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Date: Sat, 8 Oct 1994 22:18:24 -0700 (MST)
From: Ernie Wright <[e-mail]>
Subject: Motion Macro
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Sergio Rosas ([e-mail]) described a program that would
read several scene files, concatenate them in a user-defined sequence,
and write a new master scene.  The idea is that the input scenes would
be temporal modules A, B, C, the sequence might be AAABAABC, and the
output would be a single scene file that strung all of this together.

There are several easier ways to do this:

1. Write an ARexx script that loads and renders the scenes in the
   proper sequence.  This script doesn't have to be much longer than
   one line per scene instance.

2. Assemble the master scene by hand in a text editor.  If you know
   the scene file format well enough to read and write scenes from
   within a program, you can do it by hand, and if you're not going
   to be doing this very often, it's not worth the trouble to write
   a program to do it.

3. Render the basic scenes and assemble the sequence on tape.  If you
   can find a way to do this, it'll be a whole lot faster.

Sergio, if you insist on writing this program, think about how you
would perform its functions by hand:  Load scene A, save as S1, Shift
All Keys by 30, save as S2, load B, Shift All Keys by 60, save as S3,
and so on.  Load S1 and S2 into a text editor, cut the key frame info
for object 1 from S2, paste this after the key frame info for object
1 in S1, and repeat this for each scene and each object (including
lights and the camera).  If anything is enveloped, the envelopes have
to be cut together too.  Update the key frame count for each object
and save S1 as the master.  This is basically what your program must
do.

Since you're new to it, you might want to consider learning ARexx by
tackling smaller projects first (e.g., item 1 above).  As for the
scene file format, it's mostly just a list of settings of the form

   Parameter1 Value1
   Parameter2 Value2

The important exceptions are the embedded motion files and envelopes.
Each motion key contains values for x, y, z, heading, pitch, bank,
x-scale, y-scale and z-scale in the first line, followed by keyframe
number, knot type, tension, continuity and bias in the second line.
Envelopes are similar, but the number of values in the first line
(often 1) and their meaning depends on what the envelope is for.

The details and variations that I've left out of this description are
easiest to learn by studying scene files.

- Ernie