hello everyone, I have to make a video with Vantage where you see a TV and I wanted to associate a movie and not a static image, is it possible?
Hi Grapho978,
Yes, it is possible with the release of 1.8.0. Which DCC are you using (Max, SketchUp, etc) because it is different setup for each app?
Best regards,
Alexander
I am also interested in that workflowâŚI am using Rhino 
Thank you
Hello, @Grapho978 and @pavol_pastork ,
You can create an animated TV screen with V-Ray for Rhino using animated imagery in the form of an image file sequence.
There are three main steps to achieve this:
- Set up an animation in Rhino.
This is done either via its native animation tools, e.g. Fly-through or Path animation, or with V-Ray for Grasshopperâs Timeline component.
If you wish to have an animation where the camera does not move at all and only a TV screen is animated, prepare your animation in GH using this template: static_camera_animation.zip
- Supply animation sequence for the TV screen.
V-Ray can currently animate only image sequences, thus, you need to have the source file in form of multiple image files, all indexed based on their frame number, e.g. screen_animation.0001.png, screen_animation.0002.png, etc.
If you have only video files (e.g. *.mp4 or *.webm), you will need to export an image sequence from them. This can be achieved with a single click using Chaos Player (Chaos Player â Professional Image Sequence Player & Viewer | Chaos) - simply load the video file and choose File > Save Layer as⌠, then pick PNG or JPEG Sequence.
Alternatively, it can be done with other similar 3rd-party software products of your choice.
- Create a material to simulate the animated screen.
Use an Emissive material with âCompensate EVâ enabled for your TV screen surface. Create a Bitmap texture in its Color map slot.
Enable the Bitmapâs advanced settings from the button at its top-right corner, then choose any of the image files from the sequence created in Step 2. Finally, enable the Bitmapâs âSequenceâ toggle.
You will notice the Bitmap preview will then change to display the very first of the image sequence files.
Please note that using Emissive materials or Mesh Lights for scene illumination may not always be the most performant method in terms of render speed. If the TV screen is going to be your main light source, better keep its material intensity to 1 and instead add an invisible Rectangle light with the same Bitmap in front of the screen. This will help reduce render time in V-Ray (and to some extend in Vantage) as the Rectangle lightâs illumination is more optimized for calculation than that coming from emissive meshes.
Once all this is all done, your scene will be ready for export from V-Ray for Rhino to Chaos Vantage.
Additionally, be informed that:
- Animation length cannot be adjusted in Vantage. The number of frames must be set in V-Ray for Rhino.
- Emissive materialâs âCompensate EVâ option is currently not supported in Chaos Vantage. While the adjustment mentioned above is aimed at producing good result in V-Ray, when exported to Vantage, the intensity must be adjusted manually, depending on the Camera EV.
Hope these instructions will suffice!
Kind regards,
Peter
static_camera_animation.zip (16.9 KB)
Hmm, well I have a problem with this in Max also.
I have a simple b/w mask ifl in diffuse and it does not show upâŚremains black throughout.
Is there a trick to this Max to get it work?
EDIT: Donât worry I think I know why, so ignore this please, unless it still is problematic after my presumed fix
Nope, this does not work for me.
The scene is one object with the ifl in the diffuse.
I export to an archive and no use.
I export not to an archive and still no use.
I try by using the Max icon âsend as an etcâŚâ and still nothing.
I can send the scene to support I guess, though it should be simpler than this is proving.
Well, unfortunately we havenât made the update (between different frames of the sequence) automatic when you are in interactive mode.
You are most likely running into this.
We did this for performance reasons, as we havenât implemented a streaming/caching solution yet.
There is a button in the lower right to do the update.
When rendering a âhigh qualityâ sequence, the update is of course automatic.
Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev
â
Ah right, the secret button 
Thanks for the info. Sadly it does not help me, as the collaborator would want to view the thing animating
in order to plan camera moves.
Such a shame.
@Peter.Chaushev I have just followed your instructions on this and I simply cannot get it to work. I have also been in touch with Natalia Gruzdova and she pointed me to this. I am following all the steps, but it simply does not work and I donât see the button to update the image sequence. It shows when I open Vantage, but then disappears. Even if I render in Vantage the sequence does not play.
