topic Re: simple QT movies with AC 14? in Visualization

simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 12:20:22 GMT

I've just upgraded to AC14 but am having trouble with making a QTVR movie. Is it possible to make a simple movie with AC14 anymore?

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

NCornia — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 04:21:57 GMT

venecasper,

Well to start lets clear this up. QTVR support has been discontinued by Apple so it is legacy. The methods to create VR Objects and VR Scenes still exist inside ArchiCAD 14 but you are on your own essentially.

Here is the Graphisfot official statement on QTVR: http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/downloads/ac13/QTVR.html

But, to make a simple Quicktime movie is very simple. Place your cameras in the appropriate positions around and or through your building model then go to "Document>Creative Imaging>Create Fly-Through". Settings must be adjusted in this dialogue box as well as in the camera settings, so make sure you check in both places. The camera settings window has a button labeled "Path". Click on this to set the number of frames between cameras and the motion controls. Your framerate and filetype are determined in the Create Fly-Through dialogue box.

HTH

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

schagemann — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:16:01 GMT

venecasper,
NCornia,

sorry to sound so smarta**ed (there are plenty of others around here... ;0) just to clarify though, there is a difference between the following quicktime formats:

QTVR > allows (or better allowed) you to interactively pan in either a panorama or scene mode, created by placing a so called VR Object (dome) or VR Scene in archicad... strangely the help tags still show these descriptions!

QT movie (.mov) > allows to create & follow a movie along a predefined path of cameras;

up until AC13 this functionality still worked as described on our blog (http://macinteract.com/ac13-qtvr-753), however it seems that the legacy plugin no longer works in AC14 and we could not find a newer one anywhere as asked for by the error message upon loading the pld one... some other users in this forum have also noticed this (http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=166310).

as described on our blog the only way to currently still do native QTVR's is either in AC13 or with C4D.

conveniently grahipsoft now also sells their own (and admittedly much more powerful) version of QTVRs in form of VBE (http://www.graphisoft.com/products/virtual-building-explorer/) - formerly and very briefly known as Zermatt (http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=33859&sid=831f6bbb1a2a9bbf13754e4367465874)... still VBE is not free and i still miss QTVRs as they were a really quick presentation option in my toolset.

ds.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:09:18 GMT

NCornia and Schagemann, thank you. This helps a lot. I will play around with this and see how it goes and I agree as well that QTVR's were a very nice and quick presentation tool.

MV

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

David Collins — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 07:24:30 GMT

As another option, Artlantis can also do QTVR single spherical panoramas. They dropped the ability to link them into scenes, however.

The future of QTVR seems to be still in play: Apparently, QuickTIme 7.6.6 (1675) now enables QTVR playback on 64 bit Windows systems. Can someone confirm this?

Not being a Mac Guy, can someone tell me if QTVR panoramas run on the latest MAC OS? 64 bit?

I've always liked QTVRs myself, not just because they were quick to produce and file sizes were small, but because they could be fully rendered. A seriously rendered photorealistic QTVR with everything Artlantis can throw into it is a joy to behold.

On the other hand, I recently compiled a series of QTVR panoramas that were linked by short animations that moved the viewer from one node to the next. I was surprised to see that the sense of three dimensional space in the linking animations was much more powerful than the QTVRs, which nail the viewer to one spot. It seems that parallax, the way things move in space in relation to each other, is critical to the way the brain understands three dimsensional space. You don't get that in QTVR's. So that's one for the VBE side, to say nothing of the option to get your clients to wear nerdy 3d cardboard glasses.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:43:41 GMT

David wrote:
Not being a Mac Guy, can someone tell me if QTVR panoramas run on the latest MAC OS? 64 bit?

We need to keep Quicktime Player 7 on our systems for panos and VR objects. (Quicktime X cannot do these.)

A plus of QTVR or animations over VBE is that you cannot limit what the recipient sees in a VBE file: they get the entire 3D model. So, if you have not modeled part of the project perfectly, the recipient will see that and no doubt get distracted by that instead of what they are supposed to be focused on.

Each has its purpose depending on the project and phase, but neither completely replaces the other IMHO.

Because of the relatively high cost of Artlantis Studio (the Studio version is required to produce QTVR scenes or objects, or animations) ... there is still a need for simple VR's from ArchiCAD itself. Large firms can amortize a single Artlantis license easily and obtain the superior results possible there. One-person firms not so much; so hopefully an HTML5 or other technology will allow Graphisoft to return some form of VR to ArchiCAD in the future.

My 2 cents. 😉

Karl

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:42:17 GMT

Well said, Karl, being a 1 man firm, I couldn't agree more. The VR Object is a great tool and impresses the heck out of a client ( with very little effort )

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

KeesW — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:29:21 GMT

I have the latest Quicktime and 64 bit Windows 7. We can't produce QTVR scenes.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:39:33 GMT

KeesW wrote:
I have the latest Quicktime and 64 bit Windows 7. We can't produce QTVR scenes.

QTVR has been deprecated by Apple. It is only possible to produce in older versions now.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

David Collins — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 06:06:24 GMT

KeesW wrote:
I have the latest Quicktime and 64 bit Windows 7. We can't produce QTVR scenes.

But will an existing QTVR movie run on your system? That was my question. I can produce the QTVRs in Artlantis. I'm trying to figure out if any of my clients will have problems viewing them.

Thanks.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

KeesW — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 06:57:55 GMT

David
I would be able to try this if I had an old one - but I don't.
Sorry!

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:38:21 GMT

I just checked and one of my old QTVRs opens just fine in QuickTime 7 but will not open in version 10 (the latest - I don't think there ever was a version 8 or 9). This was on my Mac. I haven't tried it on my Windows side. I assume it would be the same.

