CN113421321A

CN113421321A - Rendering method and device for animation, electronic equipment and medium

Info

Publication number: CN113421321A
Application number: CN202110776904.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 殷元江; 徐平
Original assignee: Beijing Qiwei Visual Media Technology Co ltd
Current assignee: Beijing Qiwei Visual Media Technology Co ltd
Priority date: 2021-07-09
Filing date: 2021-07-09
Publication date: 2021-09-21
Anticipated expiration: 2041-07-09
Also published as: CN113421321B

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a rendering method, apparatus, electronic device, and medium for animation. The rendering method for animation according to the present disclosure includes: rendering a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode; controlling a second storage module in a reading mode to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set, wherein the second picture set is positioned chronologically after the first picture set; and in response to completing rendering of the first set of pictures, setting the second storage module to be in a rendering mode and rendering the second set of pictures.

Description

Rendering method and device for animation, electronic equipment and medium

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to an animation rendering technology, and more particularly, to a rendering method, apparatus, electronic device, and medium for animation.

Background

The principle of the sequence frame animation is to decompose animation actions in 'continuous key frames', that is, draw different contents on each frame of a time axis frame by frame, and continuously play the animation. The sequence frame animation has great flexibility, can use pictures with any resolution and any proportion, and can realize fine animation effects, such as sharp turning of characters or animals, waving of hair and clothes, 3D effects and the like.

However, since the sequence frame animation requires loading each frame of picture in time sequence, the time required for loading the picture of the animation is long, and the storage space occupied by the loaded picture is also large.

The approaches described in this section are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, unless otherwise indicated, the problems mentioned in this section should not be considered as having been acknowledged in any prior art.

Disclosure of Invention

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a rendering method for an animation, the animation being a sequence frame animation including a plurality of pictures arranged in time series, the rendering method including: rendering a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode; controlling a second storage module in a reading mode to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set, wherein the second picture set is positioned chronologically after the first picture set; and in response to completing rendering of the first set of pictures, setting the second storage module to be in a rendering mode and rendering the second set of pictures.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a rendering apparatus for animation, the animation being a sequential frame animation including a plurality of pictures arranged in time series, the rendering apparatus including: a first picture rendering module configured to: rendering a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode; a first read control module configured to: controlling a second storage module in a reading mode to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set, wherein the second picture set is positioned chronologically after the first picture set; and a second picture rendering module configured to: in response to completing rendering of the first set of pictures, the second storage module is set to be in a rendering mode and a second set of pictures is rendered.

According to still another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an electronic apparatus including: a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory, wherein the processor is configured to execute the computer program to implement the steps of the method as described in the present disclosure.

According to yet another aspect of the disclosure, a non-transitory computer readable storage medium is provided, having stored thereon a computer program, wherein the computer program, when executed by a processor, implements the steps of the method as described in the disclosure.

According to yet another aspect of the disclosure, a computer program product is provided, comprising a computer program, wherein the computer program, when executed by a processor, implements the steps of the method as described in the disclosure.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate exemplary embodiments of the embodiments and, together with the description, serve to explain the exemplary implementations of the embodiments. The illustrated embodiments are for purposes of illustration only and do not limit the scope of the claims. Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of an exemplary device in which various methods described herein may be implemented, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a sequential frame animation according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows a flow diagram of a rendering method for animation according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart of example operations of setting the second storage module to be in a rendering mode and rendering a second set of pictures in the process of FIG. 3, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows a flow diagram of a rendering method for animation according to an embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 shows a schematic diagram of a rendering apparatus for animation according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

fig. 7 shows a schematic block diagram of an electronic device for rendering of animations according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure.

Detailed Description

In the present disclosure, unless otherwise specified, the use of the terms "first", "second", etc. to describe various elements is not intended to limit the positional relationship, the timing relationship, or the importance relationship of the elements, and such terms are used only to distinguish one element from another. In some examples, a first element and a second element may refer to the same instance of the element, and in some cases, based on the context, they may also refer to different instances.

