Shadow Study Too fast

[MartyC]

OK folks, a question...

Animated shadow studies display too fast.

I need to get a time interval of 5 minutes at most, so that a smooth AVI can be produced that I could actually show a client. Say a 5 minute max interval with a .avi at 25 frames per sec.

Does anyone know if the time interval can be adjusted or is it set at minimum 15 minutes?

If it is set at 15 minutes minimum then the resultant animation is useless other than to view internally. I could not present a picture with shadows zooming around the model in 1-2 seconds, looks silly.

If anyone has an idea on adjusting intervals, I would be eternally gratefull.

CheersM

[Kirky]

If you export the sun study as a jpg you will end up with separate images that you could then view as a slide show.

[MartyC]

Nup, dont want a slide show. I want to have a slow shadow study animation. An animation the same as the Revit does but at quarter or less speed.

As I stated, the ridiculously fast animation cant be shown to anyone seriously. Pointless to have it if it looks silly.

Anyone know how to slllooowwww the animation down??

CheersM

[Scott D Davis]

Set the interval in Advanced Graphics to 15 minutes for a single day study, and then set the frames per second in the Export Dialog box to 1 (this is a little backwards to typical rendering, where you might want 30 fps)

I just did a test, and for a sunrise to sunset study set to Boston, MA on 11/7/2005 (hmmm...wonder hy thats the default value?) and the animation was 41 seconds long. The animation shows the shadows at each 15 minutes interval for 1 second.

I do think we need intervals down to the minute, so we can make smoother studies.

[MartyC]

OK, so this suggests that the only options are:

The sun orbits the site in a nano-second, so you have to loop the .avi fifty times to see what the shadows do (looks like a cartoon on drugs!)

or

Have a slide show!

Factory, lovely little feature this, but totally useless for any sort of presentation value. What were you thinking?. Please provide intervals down to the minute as Scott suggests, or the ability to alter the interval manually.

A shadow study should have the ability to be a slow and smooth animation, should have a duration of 5+ seconds from dawn till dusk when re-played and not require frenetic looping of a clip to see whats happening.

Looking forward to the next version of Revit for the full implementation of the feature!

CheersM

[sifuentes]

I don't know if this can halp. I haven't looked at R9, so don't know what kind of settings shadow studies have, but these are from our little experience with walkthroughs with small buildings.

The extyerir walkthrough's path was 30'-50' from the building. the interior walkthrough had things all around as close as 3'. The frame rate used was 10 frames per second. A total number of frames was determined based on the aproximate lenght of the walkthrough path. For the exterior walkthrough it was about 0.6 times the lenght. for the interior it was 3 times the lenght. Animation lenght was 1 to 3 minutes. This was the only way we could get a moderate speed, in which you could actualy apreciate the building. Hope that helps somehow.

[beegee]

Sun Studies do not have a path or a frame rate as walkthroughs do.




I don't know if this can halp. I haven't looked at R9, so don't know what kind of settings shadow studies have, but these are from our little experience with walkthroughs with small buildings.

The extyerir walkthrough's path was 30'-50' from the building. the interior walkthrough had things all around as close as 3'. The frame rate used was 10 frames per second. A total number of frames was determined based on the aproximate lenght of the walkthrough path. For the exterior walkthrough it was about 0.6 times the lenght. for the interior it was 3 times the lenght. Animation lenght was 1 to 3 minutes. This was the only way we could get a moderate speed, in which you could actualy apreciate the building. Hope that helps somehow.

[Scott D Davis]

The problem is that the lowest shadow increment one can use is 15 minutes. In 15 minutes the shadow moves pretty dramatically. If you render a day-long shadow study, the results are somewhere around 48 frames for 12 hours of daylight. In the animation export, Revit wants to know how many frames per second you would like.....If you say 4 frames per second, thats 4 - 15 minute frames or 1 hour's worth of shadows in 1 second. The overall video is going to be about 12 seconds, and will seemingly "move" very quickly.

If you tell Revit that you want 1 frame per second, Revit will show the one "still" frame every second, thus making it appear as a slide show rather than an animation.

