[ODE] How do I make a good movie

[Adam Rotaru]

--- Alon Levy <alonl@techunix.technion.ac.il> wrote:
>  How can I make a good movie from the frames created
> with ODE? I have made one with
> ppmtompeg, and the quality really sucks. I'm no
> expert at fiddling with the param.mov file, so maybe
> that can solve the problem. Maybe someone knows how
> to create an avi or a better mpeg -
> something of the quality that Adam Rotaru
> demostrated with his bug (adam - can you tell us how
> you created this movie?).

I use mpeg_encode (UCB) on Debian/Linux to create an
MPEG
movie from the PPM frames.  It can read the frames
directly,
which is good.  However, setting up all the parameters
is a bit cumbersome -- you need to create a .par file.
Here is the minimal .par file I use:

PATTERN IBBBB
OUTPUT mov3.mpg
INPUT_DIR .

INPUT
frame*.ppm [0001-0688]
END_INPUT

BASE_FILE_FORMAT PPM
INPUT_CONVERT *
GOP_SIZE 5
SLICES_PER_FRAME 1
PIXEL HALF
RANGE 4
PSEARCH_ALG SUBSAMPLE
BSEARCH_ALG CROSS2
IQSCALE  8
PQSCALE 11
BQSCALE 11
REFERENCE_FRAME ORIGINAL

Naturrally, you have to set the output and input
filenames
at the top.
There a bunch of settings which I don't know exactly,
but the man pages gives description.  The three SCALE
parameters
are the most important
quality settings, and *lower* values mean better
quality.
I find the encoder a bit slow, and the quality is not
the best, but I'm sure parameters could be tweaked
further.

regards,
  Adam R.



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
http://greetings.yahoo.com