The terminology used in the description of the various described examples in this disclosure is for the purpose of describing particular examples only and is not intended to be limiting. Unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, if the number of elements is not specifically limited, the elements may be one or more. Furthermore, the term "and/or" as used in this disclosure is intended to encompass any and all possible combinations of the listed items.

When rendering the sequence frame animation, it is necessary to load the picture of the sequence frame animation stored in the computer hard disk into a memory of the display card, so as to render the picture by an image processor (GPU) in the display card.

Currently, a Portable Network Graphics (PNG) or Tagged Graphics (TGA) format picture is generally used for the sequence frame animation, but when the PNG or TGA format picture is loaded into a display card memory, data of the PNG or TGA format picture needs to be restored into pixel data, and then the corresponding pixel data is transferred to the display card memory. This process is equivalent to "decompressing" the picture, which takes a long time.

In addition, as the process of loading the PNG or TGA formatted picture into the memory of the display card takes a long time and the picture cannot be loaded in real time, all pictures of the animation are usually loaded into the memory of the display card at one time. However, the entire picture of the animation tends to occupy a large storage space. Due to the limited storage space size of the memory of the video card (for example, 16G), when the resolution of the picture is high (for example, 4K), all pictures of the animation cannot be loaded into the memory of the video card at one time, so that the picture is blocked.

In order to solve the above problem, the present disclosure provides a rendering method for a sequence frame animation, which realizes real-time loading of pictures and reduces a requirement on a size of a storage space of a memory of a display card.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of an exemplary device 100 in which various methods described herein may be implemented, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. As shown in fig. 1, the device 100 includes a main board 110, a graphic card 120, and a display 130.

According to some embodiments, the motherboard 110 includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 111, a motherboard memory 112, and a hard disk 113. The CPU 111 reads data to be processed from the hard disk 113 into the motherboard memory 112, and stores a processing result of the CPU 111 in the motherboard memory 112 or the hard disk 113.

According to some embodiments, the graphics card 120 includes a GPU 121 and a graphics card memory 122, where the GPU 121 receives an instruction from the CPU 111 to process (e.g., image rendering) data stored in the graphics card memory 122 or control the graphics card memory 122 to read data from the motherboard 110 (e.g., read data from the hard disk 113 in the motherboard 110), and store the processed data in the graphics card memory 122.

According to some embodiments, display 130 receives image data from graphics card memory 122 to display an image on display 130.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provided a rendering method for an animation, the animation being a sequential frame animation including a plurality of chronologically arranged pictures, the rendering method including: rendering a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode; controlling a second storage module in a reading mode to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set, wherein the second picture set is positioned chronologically after the first picture set; and in response to completing rendering of the first set of pictures, setting the second storage module to be in a rendering mode and rendering the second set of pictures.

FIG. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a sequential frame animation 200 according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

As shown in fig. 2, the sequence frame animation 200 includes a plurality of pictures arranged in time series. According to some embodiments, when rendering the sequence frame animation 200, the pictures of the sequence frame animation are rendered one by one in a time sequence to achieve an animation effect.

According to some embodiments, the pictures of the sequential frame animation 200 are divided into a plurality of picture sets, wherein each picture set comprises a plurality of temporally consecutive pictures. As shown in fig. 2, the plurality of pictures of the sequence frame animation 200 are divided into a set 1, a set 2, a set 3, a set 4, and a set 5, wherein, set 1 includes pictures 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, and 1-6, set 2 includes pictures 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, and 2-6, set 3 includes pictures 3-1, 3-3, 3-4, 3-5, and 3-6, set 4 includes pictures 4-1, 4-4, 4-3, 4-4, 4-5, and 4-6, and set 5 includes pictures 5-1, 5-5, 5-4, 5-5, and 5-6.

FIG. 3 shows a flow diagram of a rendering method 300 for animation according to an embodiment of the disclosure. According to some embodiments, the animation is a sequential frame animation comprising a plurality of chronologically arranged pictures.

