Re: [ccp4bb]: Movies for PowerPoints. (Best Solution!)

["DeLano, Warren" <warren@sunesis.com>]

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PyMOL is simply the best  molecular movie-making solution available.
Nothing else even comes close in terms of ease and capabilities.
[Disclaimer: I am the author and may have a biased view.]

The program was written specifically for generating movies and includes

1. Real-time OpenGL graphics for proteins & maps
2. The ability to read Molscript's Raster 3D ribbon input files.
3. A built-in ray-tracer which gives you WYSWIG rendering.
4. A powerful movie description language.
5. Support for multiple structures/coordinates within a movie.
6. Previewing of dynamic movies in 3D (OpenGL).
7. Previewing of raytraced images in 2D (from memory).
8. PNG format export.
9. A built-in Python scripting language to automate conversion and
compression.

Plus, it is free and unrestricted open-source -- my gift to the field.
 
Here is an example 5 line script for creating a ray-traced movie:

mset 1 x120
util.mrock 1,120,15
set ray_trace_frames=1
set cache_frames=0
mpng mov

It outputs 120 PNG files for generating a 4 second, 30 fps movie.  If
you don't want ray tracing, then leave off the "set" commands.

You can obtain the latest version at http://pymol.sourceforge.net

I recommend using it under Windows with an nVidia card, but it works
under Linux, Tru64, IRIX, and soon OSX as well.

I have yet to find an open-source unix solution that produces the same
quality AVI files as Adobe Premiere, thus I tend to use PyMOL to do the
rendering, Imagemagick to convert to TGA, and Adobe Premiere for the
final compression (Cinepak codec at 99%).

Alternatively you can use Imagemagick to batch convert to a format that
SGI's media tools can read.

- Warren