Since a couple of people actually tried using the MovieGen… I am “forced” to release an updated version to make things clearer and cleaner :-).
If you are still interested in this, pls download Version 2:
Changes:
- Compatibility added to Vide player and generator
- generator player and creator updated to my latest Mac version
- it now supports autotrace (seperate batch files)
- examples:
BadApple -> Potrace
BlaBla -> autotrace - Instructions on how to play on
VecFever
PiTrex
VeXtreme
Vide
added - added Readme:
For more information “in general” pls look at: 16th-of-march-2022-bad-apple-again and the links it may provide.
Windows only!
START with either batch file, the batch file MUST be provided with a MP4 file name, like:
POTRACE
convert_potrace.bat Bad_Apple.mp4
AUTOTRACE
convert_autotrace.bat BlaBla.mp4
Change settings
a) POTRACE
If you want to change parameters in the conversion process, fiddle with lines:
in file: convert_p.sh line
For possible changes in the conversion from png to pnm, to e.g. adjust image brightness, dithering, despeckle etc and line:
../bin/ImageMagick_8bit.win64/magick.exe $x ../pnm/${x%.png}.pnm;
for possible parameters for the potrace conversion to vectors:
../bin/potrace.win64/potrace.exe -a 0 -O 1 -b geojson -o ../vec/${x%.pnm}.vec $x
b) AUTOTRACE
If you want to change parameters in the conversion process, fiddle with lines:
in file: convert_a.sh line
for possible changes in the conversion from png to pnm, to e.g. adjust image brightness, dithering, despeckle etc and line:
../bin/ImageMagick_8bit.win64/magick.exe $x ../pnm/${x%.png}.pnm;
for possible parameters for the autotrace conversion to vectors:
../bin/autotrace.win64/autotrace.exe -error-threshold=0.2 -background-color=000000 -centerline -line-reversion-threshold=1000 -line-threshold=1000 -output-format=svg $x >../svg/${x%.pnm}.svg
OUTPUT/TESTING
Vide
To play these files in Vide, pls follow the instruction provided at the end of following Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7FEBMScUA0
VecFever
To play these files on a VecFever:
What you need to do…
– Start Vide
– go to the menu “Tool”
– go to sub menu “Utilities”
– activate menu item “File Utility” (last item)
– go to TAB 3
– in the subsection “ExtremeVectrex to V4EB” chose the generated vec.bin
– press the button V4EB
in the same directory a vec.bin.V4E will be created, that is playable on a vecfever.
The player vide provides should be compatible with the generated binaries, if in doubt use the binary which comes with this distribution, namely ExtremePlayer_VecFever.bin
The player, that the conversion tool uses is located under: Vide/template/ExtremePlayer.bin
The sourcecode can also be found under “Vide/projects/ExtremePlayer”.
If you overwrite (rename the above file) the one in “Vide/template/ExtremePlayer.bin” with the above mentioned file…
the movie generated with above procedure will play correctly on the VecFever.
PiTrex
The generated bin files are compatible to the PiTrex player. The only thing is, on PiTrex for the time being the player can not be started with different bin files than the ones provided. The only reason why that is – is because there no is dynamic system to provide parameters while calling the movie player.
If you want to play your own generated movie file, you have to rename it to one of the already configured movies… and the player will load that now renamed file and play it. The movie files are located on the SD card:
SD_CARD:\vectrex\movies
Vextreme
Until someone makes the menu system of the Vextreme more dynamic – you also have to “juggle” while using the VeXtreme card.
Depending on the version of your current VeXtreme menu system and file system layout:
With this package comes a “new” VeXtreme player called: ExtremePlayer_VeXtreme.bin,
copy this one over to your VeXtreme “player” directory.
Hardcoded VeXtreme (firmware) will allways try to load the file “vec.bin”.
So, if you want to run different movies – you have to exchange that file with the “last” vec.bin file
created by the MovieGen.
Above for VeXtreme is not TESTED, because I managed to somehow render my VeXtreme not working anymore. (Soldered a bit on it – and than it stopped working…)
Really great! I am having a lot of fun with this. The sound is very good now for a Vectrex.
I am assuming the videos are playing back at 30fps?
24fps would be completely good for video, it would in fact make it feel a bit more like cinema.
Not sure if that helps with increasing audio quality or maybe time for a few more vectors?
Also is there a way to change the aspect ratio? looks like it is 4×3? So videos do not take advantage of the top/bottom area.
Yes 30fps.
Audio quality no – more vectors yes.
One would have to change the ExtremePlayer (references to T2 timer, which is now set to: $C350 … and I think some compare in the audio part).
Also one would need to change “combine.php” – I think at the moment it works with a max of 280 “actions” (move or draw).
This could be set higher than. But that value was not mathematically gotten – just a guess – it could be anything.
The complete vector drawing COULD be somewhat optimized – e.g. by using different scales for the vectors (but this has also take into account the audio output).
Aspect ratio:
I think everything now works internally with 480 x 360 pixels (the images), the vectrex output are from -128 to 127.
(look at the calling of grabPolys… functions and the coordinate conversion therein).
If you want to change that – it probably could easily be done.
Call imageMagick with some additional rotation parameters to rotate the image and change the internal coordinates to 360 x 480.
I guess that would probably be enough.
At the moment I do not intend to put more time into the package – as it is now “round” and works.
If there are actual bugs – pls let me know.
All sources are available – and if there are questions, I will certainly answer them. But version 2.0 was my break and I’ll probably not go any further.
Thanks for using this!
I just watched your video about ‘Smartlists’. Very informative even if I didn’t understand everything. Does MovieGen2 run any type of smartlist when converting vectors to vectrex?
No, Movie gen does not use smartlists.
Is there a limit on how big the .v4e file can be? I have many converted videos working, they are all under 7MB. I just made two more that are long videos and they are 12MB and 17MB .v4e files. They do not play back on my VecFever. I am reconverting them to see if maybe it was something I did. But is there a limit on the file size?
Thomas will look into this…