Video Texture player

[ashsid]

There is API description on the page linked in my previous post. I hope it'll help a little bit.

[Moguri]

Hey, ashsid, is your plug-in c++ or Python based? If it is c++ based, then you might want to consider just adding it into the BGE code. There was something about ben working on video textures in one of the Sunday Meeting minutes:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Bl...ober_12th_2008

I just thought this might be useful for you to know.

Cheers!
Moguri

[ashsid]

Moguri,

I'm working on it with Ben. Currently I'm trying to use ffmpeg to access video sources.

[Moguri]

I tried adding video playback to the BGE once with ffmpeg, but my C++ was (and still is) pretty weak. However, I did find this tutorial on ffmpeg to be quite useful:

http://dranger.com/ffmpeg/tutorial01.html

[ashsid]

Moguri,

I'm using internal Blender routines to work with ffmpeg, they are included in imbuf/inter/anim.c. I believe I'll have some results in two-three weeks.

[Moguri]

Nice!

Well, good luck

[Sammaron]

i haved my eye on this for a long time mmmmmmmmmhmhmhmhmhmhmhm! i'm excited good work ashid and co

[kirado]

it's cool you guys are working togethor.. can't wait to see the results ;-)

[Olm-Z]

Actualy, this new coding work by Ash and Ben has been commissioned by me and Okno.be, with the goal of integrating the video texture into the trunk with ffmpeg, and having ARToolkit working with it in a second phase. (so usable on all platform)

As Ashsid said, the first phase of intergation is nearly done, maybe first result will be there as soon as next week, with a public presentation in end of November during the Cimatics.com festival in Brussels.
The next one is scheduled for before february, as we intent to hold an artist workshop around blender/ARToolkit in Okno at that date...
Very thanks to the two brilliant guys that works on this, this is a long awaited feature I hope lots of people will use to do great things ... !!

[Sammaron]

Um... hope you all don't mind my opinion.

I would not implement ARToolkit untill we (you ) have got a gui for it. It seems confusing and wasteful to provide such a function with little explanation. Most of us forumeers are noobs, and have no idea what AR is. I like the idea, but to be honest, such integration doesn't really seem sensible at this time. I hope you understand keep up the good work

[kirado]

I was reading about the ARtookit.. and came across a potential problem with the GPL licensing.. you can only use it for non-commercial use (according to webiste info).. which makes it problematic to include it in blender.. because I was of the understanding that if you contribute to blender trunk.. it all has to fall under the same GPL license.. that lets you amongst other things use blender commercially.. so how's that going to work then..? It would be cool to have it in.. if possible.

[Olm-Z]

@Kirado : ha yes, ARToolkit will probably not be in the trunk, the goal is to be able to use it "with" blender and the new VideoTexture... (including it is far too heavy for the blender package and the not so general use of it) but actualy, if you read the licence model, it's licenced under GNU GPL 2.0 (http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/license.html ) ... they just give the choice to have another licence type if you need the code to do a closed source app.

@ Sammaron : the gui problem is not realy one if we have good explanation on how to use it, which is the goal of doing an artist workshop in Okno studio... but who knows, maybe will there be some GUI ? let's see what happens first with the video texture code...

[malCanDo]

Hi Olm-Z,

Firstly, thanks for commissioning this work - it's great to see companies funding further Blender / GE development!

One quick question - have you looked at upgrading to ARToolkit Plus? It's also GPL, but with these features...

• Class-based API (compile-time parametrization using templates)
• Up to 4096 id-based markers (no speed penalty due to large number of markers)
• New camera pixel-formats (RGB565, Gray)
• Variable marker border width
• Many speed-ups for low-end devices (fixed-point arithmetic, look-up tables, etc.)
• New Pose estimation algorithm gives more stable tracking (less jitter).
  Implementation of "Robust Planar Pose" by G. Schweighofer and A. Pinz
• Loads MATLAB camera calibration toolbox files
• Automatic thresholding (see description below)
• Tools: pattern-file to TGA converter, pattern mirroring, off-line camera calibration, id-marker generator

The automatic thresholding is a HUGE benefit over ARToolkit, for use in installations etc.

