clipmgr_readme.htm

STK LW convert V2.28 LW convert V2.28

			you.</P>
		<P>Clip Manager knows what <STRONG>Time Step</STRONG> you've assigned to your 
			clip.&nbsp; Clip Manager also knows that a finished animation will play back at 
			30fps, which means that 30 of these time steps will go by for every second of 
			playback.&nbsp; Thus, Clip Manager is able to calculate the relationship 
			between scenario time and playback time, and assign this value as the X factor 
			for XRealTime playback.</P>
		<P>You can disregard all the math if you like.&nbsp; The net effect is that when 
			you click the <STRONG>Play XRealTime</STRONG> button, STK will play a test of 
			your movie clip at the actual speed that will be shown during playback of a 
			finished movie.&nbsp; On a slow computer, frames may be "dropped" (ie, not 
			shown) in order to maintain this rate of playback.&nbsp; So your test may 
			appear jerky, as a result of this, but the action should still unfold at the 
			same rate as the finished movie.</P>
		<P>Generally, you use <STRONG>Play Normal</STRONG> to test the smoothness of your 
			clip, and <STRONG>Play XRealTime</STRONG> to test the speed of the action in 
			your clip.</P>
		<H2>6. Select a recording window</H2>
		<P>At the bottom of the clip properties page, a button is available to choose which 
			STK window will be used to record the clip.&nbsp; This option is only available 
			when there is an active connection to STK, because it will query STK for the 
			list of currently open 2D and 3D windows.</P>
		<P><IMG height="64" src="images/SelectWinButton.gif" width="209"></P>
		<P>Clicking this button brings up the following dialog box.</P>
		<P><IMG height="275" src="images/SelectWinDialog.gif" width="285"></P>
		<P>Double-click one of the available windows to set it as the recording window for 
			the clip.&nbsp; This can be any of the 2D or 3D graphics windows, but the 
			window should not be docked or maximized.&nbsp; The size of the window should 
			reflect the desired resolution for the recorded clip.</P>
		<H2>7.&nbsp;Select a&nbsp;camera (3D windows only)</H2>
		<P>Once the animation times are set correctly, a good camera view must be chosen 
			from which to record the action.&nbsp; This can be a <STRONG>Stored View</STRONG>, 
			a <STRONG>Camera Control</STRONG> path, or a <STRONG>Viewpath</STRONG>, 
			although the Viewpath is now considered obsolete.</P>
		<P><img src="images/CameraProperties.gif" height="71" width="203"></P>
		<P>The above portion of the properties panel, on the right-hand side of Clip 
			Manager, shows the current camera setting.&nbsp; The default setting is <STRONG>None</STRONG>, 
			which means that Clip Manager will not send any connect commands related to 
			camera control when it is preparing STK to play or record a clip.&nbsp; Click 
			the small button to open the <STRONG>Select camera view</STRONG> dialog.
