Preview
Introduction
Rendering a long or complicated animation can take a while. You may need to do several renders before you are happy with your finished animation. Therefore, before you render your animation, it's a good idea to preview all or just a part of it at lower quality to save time.
You may also find that working on your animation by looking at a render in a normal media player is not very useful. You will see time displayed in seconds instead of as frame numbers and moving backwards and forwards (scrubbing) can be difficult.
Previewing an animation
There are two ways to preview the animation in your current canvas:
- You can press the canvas window toolbar preview button, or
- you can open the Canvas Menu using the Canvas Menu Caret button and then use "File → Preview".
The Preview Options Dialog
The following dialog will appear:
This dialog will allow you to set the following parameters:
- General Settings
- Zoom - Increase of decrease the size of the previewed animation.
- Frames per second - It's a good idea to have a lower number than what the final FPS will be. This will speed up the rendered preview.
- Time Settings
- Begin Time - At what frame or second you want the preview to begin.
- End Time - At what frame or second you want the preview to end.
NOTES: To use a begin or end time, you must check the corresponding box next to each one. Also, to specify a starting or ending frame, use (f) after the number. For time, use (s).
When you are finished setting the parameters, click Preview. As the preview is rendering, the following Preview Window will appear:
The Preview Window
Once the preview has rendered (the time after Last Rendered should equal your End Time), you can now preview your animation. Take a look the following icons under the Preview image:
- Loop - Loops the animation. Depress to stop the loop.
- Play - Plays the animation.
- Stop - Stops the animation.
- Halt Render - Stops the rendering process.
- Re-Preview - Brings you back to the Preview Options dialog.
- Erase All - Deletes the current preview animation.
Also, the slider above the Preview icons can be moved back and forth to scrub through your animation.
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