From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 06 2012 - 10:00:15 CST

Hi,
  Actually, the existing movie maker does have a simple script-driven
interface that one can use independent of whether VMD is running with
a full GUI or not. To make some types of movies you would need to
set some other movie maker internal variables as well. This interface
is subjec to change in the next version of VMD since I'm working on
adding parallel movie rendering to VMD currently, but the examples below
will work for any existing version of VMD containing vmdmovie
package version 1.7 or later.

Here is a simple example:

package require vmdmovie
display resize 256 256
mol new 1ubq waitfor all
mkdir /tmp/mytmpdir

# check if we are running with a GUI or not
# if we are running without Tk, then we also don't have OpenGL, and we
# will have to render the movie using Tachyon or by some other method
if { [ info exists tk_version] } {
  ::MovieMaker::makemovie /tmp/mytmpdir example ppmtompeg snapshot 10 rockandroll
} else {
  ::MovieMaker::makemovie /tmp/mytmpdir example ppmtompeg libtachyon 10 rockandroll
}

Here are examples of other variables you may need to set/override:
set ::MovieMaker::framerate 24
set ::MovieMaker::trjstep 1
set ::MovieMaker::userframe 0
set ::MovieMaker::numframes [molinfo top get numframes]

As mentioned above I am working on extending the movie maker for
parallel rendering via scripts when running in text mode on clusters
with MPI, and some of this will likely involve changes to the script-level
movie maker interface, so the suggestions I give above might
potentially need to be updated with the next major VMD release. If I can
implement the new version without breaking old scripts, I will, but I don't
know if that's feasible yet.

Cheers,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Thu, Dec 06, 2012 at 02:02:33PM +0100, Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 3:40 PM, Aaron Taudt
> <aaron.taudt_at_itb.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:
> > Dear VMD users,
> >
> > i want to use the VMD Movie Maker Plugin in "-dispdev text" mode. This means
> > I cannot press any buttons. Is there a way to use the Movie Maker Plugin
> > from within a script? I didn't find anything related to this question on the
>
> the movie maker plugin uses Tk scripting, but with -dispdev text,
> Tk and the entire graphics environment is not initialized, so the
> answer is "no" you cannot use it.
>
> however, it is fairly simple to write a little loop/script
> of your own in Tcl that will execute the necessary steps.
> most of which, you can copy from the movie maker script,
> if needed.
>
> axel.
>
> > web. Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Best regards
> > Aaron Taudt
> > Institute of Technical Biochemistry
> > University of Stuttgart
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Axel Kohlmeyer akohlmey_at_gmail.com http://goo.gl/1wk0
> International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste. Italy.

-- 
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