		</P>
		<P><img src="images/CameraDialog.gif" height="275" width="285"></P>
		<P>This dialog is only available when you have an active connection to STK.&nbsp; 
			It displays a list of stored views and camera paths (if any) available in your 
			scenario.&nbsp; Double-clicking one of these views or paths will set the camera 
			options for this clip.</P>
		<P class="note"><STRONG>NOTE:</STRONG> Setting up elegant stored views and camera 
			control paths in STK is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but training classes 
			and materials are available on the topic.</P>
		<P>Create a stored view or a camera control path in STK, and then select it from 
			this dialog.&nbsp; When you hit <STRONG>OK</STRONG>, your selection should be 
			listed in the Clip Manager properties panel.</P>
		<P>Use the <STRONG>Play Normal</STRONG> and <STRONG>Play XRealTime</STRONG> buttons 
			to test your new camera view.</P>
		<H2>8. Set the clip name and saved frames directory</H2>
		<P>Below the camera settings there is a place to choose where your recorded frames 
			will be saved to on your hard drive.</P>
		<P><img src="images/SavedFramesDir.gif" height="65" width="218"></P>
		<P>Click the <STRONG>Browse</STRONG> button to open a save file dialog.&nbsp; This 
			dialog is not going to save any frames immediately, it will merely record the 
			directory name and file name that you wish to use for your movie clip.&nbsp; 
			The save file dialog will get a directory name and a filename for your new 
			clip.&nbsp; The directory name is copied to the box shown above, and the 
			filename replaces the clip name, shown at the top of the properties panel in 
			Clip Manager.</P>
		<P class="note"><STRONG>NOTE:</STRONG> The <STRONG>Browse</STRONG> button file 
			dialog sets both the <STRONG>Saved frames directory</STRONG> and the <STRONG>Clip 
				name</STRONG>.</P>
		<H2>9. Switch on anti-aliasing (3D windows only)</H2>
		<P><img src="images/AntiAlias.gif" height="97" width="218"></P>
		<P>At the bottom of the properties page are settings for anti-aliasing and motion 
			blur.&nbsp; These settings make your animation appear more smooth, but they can 
			cost a lot of extra time if you don't have a high-end graphics card.</P>
		<H2>10. Make more clips, save your work</H2>
		<P>Now that all of the properties have been set, the clip is ready to record.&nbsp; 
			You don't have to record it right away.&nbsp; Instead, you can follow the above 
			steps again to make additional clips, developing a list of them in the 
			upper-left pane of Clip Manager.&nbsp; Try highlighting different clips and 
			pressing <STRONG>Play Normal</STRONG> and/or <STRONG>Play XRealTime</STRONG> to 
			test how the clips look when played one after another.</P>
		<P>You may wish to save out your list of clips using the <STRONG>Save</STRONG> or <STRONG>
				Save As...</STRONG> options from the file menu.&nbsp; The list of clips is 
			saved to a file ending with the extension <STRONG>.cm</STRONG>.&nbsp; Typically 
			you keep this file in the same directory as the scenario it uses.</P>
		<H2>11. Record your clip(s)</H2>
		<P>Before you record any clips, set your STK 3D Graphics window to be the correct 
			size and aspect ratio for the clips you plan to record.</P>
		<P class="note"><STRONG>NOTE:</STRONG> The clips will be recorded at the resolution 
			given by the size of your 3D Graphics window.</P>
		<P>Once you're ready, select the clip(s) you wish to record from the list of 
			clips.&nbsp; If you wish to record more than one clip in a single recording 
			session, use <STRONG>SHIFT</STRONG> or <STRONG>CTRL</STRONG> while 
			left-clicking the clips, to multi-select them in the same manner as you would 
			multi-select files or documents.&nbsp; With the clips selected, click the big, 
			shiny red <STRONG>Record</STRONG> button on the VCR toolbar.</P>
		<P><img src="images/RecordButton.gif" height="71" width="274"></P>
		<P>Clicking this button brings up the <STRONG>Record Clips</STRONG> dialog box.</P>
		<P><img src="images/RecordDialog.gif" height="272" width="431"></P>
		<P>This dialog shows you how many clips have been multi-selected for 
			recording.&nbsp; It also gives options for the output format:&nbsp; BMP, RGB, 
			TIF,&nbsp;AVI, or WMV.&nbsp; The AVI option will normally result in an 
			uncompressed AVI, which can get large for long animations.&nbsp; Beware that 
			many systems have a 2 gigabyte upper limit on the size of an AVI file.&nbsp; 