In step S301, a first picture set stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode is rendered, and a second storage module in a reading mode is controlled to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set. Wherein the second set of pictures temporally follows the first set of pictures.

According to some embodiments, the pictures of the animation are divided into a plurality of picture sets, wherein each picture set comprises a plurality of temporally consecutive pictures. According to some embodiments, the pictures of the animation may be divided into a plurality of picture sets before rendering.

According to some embodiments, the number of pictures in each picture set may be calculated according to the capacity of the memory of the display card and the storage space occupied by each picture, for example, so that the storage space occupied by all the pictures in each picture set is less than 10% of the memory of the display card.

According to some embodiments, when rendering of a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode is started, a second storage module in a reading mode is controlled to start reading a second set of pictures from an external storage device. According to further embodiments, in response to starting rendering of a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode, a second storage module in a reading mode is controlled to start reading a second set of pictures from an external storage device.

According to some embodiments, the time required for the second storage module to read the second set of pictures from the external storage device is shorter than the time required to render the first set of pictures stored in the first storage module. In this case, when the second picture set is loaded, the rendering of the first picture set and the loading of the second picture set are synchronously performed; when the loading of the second picture set is finished, the loading operation is not performed any more, and only the pictures in the first picture set which are not rendered are rendered.

According to some embodiments, the external storage device may be a motherboard memory 112 or a hard disk 113 as described in fig. 1.

In step S303, in response to completion of rendering of the first set of pictures, the second storage module in the read mode is set to be in the rendering mode, and the second set of pictures is rendered.

Since the second picture set to be rendered is already loaded when the first picture set is rendered, rendering of the second picture set can be started after the first picture set is rendered, so that animation can be continuously rendered.

According to the exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, since only a part of the pictures of the animation needs to be loaded at a time, the time delay for loading the pictures is shortened, and the storage space required for loading the animation pictures is reduced.

According to some embodiments, setting the second storage module to be in a rendering mode, and rendering the second set of pictures comprises: in response to completing rendering of the first set of pictures, setting the second storage module to be in a rendering mode; in response to the second set of pictures not being the chronologically latest set of pictures of the animated pictures: setting the first storage module to be in a reading mode and rendering a second picture set; and during rendering of the second set of pictures, controlling the first storage module to read a third set of pictures from the external storage device, wherein the third set of pictures temporally follows the second set of pictures and in response to the second set of pictures being the most temporally late set of pictures of the animated pictures, rendering the second set of pictures.

Fig. 4 shows a flowchart of example operations of setting the second storage module to be in a rendering mode and rendering the second set of pictures (step S303) in the process of fig. 3, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

At step S401, in response to completion of rendering the first set of pictures, the second storage module is set to be in a rendering mode.

At step S403, it is determined whether the second picture set is the time-series latest picture set (e.g., set 5 in fig. 2) among the pictures of the animation. If the determination is "yes", it proceeds to step S407, and if the determination is "no", it proceeds to step S405.

At step S405, the first storage module is set to be in a read mode, and during rendering of the second set of pictures, the first storage module is controlled to read a third set of pictures from the external storage device.

According to some embodiments, similar to that described with reference to step S301, when rendering of the second set of pictures stored in the second storage module in the rendering mode is started, the first storage module in the reading mode is controlled to start reading the third set of pictures from the external storage device. According to further embodiments, the first storage module in the reading mode is controlled to start reading the third set of pictures from the external storage device in response to starting to render the second set of pictures stored in the second storage module in the rendering mode.

At step S407, a second set of pictures is rendered.

According to some embodiments, if the second picture set is a time-series latest picture set among pictures of the animation, the rendering of the animation is ended after the rendering of the second picture set is completed. According to some embodiments, after rendering of the animation is finished, storage spaces corresponding to the first storage module and the second storage module are released.

