It was all going so well. The
four python scripts for automating
Blender rendering were working.
I rendered a full screen animation in just under three days. But the result was too noisy. I updated my new render_finally.py to include
clamp values and had started another 3 day render.
Turning my attention to the fact that I wanted the animations to be staggered e.g. first 2 seconds from the first video then the next 2 seconds from the next. Staggered so that to the viewer the model just kept turning.
made github repository for the script
video-sequence-splicer
This went really well right up to the testing of the finished videos, you see there was a glitch. The animation would revert a few degrees and then start turning again.
I found the last video was slower than what I remembered from viewing the first few. Sure enough the animation was "delayed" and further investigation showed I had inadvertently set the
frame to 11 in all the
Blender files from 52 onward. What was worse was, that all of those had the window layout set to hide the time line so I might have never seen it.
The fix is easy but painful. I updated the track.py script to include a "set frame to 0" before doing anything.
bpy.context.scene.frame_current = 0
Now I have to go back and re-render 80 videos. At least my script will make it painless from a interaction point of view.