Tutorial - Working with multi sided, multi tiled .mov files (Intermediate)

DOSFox

Joined06/07/21

Posts46

-Working with multi sided, multi tiled .mov files.By DOSFox

First. Obtain your Images, Here are the two I'll be using for this example.

Side 1 ----------------- Side 2

Using the tool of your choice, divide these images into 128x128 squares.
For those of you without image editors. HERE.

The order/naming of the image segments is important.
(left to right, Ascending Integer from the top of first side.).
Save/convert the image segments to 256 color, 8-bit .bmp in their own folder.

Move the folder containing your segments, to the same folder as your compimg.exe

From here lets get the images converted to mov.
Open a command prompt and navigate to your compimg folder . For me, this looks like.

"cd C:\tools\OLD"

Once there, Generate a file list with hard links to all the images. For me, this looks like.
"dir /b /s .\tut > list.txt" (.\tut is the folder I made for my image segments.)

Make sure every line within the list.txt is in order (Ascending Integer)

If it looks good, convert to mov. For me, that looks like.
"compimg.exe -ace -c255 -pt -r0 -l5,3 -emov -Mtut +list.txt"

Once done, preview it in cmpview, right click to advance forward.
If it looks good, time to test in worlds.

Drop an empty hologram into the world from your Shaper objects library.
In the Properties for this hologram, Change the "File (URL)" to your new mov.
After the name of your mov, but before the extension.
Their is a string of numbers you need to enter. Based on your holograms needs.

In this example.
2s* = 2 Sides to my avatar.
2h* = 2 Horizontal tiles.
2v* = 2 Vertical tiles.

If you did things correctly, you should now have a crisp clear, multi tiled, multi sided avatar usable hologram.
crap Gif compression aside.

Using this method you could texture an entire world, with a single .mov file.
Each side can be used as a separate texture, on rects.

How far can you take it? Pretty far. Here are 6 1024x1024 textures in a single file.
Wish I had dithered them, but it still looks great. And could seemingly take more.
"http://worlio.com/users/DOSFox/PubAv/wow6s*8h*8v*.mov"

Final tip, you can freeze your mov avatars on a specific frame at your will, by adding an extra s*.
Example: This is an 8s* (8 sided) avatar locked to its first frame with an extra s* parameter.

This would allow for cool stuff like multiple static trees (think blair witch woods) in a single mov.

The end.
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Wirlaburla

Joined01/24/20

Posts677

Fantastic tutorial. High quality, very easy to follow, with as much detail as needed.

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sl0nderman

Joined12/26/21

Posts43

Nice guide!
Here's something that tricked me the first time making these, the default size ratios when using them in holograms, and I think it also is how a lot of the default hologram avatars are constructed.

Here's 2 holos that point to the same file but with one small difference:

The bird on the left is /birdmonk2s*3v*.mov while the bird on the right is /birdmonk3v*2s*.mov

Order matters!

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DOSFox

Joined06/07/21

Posts46

sl0nderman

Jump

Here's something that tricked me the first time making these.......

Thanks! I hadn't run into this, good to know it can make such a difference.

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bonkmaykr

Joined06/30/21

Posts326

Thanks for making this! I've been trying to work around the 128px hologram cap for a little bit and found the Shaper docs confusing, this was very helpful

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aujourd

Joined05/28/23

Posts14

To be sure I understand, Worlds only uses 9 per mov file by choice?

There are 84 slices in the example wow.mov and we could use even more?

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