According to some embodiments, rendering the first set of pictures stored in the first storage module in the rendering mode comprises: and rendering the pictures in the first picture set one by one according to the time sequence of the pictures in the first picture set, wherein for each picture in the first picture set, in response to the completion of the rendering of the picture, the storage space of the first storage module corresponding to the picture is released.

As described above, since the storage space of the storage module corresponding to each picture is released after the rendering of the picture is completed, the requirement for the storage space of the memory of the display card is reduced.

According to some embodiments, controlling the first storage module to read the third picture set from the external storage device comprises: allocating a storage space corresponding to the third picture set to the first storage module; and controlling the first storage module to read the pictures in the third picture set one by one from the external storage device according to the time sequence of the pictures in the third picture set.

According to other embodiments, after rendering of each picture is completed, the storage space of the storage module corresponding to the picture is not released, but after rendering of all pictures in the storage module is completed, the storage space of the storage module is directly recycled for continuously reading the pictures from the external storage device.

According to some embodiments, the rendering method as described in the present disclosure further comprises: when the animation is started to be rendered, setting the first storage module to be in a reading mode, and controlling the first storage module in the reading mode to read a picture set with the earliest time sequence in pictures of the animation; and in response to the first storage module finishing reading the earliest time-sequenced picture set in the pictures of the animation, setting the first storage module in the reading mode to be in the rendering mode, and setting the second storage module to be in the reading mode.

FIG. 5 shows a flow diagram of a rendering method 500 for animation according to an embodiment of the disclosure.

At step S501, at the start of rendering the animation, the first storage module is set to be in the read mode, and the first storage module in the read mode is controlled to read the chronologically earliest set of pictures (for example, set 1 in fig. 2) among the pictures of the animation.

At step S503, in response to the first storage module finishing reading the earliest time-series picture set among the pictures of the animation, the first storage module in the reading mode is set to be in the rendering mode, and the second storage module is set to be in the reading mode.

At step S505, a first picture set stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode is rendered, and a second storage module in a reading mode is controlled to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set. According to some embodiments, step S505 may be implemented similar to step S301 in fig. 3, for example.

At step S507, in response to completion of rendering the first set of pictures, the second storage module in the read mode is set to be in the rendering mode, and the second set of pictures is rendered. According to some embodiments, step S507 may be implemented similar to step S303 in fig. 3, for example.

According to some embodiments, the animated picture is a direct write Surface (DDS) format picture. Since the DDS format picture does not need to be restored to the pixel format that can be recognized by the GPU, the picture loading speed is increased by using the DDS format picture.

For example, the PNG format and DDS format pictures of the same resolution are compared in loading time. When 50 HD (1920 × 1080) pictures are loaded, the time for loading the PNG format picture is 1.843 seconds, and the time for loading the DDS format picture is 0.135 seconds; when 50 pictures of 4K (resolution 3840 × 2160) are loaded, it takes 5.98 seconds to load the PNG-format picture, and 0.466 seconds to load the DDS-format picture.

According to some embodiments, pictures of the animation belonging to other formats (i.e., non-DDS format) may be converted into pictures of DDS format before rendering of the animation. According to some embodiments, since DDS pictures cannot be conveniently previewed, when other format pictures are converted into DDS format pictures, these other format pictures can be compressed into smaller resolution pictures in the same format (for example, compressing PNG format pictures into lower resolution PNG format pictures) to facilitate editing and previewing of animations.

Fig. 6 shows a schematic diagram of a rendering apparatus 600 for animation according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

As shown in fig. 6, the rendering apparatus 600 is used for rendering an animation, which is a sequential frame animation including a plurality of chronologically arranged pictures. The rendering apparatus 600 includes: a first picture rendering module 601, a first reading control module 602, and a second picture rendering module 603. Wherein the first picture rendering module 601 is configured to: rendering a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode; the first read control module 602 is configured to: controlling a second storage module in a reading mode to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set, wherein the second picture set is positioned chronologically after the first picture set; and the second picture rendering module 603 is configured to: in response to completing rendering of the first set of pictures, the second storage module is set to be in a rendering mode and a second set of pictures is rendered.