So if you want your clients to be able to open the file you may need to provide them with the older QT version. I don't think there are any legal issues since it has always been freely distributed by Apple, but it can be a problem having to ask a client to install special viewers software.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

KeesW — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:57:28 GMT

I've just remembered that QTVR never worked with 64 bit windows. It did work with 32 bit windows.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 22:24:10 GMT

I do have a potential solution, but first wanted to chime in and moan that the loss of QTVR is tragic; it was just so easy and quick to make, and it controlled what the client was allowed to see. I have not yet moved to version 14 because of it.

As to the solution, I have an idea for it but would need some help/answers in certain areas. At a previous job, I used to work on 3D spins for products, but through photography rather than rendering. Products were placed on a table that spun 360 degrees, and a photograph was taken a intervals in one plane, then re-adjusted to another plane/viewing angle and spun again. The end result was a folder full of images taken incrementally, and then filenaming reflected this. Then, all these sequentially named files were dumped in a Flash file, which was programmed to spit out a shockwave file that is more or less the same as the QTVR which we all love. You can spin the product/model, and zoom.

I may be able to create a Flash file which is automated to create a spin as long as the user pays attention to filenaming. The problem is getting ArchiCAD to spit out all the images. As far as I can tell in version 14, we are no longer able to use the "Dome" like before. Am I correct in assuming that it no longer exists? If so, then the only choice is to create a Fly-Thru... But it seems that it would be cumbersome to try to set up a fly-thru to act like the Dome used to... The Dome was quick and easy with all necessary settings in one dialog box, rather than adjusting a bunch on cameras individually.

So what I essentially need, is to somehow get the Dome re-activated in ArchiCAD, but for the output, I would need it to just spit out individual png images in a sequential order. I imagine that is what QTVR did, except that Quicktime packaged them all into one final Quicktime file.

Reading what I just wrote, it's sounding impossible. Any thoughts on if Graphisoft or one of you other wizards out there can revive the Dome to ouput images? If so, I would be able to provide a Flash template which can create Spins.

Foster

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 00:53:13 GMT

Foster wrote:
I do have a potential solution, but first wanted to chime in and moan that the loss of QTVR is tragic; it was just so easy and quick to make, and it controlled what the client was allowed to see. I have not yet moved to version 14 because of it.

As to the solution, I have an idea for it but would need some help/answers in certain areas. At a previous job, I used to work on 3D spins for products, but through photography rather than rendering. Products were placed on a table that spun 360 degrees, and a photograph was taken a intervals in one plane, then re-adjusted to another plane/viewing angle and spun again. The end result was a folder full of images taken incrementally, and then filenaming reflected this. Then, all these sequentially named files were dumped in a Flash file, which was programmed to spit out a shockwave file that is more or less the same as the QTVR which we all love. You can spin the product/model, and zoom.

I may be able to create a Flash file which is automated to create a spin as long as the user pays attention to filenaming. The problem is getting ArchiCAD to spit out all the images. As far as I can tell in version 14, we are no longer able to use the "Dome" like before. Am I correct in assuming that it no longer exists? If so, then the only choice is to create a Fly-Thru... But it seems that it would be cumbersome to try to set up a fly-thru to act like the Dome used to... The Dome was quick and easy with all necessary settings in one dialog box, rather than adjusting a bunch on cameras individually.

So what I essentially need, is to somehow get the Dome re-activated in ArchiCAD, but for the output, I would need it to just spit out individual png images in a sequential order. I imagine that is what QTVR did, except that Quicktime packaged them all into one final Quicktime file.

Reading what I just wrote, it's sounding impossible. Any thoughts on if Graphisoft or one of you other wizards out there can revive the Dome to ouput images? If so, I would be able to provide a Flash template which can create Spins.

Foster

You could make the dome by careful arrangement of a camera path. Of course you would have to make several for different diameters and numbers of lateral paths. The frequency of the images could be controlled by the number of shot between keyframes.

EDIT: On closer reading I see you considered this possibility, and the more I think about it the more it seems like it might be too much trouble. A single transit is simple with two to four cameras with the total number of frames controlled by the in between frames settings but each transit would have to be run as a separate flythrough or you would be stuck with all the in between frames from one elevation to the next. It would be petty easy to do a spiral but I don't think that would have the desired effect. /EDIT

One thing that might be nice about this approach is that the dome doesn't have to be strictly spherical.

For use in multiple projects I don't know if the cameras can be saved as a module but they can be copy/pasted between files.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:46:01 GMT

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I do realize it is possible as you suggest, but in a rather roundabout, cumbersome way. And so, I don't feel it can be a practical "solution" unless we can get the Dome back and set its output to an image format (jpeg, png, etc..) rather than the QTVR file format...

What I am trying to determine is if the Dome's "QTVR 2.0 Engine's" functions can somehow be replicated within ArchiCAD by someone much more brilliant than myself. If so, then I have an automated method to create Flash files which spin and zoom like the old QTVR files, but since they are Flash files they would be able to be viewed on any computer system and without clients having to have special software, as well as through the internet...

Thoughts, anyone?

Thanks,
Foster

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:31:07 GMT

Maybe we could get GS to put the tool back in but inactive in the standard work environment so those who know the trick could enable it. I don't know how hard it would be using the API but I it seems a bit painful to recreate something already exists.

Re: simple QT movies with AC 14?

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:26:32 GMT

You know, though I don't yet use AC 14, I do have it. So I opened a test file and discovered that the "Dome" still exists there, and its dialog box is intact. When I tried to create a fly-thru, it asked me to install a VR engine in the add-ons folder. Does anyone know if a VR gaming engine could be used in the add-ons folder? Such as Panda3D? There are certainly a lot of them out there, and a few are free. I'm just not aware of how much work it would take to get it to play nice with ArchiCAD...

Foster