The options are excerpted from the Rhino McNeel web sites above.
COMPUTER
AIDED
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Workshop 18 Notes,
Week of November 28 , 2017
BASIC ANIMATION IN RHINO WITH RHINO RENDER OR VRAY
These notes are intended to supplement the introduction to basic animation techniques described in Rhino's documentation online. Animation may be rendered in either Rhino Render or VRay. During the workshop we followed the techniques described in Rhino's documentation for animation commands. We also used the open source program OpenShot which you can acquire at no cost or with a donation at your discretion at openshot.org. You may wish to browse through the user guide/tutorial provided by the OpenShot software maker for some editing techniques. An alternative to OpenShot is to work with Chaos Group's PDPlayer for video editing, a commercial system that has been distributed throughout the school of architecture and that is not a free download.
Note that unlike working with PDPLayer, it's necessary to launch OpenShot in one of two ways on our computer systems depending upon the classroom you are working in. The two ways are:
1.Computer Labs 105 and 107: Launch the software under the name "OpenShot". OpenShot will launch normally.
2. Computer Labs 302 and 304: Launch the software the under the modified name "OpenShot in Cambell 302 or 304". OpenShot will appear to launch normally, but invisibly it reconfigures appropriately to these rooms.
Summary
In summary, the method we followed in the workshop is summarized here. The details are described in three parts beginning with Part I below.
1. Create one or more animations rendered in either Rhino Render or VRay (the techniques are the same, except for Sunlight animation - see part I below).
2. Store the frames in separate folders on the desktop for each animation (e.g., folders "desktop\sunStudy", "desktop\walkThrough", etc.)
3. Specify that the first frame number begins with the number 0000 (e.g., walk0000.jpg or sunStudy0000.jpg within each folder).
4. Launch the OpenShot or PDPlayer video editing software. Import the frames as a numbered series for each animation sequence that you've created.
5. Place the frames on a video track in the OpenShot video editor or PDPlayer video editor.
6. Export the video to a single file "mp4" video movie format (or alternative format).
The
documentation here is in 3 parts. Part I: Create The Animations, Part
II: Import the Animation(s) into Open Shot (or) Part III: Import the
Animations into PDPLayer.
1. Choose the rendering option of either "Rhino Render" or "VRay".
2. The animation techniques here are limited to camera movement and sunlight movement. Sunlight animation is more easily realized with Rhino Render than with VRay. VRay sunlight animation requires the use of additional less well supported rendering techniques. Both Rhino Render and VRay are equally applicable to camera movement, except that VRay rendering times can be signficantly longer.
3. Go to the Rhino Render Tab just above the view window and select the animation palette/celluloid strip.
The options are excerpted from the
Rhino McNeel web sites above.
Options and Documentation Links
Animate sun movement through a specified calendar day.
Animate sun movement through a specified week, month, or year.
Animate the camera and target movement along a path curve.
Animate the camera and target movement along separate path curves.
Rotate a view 360 degrees around the target.
4. To preview an animation, open the Animation Preview viewbar (also excerpted from the Rhino McNeel documentation above).
In
the toolbar, click the preview
animation button 
.
The viewport will change showing a preview of the animation. You cannot adjust the speed of the preview playback.
Press "Esc" to stop.
PlayAnimation
Play
the animation preview.
ViewFirstFrame
Go
to the first animation frame.
ViewFrameNumber
Go
to the specified animation frame number.
ViewLastFrame
Go
to the last animation frame.
ViewNextFrame
Go
to the next animation frame.
ViewPreviousFrame
Go to the previous animation frame.
5. For example, create a camera motion path and a target path. This method works equally well with selecting Rhino Render or VRay. With VRay do some still renderings first and adjust the lighting levels to adjust to the exposure needed.
Draw two curves to represent the camera path and the motion path respectively. Here the curves are a helix for the camera path and a straight vertical line for the target path.
These paths were developed in relationship to a fractal cube subject of the animation and juxaposed as shown in the following image.
Select the Set
Path Animation tool 
and pick
the beginning of the camera path animation on the lower end of the helix curve and then the beginning of
the target path on the lower end of the vertical line.
