Contains helpful functions for using mencoder and Scrot on Linux for creating time lapses.

capture

#!/bin/bash

# First argument: delay between time lapse screenshots (in seconds). Default=3
DELAY=${1:-"3"}

echo "Press Ctrl+C to stop capturing time lapse screenshots."

while [ 1 ]; do
    scrot -q 100 "$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).jpg"
    sleep $DELAY
done

clean

#!/bin/bash

FRAMES="*.jpg"
FILES="files.txt"
VIDEO="screenlapse.avi"

for FRAME in $FRAMES; do
    rm "$FRAME"
done

if [ -e "$FILES" ]; then 
    rm "$FILES"
fi

if [ -e "$VIDEO" ]; then
    rm "$VIDEO"
fi

compile

#!/bin/bash

# First two arguments (optional): width, height of video resolution
WIDTH=${1:-"1280"}
HEIGHT=${2:-"720"}

# Third argument (optional): FPS of output video
FPS=${3:-"20"}

ls -1tr *.jpg > files.txt

mencoder -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame -mf w=${WIDTH}:h=${HEIGHT}:fps=${FPS}:type=jpg 'mf://@files.txt' -o screenlapse.avi

half-clean

#!/bin/bash

FILES="files.txt"
VIDEO="screenlapse.avi"

if [ -e "$FILES" ]; then 
    rm "$FILES"
fi

if [ -e "$VIDEO" ]; then
    rm "$VIDEO"
fi