It should be understood that the various modules of the apparatus 600 shown in fig. 6 may correspond to the various steps in the method 300 described with reference to fig. 3. Thus, the operations, features and advantages described above with respect to the method 300 are equally applicable to the apparatus 600 and the modules included therein. Certain operations, features and advantages may not be described in detail herein for the sake of brevity.

According to some embodiments, the rendering apparatus further comprises: a picture pre-reading module configured to: when the animation is started to be rendered, setting the first storage module to be in a reading mode, and controlling the first storage module in the reading mode to read a picture set with the earliest time sequence in pictures of the animation; and in response to the first storage module finishing reading the earliest time-sequenced picture set in the pictures of the animation, setting the first storage module in the reading mode to be in the rendering mode, and setting the second storage module to be in the reading mode.

According to some embodiments, the picture is a direct-write screen surface format picture.

Although specific functionality is discussed above with reference to particular modules, it should be noted that the functionality of the various modules discussed herein may be divided into multiple modules and/or at least some of the functionality of multiple modules may be combined into a single module. Performing an action by a particular module discussed herein includes the particular module itself performing the action, or alternatively the particular module invoking or otherwise accessing another component or module that performs the action (or performs the action in conjunction with the particular module). Thus, a particular module that performs an action can include the particular module that performs the action itself and/or another module that the particular module invokes or otherwise accesses that performs the action.

It should also be appreciated that various techniques may be described herein in the general context of software, hardware elements, or program modules. The various modules described above with respect to fig. 6 may be implemented in hardware or in hardware in combination with software and/or firmware. For example, the modules may be implemented as computer program code/instructions configured to be executed in one or more processors and stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Alternatively, the modules may be implemented as hardware logic/circuitry. For example, in some embodiments, one or more of the first picture rendering module 601, the first read control module 602, and the second picture rendering module 603 may be implemented together in a System on Chip (SoC). The SoC may include an integrated circuit chip (which includes one or more components of a Processor (e.g., a Central Processing Unit (CPU), microcontroller, microprocessor, Digital Signal Processor (DSP), etc.), memory, one or more communication interfaces, and/or other circuitry), and may optionally execute received program code and/or include embedded firmware to perform functions.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, there is also provided an electronic device, a readable storage medium, and a computer program product.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provided an electronic device including: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor; wherein the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to enable the at least one processor to perform a method as described in the present disclosure.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions for causing a computer to perform a method as described in the present disclosure is provided.

In an exemplary embodiment of the disclosure, a computer program product is provided, comprising a computer program, wherein the computer program, when executed by a processor, implements the method as described in the disclosure.

Examples of such electronic devices and computer-readable storage media are described below in conjunction with FIG. 7. Fig. 7 shows a schematic block diagram of an electronic device 700 for rendering of animations according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure.

The electronic device 700 may be a variety of different types of devices, such as a server of a service provider, a device associated with a client (e.g., a client device), a system on a chip, and/or any other suitable electronic device or computing system. Examples of electronic device 700 include, but are not limited to: a desktop computer, a server computer, a notebook or netbook computer, a mobile device (e.g., a tablet or phablet device, a cellular or other wireless phone (e.g., a smartphone), a notepad computer, a mobile station), a wearable device (e.g., glasses, a watch), an entertainment device (e.g., an entertainment appliance, a set-top box communicatively coupled to a display device, a game console), a television or other display device, an automotive computer, and so forth. Thus, the electronic device 700 may range from a full resource device with substantial memory and processor resources (e.g., personal computers, game consoles) to a low-resource device with limited memory and/or processing resources (e.g., traditional set-top boxes, hand-held game consoles).

The electronic device 700 may include at least one processor 702, memory 704, communication interface(s) 706, presentation device 708, other input/output (I/O) devices 710, and one or more mass storage devices 712, which may be capable of communicating with each other, such as through system bus 714 or other suitable connection.