Set
the number of frames, image file format, render mode, and
image
name prefix (e.g, the prefiix "animation" for the series for animation
frames "animation0000.jpg", "animation0001.jpg", etc.) and
select
"OK".
Preview the animation using the PlayAnimation button.'
early part and later part of of camera path and target path sequence in VRay
6. Or, for example, to setup a one day sun animation with Rhino Render (VRay is a bit more complex *):
Select the Sun tool 
and
specify the following information:
Latitude (-90 to 90) _Specifies the model's latitude location.
Longitude (-180 to 180) _Specifies the model's longitude location.
North angle (clockwise from y-axis) _Specifies the model's north direction.
Date _Specifies the date.
Calendar _Click to select a date from calendar
Start time _Specifies the start time.
End time _Specifies the end time.
Minutes between frames _Specifies time interval.
File type _Select supported file type.
Capture method _Select from RenderFull using the current renderer or any viewport display style.
Viewport _Select viewport name.
Animation
name _The name for the animation file set (e.g., "sun0000.jpg")
*
NOTE: Within the workshops we introduced a Grasshopper definition
file
that makes rendering the sun in VRay possible. The file sunPathCalendarAndClock.gh,
a simpified version of the tool, is available for
this purpose but may not be quite straightforward enough for use
without some additional guidance. See Earl Mark, who created the tool
in Grasshopper, for details. Note that a C# component in the script
was initially developed by Luis Fraguida in 2010. M. Arch.
Student
Katie LaRose initiated the exploration of available scripts to control
the rendering from a given viewport as a homework exercise in this
class (Fall 2017).
beginnng of sun study sequence in VRay later part of sun study sequence in VRay
7. To record the animation , in the Animation toolbar, click
the Record
animation red button with a black dot. 
At the Rhino Command Line Prompt Press Enter to start recording. Press Esc to stop.
But first fill in the values for these options automatically presented at the command prompt:
TargetFolder _Specifies the folder for saving the
animation frames
RunAnimation _Runs the animation and creates the rendered frames.
1. Open the program OpenShot. On a single CPU computer in the School of Architecture (Campbell rooms 105 and 107) select"OpenShot". On a double CPU computer faciltiy (Campbell rooms 302 and 304) select the version named " OpenShot in Cambell 302 or 304",
2. Within OpenShot use the menu item "FileImport" to import (or the green "+" symbol above) and import the first frame of the frame sequence for the first animation.
3. Choose the import sequence open "Yes".
4. The animation will appear in the Open Shot editor in the "Project Files" window.
5. Similarly any additional animation seqquence and place them the "Project Files" window.
4. Drag the first animation sequence to the "Track 4" timeline.
5. Do the same for any additional renderings. Note that you can either juxtapose the clips side by side or leave some blank frames inbetween as is the case below that that the rendered output has some black rendered frames inbetween sequences.
7. To view the animation select the green play arrow in the 'Video Preview" window.
8. To export the animation go to the "File/Export Video" menu and under "File Name" create a name such as "myVideo" for exporting onto the desktop. For the "Target" formrat, choose "MP4 (mpeg4) as shown here.
10. An alternative with respect to the "Target" would be "MOV (mpeg4) for the Quicktime format (not as widely widely today outside the Apple Operating System)
11. Select the "Advanced" tab and go to the "Profile Option".
12. Next, you will addjust the image reolution to the specific resolution you've created in the animation sequence. However, if you don't recall the resolution you've used to create the sequence, then right-click, on one of the images directly in the original animation frames folder, select properties, and then select the "Details" tab. Here the resolution is 960 x 540 pixels.
13. Accordingly, change the resolution in the profile to 960
x 540 pixels.
14. To created the video select the "Export Video" button highlighted at the bottom of the dialog box, and you will see a running percentage on the export process.
15. Playback the video such as in VLC or Windows Media Player (image depicts animation viewed in Windows Media Player).
16.
To hold onto the OpenShot edits, use the "File/Save Project"
option so that you can re-edit or adjust at another time. Note that the
source video files should be kept in the same folder as the "osp" file.
That is, the "osp" file links to the source animation files, but
doesn't direclty incorporate it into its file structure.
.
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