SU2KT Animation

Step-by-step Guide Please note that rendering an animation takes a lot of time!! I.e. if you have made an animation in SU that last 30 sek., and you've applied 25fps in the settings, in order to get a smooth animation, KT needs to render 750 images. If each image takes an average of 2 min. to render, the entire animation will take 25 hours!! The only good news about this is that Kerkythea will do it all without you touching a finger. You can sleep while the render process is running. This is a quick step-by-step guide to help you make an animation within SU, which you're able to render to a photo realistic animation in http://www.kerkythea.org using the SU2KT ruby by ToMasz. To follow this guide, you need to have basic knowledge about creating animations in SU as well as basic knowledge of Kerkythea!! 1.) 2.)

Open/create the model in SU. Create an animation by adding as many pages from different views as you want. View > Tourguide > Add Page 2a.) And/or use one of the FlightPath tools available at http://www.smustard.com 3.) Apply Slideshow settings in SU. (Page transitions, Page delay.) View > Tourguide > Settings (Please note that the Slideshow settings applied in SU will be exported.) 4.) I recommend that you test your animation in SU. (The outcome from SU will be identical with the outcome from Kerkythea) 5.) Once happy with the slideshow/animation, save your 'skippy'. 6.) Export the model to a XML-file. Plugins > Kerkythea Exporter > Export Model 7.) Export the animation to a KST-file. Plugins > Kerkythea Exporter > Export Animation Path 8.) Apply Animation export options. I recommend that you use 25fps to get a smooth animation – expert setting 23.98fps 23,98fps European PAL – 29,97fps full NTSC Resolution should be set to 768x576 You can read much more about proper video settings on the Internet. Here are some good examples: http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tvbranding/picturesize.shtml http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/conversion/#conversion_table http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/conversion/

SU2KT Animation

Step-by-step Guide 9.) 10.) 11.) 12.) 13.)

Open Kerkythea. Open the exported XML-file. Apply material- and scene- settings accordingly. Test the settings by executing some "05. GI - Quick" render. Once happy with all settings - SAVE the XML-file in KT!! It’s very important that you save the XML-file by overwriting existing XML-file!! Reason for this is, that if you save to different filename and/or directory, all textures will be lost and final render will fail.

14.) To render the animation, choose File > Script and open the KST-file exported to execute the render process. IMPORTANT NOTICE!! Once you’ve executed the script, you can’t stop the process, unless you terminate Kerkythea completely! This is also the reason why you should save the XML-file after having applied material and scene settings.

15.) All images will be saved as JPG-images in the "Anim_..." folder. You can assemble these image-files to a video-file (I.e. an AVI-file) by using programs like http://www.virtualdub.org http://www.dandans.com/ImageVideoMachine.htm or similar programs.

Kind regards Kim Frederik Quality is nothing without efficiency! “…When a decision is made it’s important that you implement it quickly.”