VMD-L Mailing List

From: Barry Isralewitz (barryi_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 08 2001 - 15:51:55 CST

Hi,

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 03:07:29PM -0500, Marta Murcia wrote:
> Hello!
> This is Marta from de Mount Sinai School of Medicine (Physiology &
> Biophysics Department). I am interested in making a film of a trajectory
> file (.crd) animation, to incorporate later on to a Power Point Presentation
> (maybe quick time format). I have been seeing your html guide and I found
> out that this feature is not still developed at all. You supply some code to
> make it possible but I am still a casual user of this program. I would like
> to Know is there is another possibility o another way of making a movie.

        There's really two main steps of movie generation with VMD.

        1) Use VMD to: generate the frames as many sequentially
numbered files, for example movie001.tiff, movie002.tiff, ...,
movie300.tiff.
        2) Use a movie-conversion program to (not VMD) to: convert the
frames into a movie file.

        Step 2) should only take a few seconds of typing/clicking once
you've found the right program and settings, then you just grab some
coffee while the program churns for 15 minutes or so.

> Do
> you have any suggestion regarding to the final format?
> Thank you very much in advance
> Best regards
> Marta

 I suggest starting with 320x240 MPEG-1 format for Powerpoint, not the
highest quality, but the files play smoothly even on older laptops.
Most movie-conversion programs can output to a variety of formats
(Quicktime, AVI, etc.), try a few, your results will vary depending on
what sort of machine you plan to show the movie on, the content of the
movie, desired level of detail, etc.. If you tell me the operating
system you're using, I'll recommend some movie-generation software
available for it. I often use 'mediaconvert' on Silicon Graphics IRIX
machines.
        

        We have some sample VMD scripts that do step 1) at

http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/script_library/categories/movies.html

        Try the simple rotation movie:

http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/script_library/scripts/rotation_movie/

        Paste the contents of rotation_movie.txt into the VMD console
(equivalently, you can save rotation_movie.txt to a file, then type
'source rotation_movie.txt' into the VMD console). Now make sure your
molecule is visible in the VMD GL window, then type
'make_rotation_movie_files' into the VMD console. You'll have 18
files, snap0000.rgb, snap0001.rgb, etc. and you're ready for step 2).

        Many movies have been generated with VMD, a few can be seen at:

http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Overview/movie_gallery/qt_movies/

        
        *A question for you: may I copy this discussion to 'vmd-l' the public
discussion list for VMD? This will help other users and might get you
extra advice. Thanks for using VMD!

                                        Cheers,

                                        Barry 

-- 
Barry Isralewitz     Beckman 3121    Theoretical Biophysics Group, UIUC  
Office Phone: (217) 244-1612    Home Phone: (217) 337-6364
email: barryi_at_ks.uiuc.edu      http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~barryi