By: Ahui Herrera [3]
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Step 4:
Creating a video file of the animation
There are many video editing software
packages available. I will be using Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.0
because it’s the one I have and is pretty easy to use for our
purposes. You can download the trial version of Ulead MediaStudio
Pro 6.0 at the bottom of this tutorial. Also ensure that you
download the DivX4.11 Codec. You can read more about DivX4.11 Codec
from their website [6].
In a nutshell we will be creating a video file
using the .avi format. Think of this format as a container that
holds a) your movie, b) what type of compression you use for the
movie, c) your sound (if any) and d) the compression you use for
your sound. You don’t have to compress your video or sound if you
don’t want to, but without compression video and sound files are
huge! One example of a compression codec is very popular MP3
format. In our case, our animation will have video only. We will
use the DivX 4.11 video codec because it’s one of the best ones in
creating a high-quality video while keeping the final file size
reasonable. Okay we are now ready to begin the final Step.
- Locate the Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.0 folder in the Programs Folder of Windows and click on the Video Editor 6.0 icon. After opening MediasStudio you should see two windows: a timeline window and the Video Editor – Untitled window.
- Click on the insert menu on the toolbar menu of the Video Editor window and then image file. A pop up window will appear. Now browse for the Storyboard_2 sub-folder in the animation folder.
- Locate the LAST file in the storyboard_2 folder the one that says 4656_E30.png. Click on that file. Now hold the shift key and use the up arrow to select the rest of the files. This ensures that when you import the images 4565_E01.png is the first image shown and not 4564_E30.png. Now before you click on the open button look at the duration numbers. There are four sets of numbers here. One for the hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. As you might have guessed this lets MediaStudio know how long each image should be. In our case we want each image to be 1/30th of a second. Remember we needed 30 images per second. So set the numbers to 00 for hours, 00 for minutes, 00 for seconds, and 01 for frames. Now click on open.
-
Your mouse should turn into a finger. Drag the finger to the timeline window and place the imported images into the VA timeline section. See image below for details.
The timeline image above has a lot of information. For our purposes we only need to worry about the VA timeline section. This section of the timeline deals with the A-Video. You can have multiple videos sections (VB, V1, V2, V3) when doing your movie but for our case we only need to concentrate on the VA section. Below the video sections are the Audio timeline sections. Aa corresponds to the audio section related to the video in section A. There is one special timeline section called Fx. This is for special transitions or effects.
- Now we need to insert the image from storyboard_3 (4565_SB_3.png). Insert the image the same way we did the previous images. However, before clicking on the open button we need to set the duration of the image. Set it to 0 hours, 0 minutes, 5 seconds, and 0 frames. This will make the image 5 seconds long in duration.
-
To finish off the animation we need to insert the images from storyboard_4. Again we follow the same procedure we did as in step 4. When you are done your timeline should look like the one below. Remember to click on the last image first and use the shift key to select the rest of the images.
-
Okay we are now ready to create the .avi file. Under the file
menu of MediaStudio look for the create option. A small pop-up
window will appear with several choices. Click on the Video File and
a small pop-up window will appear. In the filename box type in
4564_Engine. Now click on the Option button and click on the
compression tab. The default value for video compression is none.
Scroll through the compression options until you find the DivX4.11
compression. Once selected click on the OK button. In the
description area write
“<your name="name"> copyright <current year="year">”</current></your>. Finally choose a location to save the file and click on the save button. MedisStudio will now create the animation. - Now go look for your file and double-click on it to see your animation. Congratulations you have just created your first animation!
Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed and found this
tutorial useful. If you have any questions feel free to email me at
jedi_agh@yahoo.com [7] or visit
my website [8]. I
just covered the basics of animation in this tutorial. To create a
more realistic aniamtion you can add a train track, ground and sky
to the aniamtion. Furthermore, the camera angle and additional
lights would help the overall animation. Plus some may feel that a 3
second entrance for the train is too fast. Greating more frames
would slow down the train. The biggest learning tool is to
experiment with the software. Hopefully, if the response to this
tutorial is good I will create additional tutorials.
Ahui Herrera
Appendix of Software
LDraw Tool System with MLCAD [9]
L3P [10]
L3PAO [11]
POV-Ray [12]
Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.0 Trial Version [13]
DivX 4.11 Codec [14]
Ahui Herrera is an LDraw enthusiast and pioneer in the area of LDraw, POV-Ray and animation.
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