Feature request – Export to (uncompressed) DV-AVI

[NielsJL]

Don’t know if you have considered the option of exporting (from the Animation Props dialog) to .AVI files?

I appreciate that TimelineFX is primarily targeted for game development and applications, but having the ability to export to an uncompressed .AVI would be appealing to people (like me) who are using TimelineFX for visual special effects in video.

Understandably this is a time-consuming feature to code and test so I’m curious to see how many other people are interested in seeing this feature. Please speak up, this way Peter will get a sense of demand?

Background: I’m using TimelineFX with Adobe Premiere Elements for stop-motion animation SFX. I chose TimelineFX over ParticleIllusion application, as TimelineFX is more cost-effective and appears simpler to use.

[imported_peterigz]

A lot of it depends on how easy it would be to implement, a lot of which depends on how many open source codecs and what-not there are that I could use. I’ll keep an eye out anyway 🙂

[NielsJL]

Understood. I did some searching around the Net and found a possible option. http://www.wischik.com/lu/programmer/avi_utils.html.

The licensing appears favorable. i.e.

(c) 2002 Lucian Wischik. This code is free, and anyone can do with it whatever they like, including incorporating it in commercial products.

This assumes that TimelineFX is written in C/C++ and that it is possible to integrate Lucian’s source code. Hopefully, food for thought. 😀

[imported_peterigz]

Thanks for the link, it’s a shame it’s windows only though, ideally there’s something out there that’s multi-platform. TimelineFX is written in a language called Blitzmax, but it can link to c/c++ files so that’s not an issue.

[NielsJL]

I completely agree with not wanting to limit any features to just one platform.

OK, I confess I did some further digging to see how challenging it would be to find (favorably licensed) source code and to educate myself more on the structure of AVI files. Turns out that AVI files are Microsoft extended RIFF format files (from the days of the Amiga…I used the BBC Micro and Atari ST myself so I don’t know about such things… yes, I know please grit your teeth and smile. 😛 ).

But, back to the question at hand. Turns out there is public domain Blitz Basic source code for reading & writing RIFF format files which may be a helpful starting point toward creating simple video AVI files,
see: http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2582

Other reference material that may be of help:

Microsoft’s AVI RIFF File Reference http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms779636.aspx
Microsoft’s DV Data in the AVI File Format http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms783421.aspx
AVI File Format (PDF) http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/documentation/avi.pdf
OpenDML AVI File Format Extensions (PDF) http://www.the-labs.com/Video/odmlff2-avidef.pdf

[imported_peterigz]

Interesting links thanks. I had an Amiga 1200 back in the day as well as ataria st 😎

I’ll keep looking at the possibility of video export and weigh up the effort/time ratios 🙂 How are you currently managing it? Are you exporting a sequence of images and then converting those to video using something another tool like mplayer?

[NielsJL]

@peterigz wrote:

I’ll keep looking at the possibility of video export and weigh up the effort/time ratios 🙂

That’s fair enough, I appreciate how time-consuming software development is from own experience. I had hoped other TimelineFX users would speak up if they wanted to see this feature as well so as to give you a sense of the demand.

@peterigz wrote:

How are you currently managing it? Are you exporting a sequence of images and then converting those to video using something another tool like mplayer?

Yes, I export separate .PNG images (with transparency turned on) which I import into Adobe Premiere Elements and then export as a DV-AVI file. Having all video pre-processed as uncompressed DV-AVI files works better when it is time to piece everything together.

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