our first public showing (the film was only 18 minutes long) where he and his wife, also an actor/actress, attended and we had champaign and Hors D'Oeuvres and the whole nine yards. Everybody except the popperatzi ;-)

Anyway, it was amazing the amount of time and the footage of film that was shot in order to get just a few seconds of the final product. Watching the audio guys and the director and the camera people work and then having them explain what had to be done to put it all together in post-production, where things like sound-effects and titles were added, you started to get a whole new appreciation for what it must be like making a full-length feature film and also for why it cost so many millions to make some of these big box-office hits.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[MSPBenson]

Nice animation Hudson.
I spent qhite a lot of time with them and it's impressive what you can get UG to do. I've animated a full dig end for a Mini Excavator digging a trench and a complex animation of a Garden sprinkler with lots of camera movement and cutting from differnt views. Just laying out a story board and working out camera positions timming and everything else can prove quite a challenge.
Here's one of my Favourites, short but sweet )



Mark Benson
Aerodynamic Model Designer

 

[JohnRBaker]

That last avi, with the pond, reminds me of one that one our people 'down under' created for a sales effort with a company that made bathroom fixtures. He modeled a complete residential bathroom and then created a fly-through that included a pass by all the major pieces. But he also made an additional video clip that they NEVER did show the customer where the fly-through ended by examining close-up some 'debris' floating in the bottom of the stool ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[hudson888]

No I didn't see any floaters in the pond. Good job by the way .

I have seen video on Youtube of Fans powers by Stirling Cycle hot air engines. Why you'd want a heat source powerful enough to run the thing in the very room that you're trying to cool I couldn't way. Anyway if we put the bathroom idea with the fan idea... well it could get messy.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[hudson888]

http://www.crackle.com/c/Animation/Stirling_Engine_CAD_Animation/2200462#ml=fi=&fu=2343490

Longer, lower resolution but gives a better look at the engine

Enjoy!

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

Hudson,

Apparently the Swedes have figured out something a little practical than running a fan with a Stirling Engine:

http://www.kockums.se/Submarines/aipconversion.html

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[hudson888]

Interesting idea, on a much larger scale, to use them in submarines. It will also be because they are comparatively quiet running. I have heard it reported that Stirling engines were used by the military at times to run their radio equipment and rudimentary lighting where the noise and bulk of a larger generator were undesirable. I supposed that this to mean advance paratroops, snipers and the like where the quietness might be a real advantage. NASA had a go at them too, all the free unfiltered sunlight as an external heat source being the main factor in space. So yes they have their place, still my little model seems to have extra moving parts for the sake of looking cool more than anything else so it is probably not the most efficient design you could have.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[BennettMTU]

hey guys hope this thread isn't dead yet. i'm also having diffuculty with getting a good resolution when i export videos out of nx 3. Unfortunatley I couldn't bring my desktop with me on spring break and i'm stuck reading posts on this garbage vista laptop.

but for me the more furstating thing about videos is the single camera angle. currenlty when i make a video i plan out the motion in steps and export several mpegs and edit them into one. Is it possible to change the camera angle during an exported animation?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Bennett,

There are a couple of things that you can do, from a simple 'turntable' as shown in the video clip below, or you can create a 'trajectory' path to define a fly-thru where you can move the 'camera' along a path while defining the direction of view, either as a fixed vector or as tracking some fixed point, as seen in video clip attached to the next message.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[JohnRBaker]

Bennett,

Here is the second video clip showing the fly-thru.

BTW, does the MTU refer to the company or the university?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[BennettMTU]

John, mtu refers to the university I'll be graduating in April!! I'll have to give that stuff a try, i'm using nx 3.0 right now. I'll also have to look at this View -> Visualization -> Create Animation dialog. Right now i'm doing everything with the motion application and just exporting mpegs of what it gives me.

I attached a clip of a model I was playing with. It's kinda goofy just a tank-like robot with an arm on it. I was gonna have a storage area that opens like a sunroof but i couldn't get it to work properly.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Bennett,

If you can get a hold of something like Camtasia you may be better off capturing an .avi of your mechanism while zooming around the model.

BTW, ever have Tom Grimm for any classes?


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[BennettMTU]

Grimm is still around, I had him for product realization two. One of the better proffesors at tech, but i prefer van karsen and mohan rao......... Though grimm is the only teacher i've had that brings coffee, fresh fruit, and donuts to his 8 am friday lectures.

thanks for all the info john i'll give this stuff a try next week when i'm back on campus.

btw are you a tech grad yourself then?

 

[hudson888]

Bennett,

The one on crackle.com is an example of what can be done with navigation. It isn't using very fancy camera technique to be sure, just a helix curve looking at a point near the middle. While it looks for all the world like a fancy turntable animation from start to finish you do get further away from the model which gives away that it is something more sophisticated. It is one of the harder to do and less well explained parts of NX in as much as I found the documentation tough to follow, hence I have elected to start with a fairly simple example.

For better quality Mark's tip to output Tiff images and some third party windows software is the one that works best for me. BTW you won't get anywhere with Windows Movie Maker, it basically only supports making slide shows in this manner, too few frames per second. Another possible challenge with doing this is that the volume of tiff files you generate per minute of footage can be very high indeed.

Best regards

Hudson