The processor 702 may be a single processing unit or multiple processing units, all of which may include single or multiple computing units or multiple cores. The processor 702 may be implemented as one or more microprocessors, microcomputers, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, central processing units, state machines, logic circuitry, and/or any devices that manipulate signals based on operational instructions. The processor 702 may be configured to retrieve and execute computer-readable instructions, such as program code for an operating system 716, program code for an application 718, program code for other programs 720, and the like, stored in the memory 704, mass storage 712, or other computer-readable medium, among other capabilities.

Memory 704 and mass storage 712 are examples of computer storage media for storing instructions that are executed by processor 702 to perform the various functions described above. By way of example, memory 704 may generally include both volatile and nonvolatile memory (e.g., RAM, ROM, and the like). In addition, mass storage 712 may generally include a hard disk drive, a solid state drive, removable media, including external and removable drives, memory cards, flash memory, floppy disks, optical disks (e.g., CDs, DVDs), storage arrays, network attached storage, storage area networks, and the like. Memory 704 and mass storage 712 may both be referred to herein collectively as memory or computer storage media, and may be non-transitory media capable of storing computer-readable, processor-executable program instructions as computer program code that may be executed by processor 702 as a particular machine configured to implement the operations and functions described in the examples herein.

A number of program modules may be stored on the mass storage device 712. These programs include an operating system 716, one or more application programs 718, other programs 720, and program data 722, which can be loaded into memory 704 for execution. Examples of such applications or program modules may include, for instance, computer program logic (e.g., computer program code or instructions) for implementing the following components/functions: method 300 and/or method 500 (including any suitable steps of method 300 or 500), and/or additional embodiments described herein.

Although illustrated in fig. 7 as being stored in memory 704 of electronic device 700,

modules

716, 718, 720, and 722, or portions thereof, may be implemented using any form of computer-readable media that is accessible by electronic device 700. As used herein, "computer-readable media" includes at least two types of computer-readable media, namely computer storage media and communication media.

Computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, Digital Versatile Disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other non-transmission medium that can be used to store information for access by an electronic device.

In contrast, communication media may embody computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism. Computer storage media, as defined herein, does not include communication media.

The electronic device 700 may also include one or more communication interfaces 706 for exchanging data with other devices, such as over a network, direct connection, or the like, as previously discussed. Such communication interfaces may be one or more of the following: any type of network interface (e.g., a Network Interface Card (NIC)), wired or wireless (such as IEEE 802.11 wireless lan (wlan)) wireless interface, a global microwave access interoperability (Wi-MAX) interface, an ethernet interface, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, a cellular network interface, a bluetooth interface, a Near Field Communication (NFC) interface, and so forth. The communication interface 706 may facilitate communications within a variety of networks and protocol types, including wired networks (e.g., LAN, cable, etc.) and wireless networks (e.g., WLAN, cellular, satellite, etc.), the Internet, and so forth. The communication interface 706 may also provide for communication with external storage devices (not shown), such as in storage arrays, network attached storage, storage area networks, and so forth.

In some examples, a display device 708, such as a monitor, may be included for displaying information and images to a user. Other I/O devices 710 may be devices that receive various inputs from a user and provide various outputs to the user, and may include touch input devices, gesture input devices, cameras, keyboards, remote controls, mice, printers, audio input/output devices, and so forth.

While the disclosure has been illustrated and described in detail in the drawings and foregoing description, such illustration and description are to be considered illustrative and exemplary and not restrictive; the present disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. Variations to the disclosed embodiments can be understood and effected by those skilled in the art in practicing the claimed subject matter, from a study of the drawings, the disclosure, and the appended claims. In the claims, the word "comprising" does not exclude other elements or steps not listed, the indefinite article "a" or "an" does not exclude a plurality, and the term "a plurality" means two or more. The mere fact that certain measures are recited in mutually different dependent claims does not indicate that a combination of these measures cannot be used to advantage.