			WMV is the recommended format for finished videos, while BMP or AVI can be used 
			for creating raw footage to be loaded into a video editing software suite.</P>
		<P>If you're saving out separate frames, make sure <STRONG>How many digits</STRONG> 
			has enough digits to uniquely specify all the frame numbers in any given 
			clip.&nbsp; The default value <STRONG>4</STRONG> is enough digits to save out 
			10,000 frames per clip.</P>
		<P>The first checkbox can be turned off to disable anti-aliasing, if you wish to 
			render a draft quality recording of your clip.&nbsp; Turn it on to record at 
			full quality.&nbsp; It will only be available if you've marked one or more 
			clips for anti-aliasing in the clip properties panel.</P>
		<P>The next checkbox will send commands for off-screen rendering.&nbsp; This should 
			allow the clip to record even if other windows are overlapping the recording 
			window.&nbsp; Make sure that "Support Offscreen Rendering" is enabled in the 
			OpenGL properties tab under Tools-&gt;Options in STK.</P>
		<P>Note that only 3D graphics windows get anti-aliasing or off-screen 
			rendering.&nbsp; 2D windows don't require a separate off-screen render option 
			to be enabled, and they do not offer anti-aliasing.</P>
		<P>When you click the <STRONG>Record</STRONG> button, Clip Manager will send over 
			Connect commands to queue up each clip, one at a time, and save them out with 
			the options and filenames selected.&nbsp; It will record all of the selected 
			clips without any further user interaction.</P>
		<P class="note"><STRONG>NOTE:</STRONG> Make sure the&nbsp;recording window&nbsp;in 
			STK is the correct size before you click the <STRONG>Record </STRONG>button.</P>
		<P>A progress bar and an <STRONG>Abort</STRONG> button are available during 
			recording.</P>
		<H2>Windows Media (WMV) Options</H2>
		<P>If you are recording Windows Media (WMV) file(s), take a look at the <STRONG>Windows 
				Media options</STRONG> tab before you click <STRONG>Record</STRONG>.&nbsp; 
			This tab is only visible when WMV is selected as the output format.</P>
		<P><IMG height="272" src="images/RecordWMV.gif" width="431"></P>
		<P>This tab allows you to pick a codec from the Windows Media system, but the 
			default codec shown above typically works best for STK videos.&nbsp; This tab 
			also displays the combined total <STRONG>Run Time</STRONG> of the clips 
			currently selected for recording, and lets you pick a Bitrate (video quality) 
			to record at.&nbsp; There are various presets to choose from, for example 
			"High" quality is 5000 kbps, and "low" quality is only 1000 kbps.&nbsp; You can 
			also pick "Custom" as the quality, which allows you to enter your own bitrate 
			in kilobits per second (kpbs).</P>
		<P>Most users don't have a good intuitive feel for kbps bitrates, however, and so 
			Clip Manager provides an "Estimated Size" field.&nbsp; This field displays an 
			estimate of how large your selected video clip(s) might be, collectively, based 
			on the total runtime multiplied by the bitrate (and performing the appropriate 
			unit conversions).</P>
		<P>An interesting feature of this panel is that you can type in your own desired 
			filesize, and a bitrate will be calculated to target that size.</P>
		<P><IMG height="272" src="images/RecordWMVSize.gif" width="431"></P>
		<P>In the above example, a user wanted a minute and a half of video to fit into the 
			space of approximately 20 megabytes.&nbsp; Enter "20m" into the <STRONG>Estimated 
				Size</STRONG> field, press the TAB key, and the Quality is automatically 
			set to "Custom," and an appropriate bitrate is calculated by Clip 
			Manager.&nbsp; Note that the resulting videos could end up being a lot smaller 
			than 20 megs if not much is happening on-screen.&nbsp; For example, if the 
			window being recorded shows a small spinning globe against a large, black, 
			starry background, then Windows Media will have no trouble crushing the movie 
			size to be substantially smaller than the estimated size.&nbsp; If too much is 
			happening on-screen, with lots of small text and details moving around, then 
			the image quality may be sacrificed in order to avoid becoming larger than the 
			estimated size.&nbsp; With rare exception, the finished video should not become 
			more than a meg or two larger than the estimated size, regardless of the 
			content or resolution of the video.</P>
		<P>The <STRONG>Estimated Size</STRONG> field looks at the first letter following