Making Movies from WF-3D

Here is a method for creating an MPEG or AVI movie, or animated GIF, from WF-3D.

Run WF3d with -movie on the command-line.
The WF3d snaps a picture of every frame. You may wish to reduce the display speed (Example: -speed 0.25), because capturing frames will slow down the displayer, and the movie may become jumpy.
The result of this step is a set of files called picture_00000.ppm to picture_00xxx.ppm, numbered sequentially.

Run ppmtompeg or any other movie making utility. Here we explain how to use ppmtompeg.

A. Create a param.dat file, like:

	PATTERN IBBPBBPBBPBBPBBBBPBBPBBPBBPBBB
	OUTPUT movie.mpeg
	INPUT_DIR .
	INPUT 
	picture*.ppm [00000-00323]
	END_INPUT
	BASE_FILE_FORMAT PPM
	INPUT_CONVERT *
	GOP_SIZE 15
	SLICES_PER_FRAME 10
	PIXEL HALF
	RANGE 5
	PSEARCH_ALG TWOLEVEL
	BSEARCH_ALG CROSS2
	IQSCALE 2
	PQSCALE 2
	BQSCALE 2
	REFERENCE_FRAME ORIGINAL 
	FRAME_RATE 24
	
	END_INPUT

Note that you must set the range of frames to use on line 5 of param.dat.

B. Run ppmtompeg:
ppmtompeg param.dat

Play your movie:
mplayer movie.mpeg