[magick-users] Newbie Question: Creating animation with many frames

[Beau E. Cox]

On 7/31/07, Gabriel Toro <toro at riskeng.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your suggestion:
>
> Here is the error message I get now (after ~ 2 hours), when I try
> -limit memory 1 -limit map 1 :
>
> convert: unable to clone cache `C:/DOCUME~1/grt/LOCALS~1/Temp/magick-9VAn86hI
> Bad file descriptor.
>
> The path C:/DOCUME~1/grt/LOCALS~1/ is OK, so I am not sure what the problem is.
>
> Any other suggestions?
>
> Thanks,
>
> --snipped--

Hi -

Welcome to the wonderful world of video processing! Your approach to
making a video ( like mpg ) by loading all frames into memory and then
making the file is just not going to hack it. You need some tools that
process the frames in a stream and incrementally produce video output.

On windows, you can try ffmpeg.exe:

1) Download from:
  http://www.videohelp.com/tools/ffmpeg
which has windows binaries here:
  http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/

2) Download the most recent .7s file ( yes, that's .7s )

3) Get and install 7-zip from:
  http://7-zip.org/

4) Run 7-zip ( a gui based tool ) to extract the .exe's in the ffmpeg
.7s archive.

5) You should now have ffmpeg.exe, ffplay.exe, and a dll in the
extracted directory - do whatever you want to get the .exe's and .dll
in your path.

6) Look at ffmpeg documentation here:
  http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/
  http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-doc.html
  http://arrozcru.no-ip.org/ffmpeg/
  ffmpeg -h

7) Convert you frame files from *.eps to something ffmpeg understands
- i.e. *.jpg or *.ppm. Be sure the files are numbered in a consistent
way, for example:
  frame-0001.jpg
  frame-0002.jpg
  ...

8) Create an mpg with ffmpeg. Using the input created above try:

  ffmpeg.exe -i frame-%04d.jpg video.mpg

I actually tested this!

9) There are lots and lots of ffmpeg options! You may ( read: will )
have to play with them to get your video working correctly.

Have fun! Aloha => Beau;