More info here...
http://studierstube.icg.tu-graz.ac.a...oolkitplus.php

While it's not being updated any more, it def seems to be more up to date than ARToolkit.
Mal

[kirado]

These additions will be exciting either way.. Hopefully it can work with GLSL

[Larryboy]

I have a project where I want to light a real scene with red, green and blue lamps to create a live normal map and use a camera to feed this as a moving normal map texture into BGE GLSL. Anyone know if this would work?? (I find the Videotextureplugin a little complicated and confusing so need some one to interpret for me).

[ben2610]

I have commited the VideoTexture module to trunk, revision 17254.
The only compilation system that works for sure is MSVC project files under Windows but I have updated the other compilation system. Contributions to get compilation working in Linux are welcome. Expect a few days before having test build on graphical.org. Please read the commit notes for instructions how to use the VideoFFmpeg class.

*ashsid: you will find there a complete implementation of FFmpeg in VideoFFmpeg.cpp. I didn't use the imbuf routines because there were not adapted to my needs.

My next objective is to activate the render to texture feature. I left on the side for now because it was not a priority for Okno.

[squareline]

Hi Ben,
After update svn and make scons clean i get an error message:
(ubuntu 8.41)
At revision 17257

scons: Reading SConscript files ...
ImportError: No module named Variables:
File "/svn/blender-svn/blender/SConstruct", line 42:
import tools.btools
File "/svn/blender-svn/blender/tools/btools.py", line 6:
import SCons.Variables
----------------------

other question:
with this video texture modul will be possible use RRT features aka render to texture?

[ben2610]

squareline: the problem you're refering with Scons does not seem related to my addition. I can get scons to compile the VideoTexture module correctly in Windows.

This release does not yet support the render to texture feature. It's the next thing I will work on. I don't expect any difficulty to enable that feature, it's just that it wasn't my priority for this release. All other features of the original plugin are supported.

[dfelinto]

ben2610.
I'm trying to build here (Windows Vista, CMake, MSVC 2008) but is not working.

The first error I can solve with something like that:
http://vskrishnan.wordpress.com/2007...nd-workaround/

However I still have the other errors going on.
I update the lib/windows folder as well.

Error    4    error C3861: 'INT64_C': identifier not found    c:\Blender\BF\source\gameengine\VideoTexture\VideoFFmpeg.cpp    502
Error    6    error C3861: 'INT64_C': identifier not found    c:\Blender\BF\source\gameengine\VideoTexture\VideoFFmpeg.cpp    511
Error    17    error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _makeffmpegstring referenced in function _playback_anim    src.lib
Error    18    error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _end_ffmpeg referenced in function _BKE_get_movie_handle    bf_blenkernel.lib
Error    19    error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _append_ffmpeg referenced in function _BKE_get_movie_handle    bf_blenkernel.lib
Error    20    error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _start_ffmpeg referenced in function _BKE_get_movie_handle    bf_blenkernel.lib
Error    21    error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _do_init_ffmpeg referenced in function "public: virtual void__thiscall VideoFFmpeg::openFile(char *)" (?openFile@VideoFFmpeg@@UAEXPAD@Z)    bf_videotex.lib
Error    22    fatal error LNK1120: 5 unresolved externals    C:\Blender\BF_Release\bin\Release\blender.exe

See you

[appultaart]

@squareline:
What SCons version are you using? According to the log for bytools.py, rev. 17234, "Minimum SCons version is now 1.0.0". I ran the Ubuntu repositories Scons, which was version 0.97 (Ubuntu 8.04), and had the same error message you reported. An upgrade to scons 1.1 overcame this error (other errors occured along the way, though, I have to look into that later; so blender-svn does not yet compile for me).

Hope this helps,