Although embodiments or examples of the present disclosure have been described with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that the above-described methods, systems and apparatus are merely exemplary embodiments or examples and that the scope of the present invention is not limited by these embodiments or examples, but only by the claims as issued and their equivalents. Various elements in the embodiments or examples may be omitted or may be replaced with equivalents thereof. Further, the steps may be performed in an order different from that described in the present disclosure. Further, various elements in the embodiments or examples may be combined in various ways. It is important that as technology evolves, many of the elements described herein may be replaced with equivalent elements that appear after the present disclosure.

Claims

1. A rendering method for animation, the animation being a sequential frame animation including a plurality of chronologically arranged pictures, the rendering method comprising:

rendering a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode;

controlling a second storage module in a reading mode to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set, wherein the second picture set is positioned chronologically after the first picture set; and

in response to completion of rendering the first set of pictures, setting the second storage module to be in the rendering mode, and rendering the second set of pictures.

2. The rendering method of claim 1, wherein the setting the second storage module to be in the rendering mode, and rendering the second set of pictures comprises:

in response to completing rendering of the first set of pictures, setting the second storage module to be in the rendering mode;

in response to the second set of pictures not being a chronologically latest set of pictures of the animation:

setting the first storage module to be in the read mode and rendering the second set of pictures; and is

During the rendering of the second picture set, controlling the first storage module to read a third picture set from the external storage device, wherein the third picture set is chronologically subsequent to the second picture set, and

rendering the second set of pictures in response to the second set of pictures being a chronologically latest set of pictures of the animation.

3. The rendering method of claim 2, wherein the rendering the first set of pictures stored in the first storage module in the rendering mode comprises:

rendering the pictures in the first picture set one by one according to the time sequence of the pictures in the first picture set,

and for each picture in the first picture set, in response to finishing rendering of the picture, releasing the storage space of the first storage module corresponding to the picture.

4. The rendering method of claim 3, wherein the controlling the first storage module to read the third picture set from the external storage device comprises:

allocating storage space corresponding to the third picture set to the first storage module; and

and controlling the first storage module to read the pictures in the third picture set from the external storage device one by one according to the time sequence of the pictures in the third picture set.

5. The rendering method of any of claims 1-4, further comprising:

when the animation is started to be rendered, the first storage module is set to be in the reading mode, and the first storage module in the reading mode is controlled to read the picture set with the earliest time sequence in the pictures of the animation; and

in response to the first storage module completing reading the earliest time-sequenced set of pictures in the pictures of the animation, setting the first storage module in the reading mode to be in the rendering mode, and setting the second storage module to be in the reading mode.

6. The rendering method of any of claims 1-4, wherein the animated picture is a picture in direct-write screen surface format.

7. A rendering apparatus for animation, the animation being a sequential frame animation including a plurality of chronologically arranged pictures, the rendering apparatus comprising:

a first picture rendering module configured to: rendering a first set of pictures stored in a first storage module in a rendering mode;

a first read control module configured to: controlling a second storage module in a reading mode to read a second picture set from an external storage device during the rendering of the first picture set, wherein the second picture set is positioned chronologically after the first picture set; and

a second picture rendering module configured to: in response to completion of rendering the first set of pictures, setting the second storage module to be in the rendering mode, and rendering the second set of pictures.

8. The rendering apparatus of claim 7, further comprising:

a picture pre-reading module configured to:

9. The rendering apparatus according to any one of claims 7 to 8, wherein the picture is a picture in a direct-write screen surface format.

10. An electronic device, comprising:

a memory, a processor, and a computer program stored on the memory,

wherein the processor is configured to execute the computer program to implement the steps of the method of any one of claims 1-6.

11. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a computer program stored thereon, wherein the computer program, when executed by a processor, implements the steps of the method of any of claims 1-6.

12. A computer program product comprising a computer program, wherein the computer program realizes the steps of the method of any one of claims 1-6 when executed by a processor.