I have:
1. set up animation in Grasshopper and set 300 frames. Then sent the camera animation to Rhino.
2. set up a new emissive material and put an image sequence in the bitmap.
3. I even created an .ifl file and made sure there are no numbers in the file paths, which according to Natalia is a (ridicolus) requirement
4. Made sure in the V-Ray asset editor animation is enabled
But still nothing.
Why is this so difficult, when in other renderers I can just set an .mp4 as a texture and donât have to do anything else.
3. I even created an .ifl file and made sure there are no numbers in the file paths, which according to Natalia is a (ridicolus) requirementâ
The IFL file is needed only if you need the sequence to loop once it reaches the final frame.
It shows when I open Vantage, but then disappears.
The button disappears when the live link starts, because itâs not needed in this case - the update is automatic.
Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev
I know itâs been a while, but for future reference: you can do something like that in D5 Render. You just add a video texture and add a .mp4 file. It will then play the texture right in the viewport. Itâs a great feature of a great tool and I think what they got right is that they let you edit materials in the Renderer. If Vantage did that you would be able to have things that are specific to Vantage.
Still I would much rather use Vantage, since the quality is way higher and its actually faster to render out the high quality videos.
I would love it if Vantage basically became a fast stand-alone V-Ray, but for that itâs still got a looong way to go.
Good to know, thank you.
It is not needed for live link? But that would mean I have to somehow play the animation back in Rhino, for it to update in Vantage? You canât really do that unless you render an animation. Either way rendering a camera animation in Vantage I do not get the texture updating even with live link.
I set up the animation in Grasshopper as per Peterâs instructions. If I play the animation in the timeline, the texture does not change in Vantage.
It is not needed for live link? But that would mean I have to somehow play the animation back in Rhino, for it to update in Vantage?
Yes. Itâs possible in 3dsMax, but I donât know about Rhino.
Either way rendering a camera animation in Vantage I do not get the texture updating even with live link.
How do you change the current animation frame in V-Ray for Rhino ?
I set up the animation in Grasshopper as per Peterâs instructions. If I play the animation in the timeline, the texture does not change in Vantage.â
Do you mean the Vantage timeline or the Rhino timeline (does it have one) ?
For the Vantage timeline, this is a current limitation, thatâs why we have an âupdateâ button.
We havenât implemented caching for the images in the sequence and reloading them each time the frame changes can be slow and block the UI.
Thatâs why itâs not automatic.
Does the image sequence update if you click the âupdateâ button ?
I would love it if Vantage basically became a fast stand-alone V-Ray, but for that itâs still got a looong way to go.â
We are trying to add features in this direction, but yes, it will take time.
If you have suggestions about this, you can start a thread in the wish list section.
Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev
You donât really. Rhino doesnât really do animation, except for simple camera animations. But there is only really a V-Ray animation timeline in Grasshopper inside Rhino. But if I play there, the frame does not update in Vantage. Other than that I think as far as V-Ray is concerned, the frame in Rhino only changes when you do a production render.
Thatâs the thing, if I use live link the button is not there. If I load the .vrscene I get the button, but it does nothing.
Also loading the .vrscene I cannot get to the scene properly. I am somewhere in space (probably like the 0 position) and canât see my scene. Not sure why it does not go to the view I had in Rhino when I saved the .vrscene. This doesnât happen after I first have started Vantage after a restart, since it will then import the scene into that scene with the tree and then I can get to my scene objects. For some reason ever other time after that when I start Vantage I get the Tree Scene, I load the .vrscene and I am catapulted somewhere into the ether.
I am fully aware that Rhino is lets be honest, super shit at anything animation or a lot of stuff that traditional 3D software has. But its still super powerful and Grasshopper is amazing. I canât learn another tool though, just for this one thing that isnât working.
Iâm aware of that, although I would have said the same 10 years ago when I started using V-Ray. I think Octane showed everyone how simple, yet powerful a standalone Renderer can be. Something like Vantage shows that as well since it already does a lot of things a 3D tool does if you take away all the modelling and setup.