The only way to smooth the animation is to allow us much more control over the increment of shadow, down to atleast the minute, and possibly the second to get more "video" like time-lapsed shadow studies.

[MartyC]

The problem is that the lowest shadow increment one can use is 15 minutes. In 15 minutes the shadow moves pretty dramatically. If you render a day-long shadow study, the results are somewhere around 48 frames for 12 hours of daylight. In the animation export, Revit wants to know how many frames per second you would like.....If you say 4 frames per second, thats 4 - 15 minute frames or 1 hour's worth of shadows in 1 second. The overall video is going to be about 12 seconds, and will seemingly "move" very quickly.

If you tell Revit that you want 1 frame per second, Revit will show the one "still" frame every second, thus making it appear as a slide show rather than an animation.

The only way to smooth the animation is to allow us much more control over the increment of shadow, down to atleast the minute, and possibly the second to get more "video" like time-lapsed shadow studies.

Precisely.

I have a house project that I want to present tomorrow that has a number of perspective views, front from street, rear from courtyard and within an internal 3 level circulation space. Each perspective view requires a shadow study over 3-4 hours to demonstrate shadow movement and sun penetration, but it needs to be a smooth animation suitable for adding to a DVD presentation including a walk through, fly-around and a bunch of stills to music.

25 FPS would be good, so 1 minute increments would give 2.4 seconds per hour or 9.6 seconds for 4 hours sun movement. 2 minute increments would cover 4 hours of sun movement in 4.8 seconds, perfect!

This is a typical application that makes this feature useful.

We need adjustable time incements now! (or before tomorrow would be nice)

CheersM

[sbrown]

If you have any kind of Studio DV software or video editing software, I bet you can open the avi and change the speed.

[Scott D Davis]

If you have any kind of Studio DV software or video editing software, I bet you can open the avi and change the speed.
The "speed" doesn't matter....the problem is that Revit only "renders" shadows at 15 minute intervals. A snapshot in time at 12:00pm, and then again at 12:15pm, and 12:30, 12:45, etc. Stitch those together to create a "movie" and you either get a *really* fast animation (because the hour flys by in less than a second) or you get a slideshow (one image for a second, then then next).

The shadows just need to step at much smaller increments to appear smooth in transition.

[Paul Andersen]

Just a quick thought. Try outputting a 3 hour interval (for example) from 12:00 to 3:00 as separate images (jpg, tif, bmp, gif, png) to folder 1. Then adjust the start time to be 12:01 to 3:00 and export to folder 2. Repeat this process until you are starting with 12:15. You should now have an image for every one minute interval. Place the files together in the correct sequence and stitch the whole thing together to produce a 1 minute interval animation. Not an ideal solution to the problem and I don't have time to test it but it should work.

[Tom Dorner]

The "speed" doesn't matter....the problem is that Revit only "renders" shadows at 15 minute intervals. A snapshot in time at 12:00pm, and then again at 12:15pm, and 12:30, 12:45, etc. Stitch those together to create a "movie" and you either get a *really* fast animation (because the hour flys by in less than a second) or you get a slideshow (one image for a second, then then next).

The shadows just need to step at much smaller increments to appear smooth in transition.
Is there a video editor where you can set the "key" frames and morph between them adding the frames for the 14 missing "minutes"?

I know this would be a work around at best and now I would need to learn a video editor as well.

[MartyC]

I'm trying to make some money here.....at $ (lots) per hour, and clients to satisfy, I cant present rubbish, or spend hours developing a work-around or a stitch-together.

All that is required is 1 minute (or adjustable) shadow intervals, simple.

A half day working through any work-around costs ME about a grand! Out of MY personal pocket! This is the fundamental fact for a sole or small practitioner. I need to charge for design time not software fix-up time. For me, if a feature doesnt work dont use it, make do with what does work.

I will use the shadow study if made more flexible in a future release. I am sure that the adjustability is a simple rearrangment of the code, and the practicality of use was simply overlooked (at least I hope so).

CheersM

[cosmickingpin]

Well at least it previews nice at sales demos. Did anyone put in an SR for this? Its seems like it would be easy for them to fix this with a few extra lines of code.


IA half day working through any work-around costs ME about a grand! Out of MY personal pocket!