::Sigh:: If only Poser included Perl support. ;-) I know absolutely nothing about Python, or even if the following is possible:

VR Worx is a Quicktime VR authoring studio that takes a series of images and makes a Quicktime VR movie out of them.

One of the features is an "object" Quicktime VR movie with a series of images as the "object" is rotated on a 360 axis (in 10 increments) around its X axis, and while the camera is moved from -180 to 180 (in 10 increments) from a point of origin.

Is anything like this even remotely possible to do in Poser with Python scripting? I've looked through the Python addendum that comes with Poser 5 but couldn't find anything specifically for controlling a figure's rotation along its X axis while at the same time controlling a camera through incremental steps.

Of course, I suppose the same effect could be achieved by simply rotating the figure along its X & Y axis and keeping the camera stationary.

Any help would be appreciated.

Very easy. Hold on a minute....

If this is close to what you want, I can add an interface with choice of filename, choice of step, etc.

Wow! Thanks.

I think so... maybe. ;-)

If you've ever seen a Quicktime VR movie, the object in the frame can be rotated, zoomed, etc. but to do this VR Worx needs 36 images (0 - 350, step 10) for each 10 of circumferal elevation (-180, -170, -160, ... 0, 10, 20, 30, etc.)

Typically, the object which a Quicktime VR movie is being made of is stationary, and the camera moves, and spins around the object taking pictures every 10 for each rotation and elevation.

Does that make sense?

I guess if I were to write it in pseudo code I might do:

for Y=-180 to 180 step 10

for X=0 to 350 step 10

rotate figure(X,Y)

save bitmap(IMG_X_Y)

next X

next Y

I am a perl coder and I would be interested in writing a CPAN implementation that would supply perl access to the python api. Is that worth pursuing? I would imagine it would be more work than I imagine, but I would love to have access to the ease of perl use and just use python for the api hooks. Perhaps there would be an initial python script that would exec a perl handler that could take over from there. Any thoughts or suggestions?

"..I would imagine that it would be more work than I imagine..." I really gotta proofread these a bit more. ;^)

Attached Link: http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/CodeDoc/pyperl/Python-Object/Python.html

Ockham, thank you so very much. I think that will work perfectly.

Thanks, Ockham, I waded around on the activestate site a bit, and I am not sure where to go with that library, although it does look promising. Maybe I am taking too simplistic an approach to this. What I envision is that Poser calls a python script and that the python script has the poser library imported, knows about the active figure, actor, camera, etc. It knows how to manipulate the poser API. What I want to do is call a Perl script from that python script, and say, "Hey, here I am. Go do whatever it is you are supposed to do (read data, get keyboard input, etc). If you need to find out the currently selected poser figure, or set a camera position, etc, call me using this method and supply these positional parameters and I will contact Poser on your behalf, massage the data so it is the right datatype, and then return a handle to the figure, or adjust the camera, etc." I am going to go investigate sockets in python and see how hard it will be to get some conversation going between a perl script (client) and a poser python script (server).

If I remember correctly, there was a discussion about this here. Yep, just found it: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12390&Form.ShowMessage=2071612 trobbins2 works on such a server. The Sockets-stuff shouldn't be hard to implement, but you have to design a protocol to communicate between client and server first. martin

Thanks, mkrueger. I am checking that thread out now..

You're welcome, keep us posted on your progress! martin

[eyeball of thread]