I think the logical next step would be to basically have the asset editor in Vantage, so editing of materials is possible. Then you add the whole Cosmos stuff, so you can drop in those assets and materials and so on - basically just do it like D5 does it, which has its asset placing I believe inspired by City Skylines (an awesome city builder game). Last basically add Light Gen and the ability to do light mixes right in Vantage.
Iâm sure it will take a while, but it will be glorious!â
Thatâs the thing, if I use live link the button is not there. If I load the .vrscene I get the button, but it does nothing.â
I donât have access to Rhino right now in order to test the live link update,
but you can send me the .vrscene and I can check if itâs setup properly for image sequence animation.
Also loading the .vrscene I cannot get to the scene properly. I am somewhere in space (probably like the 0 position) and canât see my scene. Not sure why it does not go to the view I had in Rhino when I saved the .vrscene. This doesnât happen after I first have started Vantage after a restart, since it will then import the scene into that scene with the tree and then I can get to my scene objects. For some reason ever other time after that when I start Vantage I get the Tree Scene, I load the .vrscene and I am catapulted somewhere into the ether.
â
Maybe youâve set the following preference to merge/place ?
Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev
@vladimir.nedev we have received both Rhino scene and vrscene from @seltzdesign in the ticket regarding this forum post. I will share it with you for further investigation.
Oh, thanks, I didnât know the discussion started elsewhere.
Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev
We have tested the scene that @seltzdesign have forwarded in a ticket and most likely the necessary step to Get From Active Rhino Viewport in Grasshopper (as described in this post) was omitted.
So once you have loaded the script make sure to:
- Set Frame Count.
- Right-click on the Camera to specify > Get From Active Rhino Viewport.
- Right-click on the Render in Project > Export Camera Animation.
Once the Camera Animation is exported, enable Animation settings in the V-Ray Asset Editor, select Animation Source > Grasshopper.
Just to make sure you can toggle the Get Animation Range button (Time Segment set to Frame Range) to update the frame count.
Once this is set you can render animation with image sequence in V-Ray.
Regarding rendering animation with image sequence in Vantage:
In Rhino image sequence can not be rendered via Live Link. In order to render image sequences in Vantage .vrscene has to be exported and loaded.
In Vantage load the .vrscene and check if there is animation in the textures by scrubbing the timeline and press the Update sequence button on the right. For performance reasons the animated textures will not update during preview playback - hit the U key to make them update for the current frame.
The animated textures will update automatically in high quality (offline) render from Tools > High Quality Render.
Additionally I wanted to clarify about IFL file usage:
At this point if you want/need to change Sequence settings (Playback Speed and Playback Type) you have to use .ifl. More information and workflow specifics can be found in this forum thread.â
In case if you want to render foe example 300 frames and you have 300 sequence images prepared for each frame in which case there is no need to specify Playback Type and Speed you do not need the .ifl. The only condition is that the naming of the images corresponds to the frame number (e.g.image.0001.png, image.0002.png, etc.)
I am adding two simple scenes with and without .ifl using Grasshopper script for the camera animation for anyone to test.
â
Rhino_Vantage_sequence.zip (2.59 MB)
Thanks @natalia.gruzdova and @vladimir.nedev for working this out.
Why not? Could you add that as a feature request? I donât see why that should not work as well. But I guess its as much Rhinoâs fault as it is Vantages. V-Ray for Grasshopper should be able to send the scene to Vantage directly. Then at least we could do everything in Grasshopper, which I would greatly appreciate.
Also like was discussed a long time ago, please please please donât have things in Grasshopper that you can only trigger by right-clicking on a component. Itâs not how Grasshopper is designed to work and everything should be triggerable by booleans. Having stuff in right-click menus, means you break the Grasshopper logic and it prevents more complex setups from being created! So ideally all the options should be triggerable by booleans, also sending the viewport to rhino, render animaton, etc.
But thanks for taking the time and effort to get this working. I will try it again with everything you mentioned. Itâs a LOT of things that have to be just right for it to work.
What does DCC stand for againâŚDiscrete CertifiedâŚ?