Creating a movie of an animation
Animations of models can be viewed within Vectorworks, or they can be saved as a movie file that can be sent to partners and clients, and included in presentations and online.
Set the class and layer visibilities as needed for the movie.
Select the animation path object from which to create a movie.
To access a previously created animation path in a drawing, select it from the Cameras tab of the Visualization palette.
Do one of the following:
Click Create Movie in the Object Info palette.
Right-click on the animation path object and select Create Movie from the context menu.
The Create Movie dialog box opens.
Click to show/hide the parameters.Click to show/hide the parameters.
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Parameter |
Description |
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Settings |
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Duration (in seconds) |
Sets the total length of time of the animation. This parameter is linked to the Duration in the Object Info palette; changing the value in either place changes it in both places. |
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Frames per second |
Sets the number of frames per second (fps) in the animation. 30 fps generally produces a smooth final animation. |
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Rendering |
Select the rendering mode for the video; see Rendering modes. If rendering a movie in Showcase (Spotlight required), you can associate a path animation with a DMX recording. Video textures and moving objects driven by PSN are not included in the path animation. Move the timeline scrubber to scrub the video to the starting time. The path animation duration and frames per second settings control the DMX recording’s playback speed to match; the Create Movie dialog box parameters determine time duration and frame rate of the previsualization. See The DMX recorder for more information. |
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Settings |
If Rendering is set to anything other than Fast Renderworks or Final Quality Renderworks, click to open the appropriate [Render mode] Options dialog box and set the parameters |
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Quality |
Sets the quality of the movie output; the higher the quality, the larger the resulting file. The Very High setting is of appropriate quality for further video editing. |
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Process on |
Select whether to process the movie on your local computer or on Vectorworks Cloud Services. Processing on Cloud Services is available only with a subscription or as a benefit of Vectorworks Service Select; otherwise the animation is processed locally. Depending on the size of the movie, processing on the local computer may occupy Vectorworks and prevent additional design work for an extended time. Processing on Vectorworks Cloud Services allows you to continue design work immediately. |
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Time Range |
Sets the duration of the saved movie relative to the full movie duration. |
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Full Duration |
Saves the complete movie |
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Limited Duration |
Saves only the specified section of the movie. Start Time and End Time can be set to any value between 0 and the Duration of the movie. |
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Frame Size |
Sets the size of the animation (width by height in pixels). If the selected frame size has the same aspect ratio as the drawing window’s resolution, the clipping frame will align with the drawing window; no cropping will occur. If the selected frame size has a different aspect ratio from the drawing window’s resolution, the movie’s frame will be cropped, as indicated by blue viewfinder indicators in the corners of the camera view. |
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Standard |
Select a standard frame size |
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360° Video |
In Renderworks and Shaded rendering modes, saves a 360° video; the viewer controls the camera view angle as the camera moves along the animation path at the designated speed. Select the frame size. |
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Custom |
Enter a custom frame size; the width and height can be set to any value between 240 and 4096 pixels |
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Screen |
Sets the frame size to match the current drawing window |
Click Save Movie to save the animation.
The Select Movie Filename dialog box opens.
Specify the name, location, and file type for the movie file.
After initial processing, the Generating Animation dialog box displays the progress, including the Time Spent and Time Remaining. If the duration is greater than 24 hours, the number of days displays before the hours/minutes/seconds.
A .mov (MPEG4) file with H.264 compression is created. Windows-generated and Mac-generated movies can be viewed on either platform. Simply double-click the file to open it, or open it from your preferred viewer.
Multiple movies can be stitched together using a third-party video editing program to create a more extensive walkthrough of an entire model, or to create a fading transition between scene changes.
