Anim8or Community

I've done 3D printing using Anim8or. The way to do it is to export to a .stl file. To do this, in Object view, select Object->Export ...
This opens the "Pick a File:" dialogue. At the bottome of this dialogue  there is a drop down selection "Save as type" for the file type. Select "STL (Binary)(*.stl)", (or "STL (ASCII)(*.stl)" should also work , but the files will be bigger - theoretically you can tweak these in a text editor, but I've never felt the need to do this.)

Once you have your STL file you can import them into a slicer of your choice - you can pretty much use any slicer for any printer as printers all take gcode files. However if you want to do something printer specific like two colour printing, you are best sticking to the slicer the printer maker recommends. My go to slicer is Raise3D IdeaMaker.

You can also create gcode for CNC machines from the STL files - but that gcode has instructions for a cutter - so passing 3D printer gcode to a CNC machine is a bad idea. For starters there won't be a code to spin the cutter. (Obviously you need to use the appropriate software to convert your .stl file to a CNC cutting path.)

Could the indexed image be mapped on to a moving mesh - or is that a problem? e.g. Could you map a moving kaleidoscope pattern on to an animated cuttlefish?

That would be great!

I notice that the OpenCV library I've been using for video also has C, and C++ interfaces. Possibly that would make your job easier?
https://opencv.org/platforms/
if the license is compatible with yours:
https://opencv.org/license/


So I guess you could translate the above Python code to C++ with the following :
VideoCapture ( )
https://docs.opencv.org/3.4/d8/dfe/classcv_1_1VideoCapture.html

read() method to get next frame:
https://docs.opencv.org/3.4/d8/dfe/classcv_1_1VideoCapture.html#a473055e77dd7faa4d26d686226b292c1

imwrite()
https://docs.opencv.org/3.4/d4/da8/group__imgcodecs.html#gabbc7ef1aa2edfaa87772f1202d67e0ce

I added an alpha channel by calling:
image = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_RGB2RGBA)  # Replace RGB image with RGBA image.
between read(), and imwrite()

And some day maybe you could do joint tracking from video by filming people with post-it notes or reflectors on their joints

Feature request for Steve,

I was wondering if it would be possible for you to add a feature to Anim8or so that if a user entered an image file name like "hero{frame}.png", Animator would understand it should replace "{frame}" with the frame number, to pull in a different image file for each frame. It would be even nicer for video editing if you could enter something like "hero{frame+30}.png" to have the first frame read from "hero30.png", then "hero31.png"... ?

I envisage this working regardless of whether you enter the file name in a dialog box, or into a '.an8' script like:
  image {
    "C:\\ANIM8OR MANUAL\\waves\\water types\\sky-1286888_960_720_{frame}.jpg" }

The image files could be generated from video by other software. I have written code to do it in Python, but I expect there are software packages available to chop video into image files.

Sorry for the wild goose chase! I thought I was doing you a favour passing the report on.

I thought my script protected against getting large values.  But looking at it I see the new code bypasses the test!

And here was me hoping to talk you into making scan accept strings as well as file handles:

scanner $scan;
string $commandString; 
$commandString = "boat,15,20,4,1,30,6,1\nboat,30,10,4,1,-150,6,1\n";
$scan.initialize($commandStirng);

Some notes for people wanting to use animated water, and waves around objects.

Using the files “IansBoatWaves.a8s”, and “Animated toy yacht on sea - 192x128zoom.an8” which I attached to the “How about this version Ian?” post above. (These 2 files work, but the sea and sky will be black unless you copy the “sky-1286888_960_720.jpg” file from the zip file IanRoss posted.) Place these files in the Anim8orScripts directory.

1) You need a recent version of Anim8or. At least Version 1.01.1394+ dated 22/12/2020.

2) Open "Animated toy yacht on sea - 192x128zoom.an8" You should get a pop-up DOS window titled "Anim8or Debug Output"

3) Switch to Scene mode

4) Press '1' on the numeric keypad to look through the camera

5) Render movie

This animation makes use of the addBoat() function in “IansBoatWaves.a8s” to create the waves around the boat.

The boat hull has to be added to the wave script. It would be much nicer if this could be controlled from the .AN8 script. But I don't know of a way to do that.
I would recommend that for each animation you copy and re-name the original wave script, and reflect the new file name in both the "#plugin("object", "mesh", "IansBoatWaves");" in the .a8s file, and the "plugin { "IansBoatWaves" }" line in the .AN8 file, otherwise the code is likely to call the old script rather than the modified one.

The new script will add a second wave icon which is less than ideal, so it is best to store your modified scripts in a different directory, and only copy them to the "Anim8orScripts" directory when you are making the animation. And after the animation remove the modified version.

As the addBoat() function adds decaying waves, the first waves are quite large, so it may look better to pass a smaller length and width to addBoat() than the real boat, and use the boat hull to hide the most violent waves.



“Animated toy yacht on sea - 192x128zoom.an8” sets the number of frames that get animated  with the "frames{600} " line.

The wave parameters used in the animation are set up in the .AN8 script with:
  parameteric {
    name { "IansBoatWaves01" }
    plugin { "IansBoatWaves" }
    base {
      origin { (-48 -15 -5.5) }
      orientation { (0 0 0 0) }
    }
    material { "material02" }
    parameter { "X Tiles" int 192 }
    parameter { "Y Tiles" int 128 }
    parameter { "Scale" float 0.50000 "scale" "scale_x" }
    parameter { "Seed" int 3454 }
    parameter { "Wave origin count" int 23 }
    parameter { "Max wave height" float 0.33000 }
    parameter { "Mean wavelength" float 7 }
    parameter { "Min wave distance" float 120 }
    parameter { "Wave direction" float -65 }
    parameter { "Time" float 92 }
  }

Note the "plugin { "IansBoatWaves" }" where  "IansBoatWaves" is the name given in the "#plugin("object", "mesh", "IansBoatWaves");" line of IansBoatWaves.a8s.
This differentiates this wave object from the original unmodified waves script.

The object name passed to “    name { "IansBoatWaves01" }” is generated form the plugin name, so adjust that too.

If the wave script didn't have the "#animated" line in it then it would just be calculated the once like the other un-animated objects in the scene.

The speed of the waves is controlled by the multiplier you put in the “IansBoatWaves.a8s” line:
$time = $time + time*6.0;

For example I’ve tried:
…
scene { "scene01"
  frames { 600 }
  groundgrid { 0 }
  shadowbias { 0.00100 }
  background { 187 227 235 }
  image {
    "C:\\___ 0 ANIM8OR MANUAL\\waves\\water typpes\\sky-1286888_960_720.jpg" }
  panorama { (-90 90 -30 30) }
  objectelement { "BOAT" "toy yacht"
    loc { (-246.74 -128.82 -535.56) }
    orientation { (-0.11446 -0.01427 0.04222 0.99243) }
    scale { 10.591 }
  }
  point3 $bluePos;
  $bluePos = GetAttributePoint3("toy yacht", "position");
…