There are a number of programs in RockWorks which generate animations. Use these settings to establish general settings, define the type of output file to be generated, and whether the video file is to be displayed after it is created.
- Output Options: Click on this tab to define the output file type for your animation and display settings.
The animation frames are stored as sequentially-numbered PNG files in the "Animation_Frames" sub-folder of your project folder. The images are saved with a fixed width of 1920 pixels.
- General Settings: Use these settings, on the right side of the window, to define options which pertain to most/all of the output options. We'll discuss these first.
- Image Prefix: Enter the prefix to be used to name the animation frames. The names of the image frames will consist of the prefix, followed by a 5-digit number, starting with "00001". For example, if you enter "Arsenic_" as the prefix, then the resulting frames will be named "Arsenic_00001.png", "Arsenic_00002.png" and so on. These are the individual frames which are rendered into your video output.
! If you do not change the Image Prefix for different animations, the existing PNG files will be overwritten. That is ok if you are only interested in keeping the produced videos. However if you want to have access to the individual frame images, you'll need to be sure to change the prefix for each animation process.
- Display Animation: Check this box, on the right side of the window, to have the video displayed after it is generated. It will use the default player for that type of file which is installed on your computer.
- Frames per Second: This setting determines how fast the animation should be. The default is 10 frames per second. Increase this value to make the process go faster (more frames per second), decrease this value to make it go more slowly.
- 3D Settings: Use these options to define view settings for 3D animations only.
- Vertical Exaggeration: Enter the desired vertical exaggeration for the 3D scene. The default settings is "1" (for no vertical stretch). If your 3D scene is too flat in the output movie, increase this value; "1.5" will stretch the items 1.5x, "2" will stretch the items 2x, etc.
- Background Color: Select the background color for the 3D scene.
- View Settings
- Direction: Enter the direction from which the scene is to be viewed, for the start and end of the animation. For example, to view the image from due north, you would enter: 0. To view the image from 15 degrees west of north, you would enter: 345
- Inclination: Enter the inclination at which the scene is to be viewed, for the start and end of the animation, where 0 = horizontal, 15 = 15 degrees above the horizon,–20 = 20 degrees below the horizon, etc.
- Zoom: Select the starting and ending zoom setting for the scene. "100" is the standard display settings for RockPlot3D, "150" is 50% larger, "200" is twice as large.
- Embellishments: Turn on the 3D reference items you wish to include in the animation scene. (More info)
- Type of Output
None: Choose this option to output the individual PNG images for the animation "slides", as described above, without rendering the video animation. If you use this option to generate the images only, be sure to edit the Image Prefix as appropriate.
! See the Images -> Animation program to create a video of existing images.
- AVI: Choose this option to output the video to an AVI format. Please refer to the notes in the window regarding AVI format files.
- AVI Output File: Type in a name to assign to the AVI file to be created.
- GIF: Choose this option to output the video to an animated GIF format. Please refer to the notes in the window regarding GIF file considerations.
- GIF Output File: Type in a name to assign to the GIF file to be created.
- Animated GIF Dimensions: Type in the pixel width and height for the animated GIF file. These settings are specific to animated GIF output. Be cautioned that these types of files should be limited to small frame sizes or else the resulting animation file becomes huge.
- KMZ: Choose this to output the animation to Google Earth.
- KMZ File: Type in the name to assign to the KMZ file to be created.
- Drape Images over Ground Surface: Check this for the animation to be draped along the ground surface.
- Float Images At Specific Elevation: Check this for the animation to be floated above ground.
- Image Elevation: Type in the elevation at which the animation is to be displayed, and specify the units.
- Date Range Represented by Images: Set the starting and ending date for the animation images.
- Image Coordinates: Choose whether the images are to be assigned the RockWorks project dimensions or user-specified coordinates.
- Image Opacity: Set this to a value less than 100% for the Google Earth ground surface to be visible through the images.
- MP4: Choose this option to output the video to an MP4 format. Please refer to the notes in the window regarding considerations about MP4 format files.
- MP4 Output File: Type in a name to assign to the MP4 file to be created.
- WMV: Choose this option to output the video to a WMV format. Please refer to the notes in the window regarding considerations about WMV format files.
- WMF Output File: Type in a name to assign to the WMV file to be created.
- Label Frames: Check this option to include date/time labels on each animation frame.
- Font Size: Set the size for the text, as a percent of the project size. (Default = 2)
- Font Color: Choose from Automatic or Manual.
- Fill Background: Check this box to display the labels against a solid background, and select the color.
- Title Position: Select from the drop-down list where you want the labels to plot.
- Date Format: Enter the desired date format. See the example in the window for reference.
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