Render options

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Target

Here are the file Target that can be rendered

• "bmp" - Bitmap
• "cairopng" - portable Network graphics - images with lossless compression rendered by cairo library
• "dv" - digital video
• "ffmpeg" - TODO writeme
• "mpg" - Motion Picture Expert Group file format for moving pictures
• "gif" - graphic interchange format
• "imagemagick" - image manipulation program
• "jpeg" - Joint Photographic Expert Group - still format suited to photographs
• "libav" - libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data; it is written in the C programming language. It is part of the FFmpeg-project and many free/open source applications rely on it.
• "magick++" - TODO writeme
• "null" - Dummy file for rendering engine testing?
• "null-tile" - Dummy file for rendering engine testing?
• "open-ex"r - Still image designed for handling Motion picture frames developed by ILM
• "png" - portable Network graphics - still images with lossless compression
• "ppm" - portable pixmap - still image using very basic format
• "yuv420p" - Still image format designed to preserve the images luminance
• "mng" - multiple-image Network Graphics - animated version of PNG - only works in SVN r979 or later

Results

Target type	Extension	Helper app	Linux support	Windows support	Mac OSX support
Auto	.bmp->bmp .dv->dv_trgt .mpg->ffmpeg_trg .gif->gif .miff->imagemagick_trgt .jpg->jpeg_trgt .avi->Target_LibAVCodec .mng->mng_trgt .exr->exr_trgt .png->png_trgt .ppm->ppm .yuv->yuv	Determined by extension	.bmp->bmp OK (but text layers upside down) 5 .dv->dv OK .mpg->mpg OK .gif->gif OK .miff->OK (only last frame?) .jpg->jpg OK .avi->crash 1 .mng-> not render 3 .exr->exr OK .png->png OK .ppm->ppm OK .yuv->yuv OK? 2	.bmp-ok (text layer correct in 983) .dv- n/a .mpg-crash synfig .gif-ok, (imagemagick)animated gif crashes (983) .miff-single frame ok, animated crash synfig (983) .jpg-ok .avi- n/a .mng- n/a .exr-ok .png-ok .ppm-ok yuv-ok 2	.bmp-ok, but text layers upside down 5 .dv-crash synfig .mpg-crash synfig .gif-ok, also animated gif .miff-crash synfig .jpg-ok .avi-crash synfig .mng-"unable to create target for... .mov-"unable to create target for... .exr-"unable to create target for... .png-ok .ppm-ok yuv-render a file in unknown format
bmp	bmp	Native	Yes (but text layers upside down) 5	Yes (Text layers correct in 983)	ok, but text layers upside down 5
dv	dv	encodedv	Yes	N/A - encodedv not supported under Windows	crash synfig
ffmpeg	mpg	ffmpeg	It renders .mpg .avi, .mov and .flv	Working with FFMpeg 10464 and SVN 934 (may crash on longer renders)	crash synfig
gif	gif	native	yes (animated gifs also)	yes (animated gifs also)	ok
imagemagick	miff	imagemagick	yes (but only last frame?)	Renders to a readable file, but the image is corrupted in builds prior to SVN 934. Working in 934 and later (October 17th 2007).	crash synfig
magick++	gif	native	yes (animated gifs, optimized)	unknown	unknown
jpeg	jpg	native	yes	yes	ok
libav	avi	libavcodec	yes, tested on Ubuntu Feisty (fails on Ubuntu Edgy)	N/A - libav support not compiled into the Windows version.	?
null	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
null-tile	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
open-exr	exr	native	yes	yes	n/a
png	png	native*.mpg->	yes	yes	ok
ppm	ppm	native	yes	yes	ok
yuv420p	yuv	native	yes but format in unknown format	yes but format in unknown format (use: ffmpeg -i your_yuv420p_file -sameq your_mpg_file.mpg)	render file in unknown format

Rendering to Video

Rendering to video directly from Synfig under Windows Operating Systems presents some challenges.

If you want to render to anything other than .mpg with "ffmpeg", you'll want to save a series of images that represent your animation, to a still format that ffmpeg can read. I recommend "png". Whilst you can render to any size image, if you're going to show your video on Youtube*.mpg->, you may want to take that into account when you render.

If you set up your render like

Image size - width 320 Xres 72.0 Phys width 4.44 Height 240 Yres 72.0 Phys Height 3.33 (Image span 11.0127

Image area Top left X: -3.67 Y:4.2 Bottom right X: 3.67 y:-4.2)

You will get a series of .png files in your output directory. Open a command prompt, cd to that directory, then use ffmpeg to assemble these png files into the video stream of your choice. for example -

C:\output>ffmpeg -r 15 -i rfrac%04d.png -f flv fractal.flv

creates a Flash video file of with the same framerate as used on Youtube. You should be able to submit it to Youtube without the need for the Youtube servers to have to re-compress it.

Notes

note 1 - libav crashes for genete

The extension is recognized but it crashed. Please report if it renders in your machine (Using Ubuntu 6.10 and svn 945). The console output is this: synfig(5882): info: render target filename: '/home/carlos/Videos/pruebasynfig/RenderTest/avi-auto/RenderTest.avi'; extension: 'avi'

synfig(5882): info: 'avi' is a known extension - using target 'libav' Output #0, avi, to '/home/carlos/Videos/pruebasynfig/RenderTest/avi-auto/RenderTest.avi':
  Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4 (hq), yuv420p, 480x270, q=2-31, 925 kb/s, 24.00 fps(c)
Fallo de segmentación (core dumped)

note 2 - wtf is yuv?

The yuv file is rendered but it seems to have a not compatible format. See the console output when try to convert to a avi using ffmepg.

ffmpeg -i RenderTest.yuv -sameq RenderTest.avi FFmpeg version SVN-rUNKNOWN, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard

 configuration:  --enable-gpl --enable-pp --enable-pthreads --enable-vorbis --enable-libogg --enable-a52 --enable-dts --enable-libgsm --enable-dc1394 --disable-debug --enable-shared --prefix=/usr 
 libavutil version: 0d.49.0.0
 libavcodec version: 0d.51.11.0
 libavformat version: 0d.50.5.0
 built on Sep 20 2006 00:26:15, gcc: 4.1.2 20060906 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.1-13ubuntu2)
picture size invalid (0x0)
[rawvideo @ 0xb7f47c30]Could not find codec parameters (Video: rawvideo, yuv420p)
RenderTest.yuv: could not find codec parameters

I can watch a .yuv animation. You need to specify the size it was rendered at - that doesn't seem to be part of the file format:

 animate -size 480x270 file.yuv

I can single-step through a .yuv animation, using SPACE to step forward and BACKSPACE to step back through the frames:

 display -size 480x270 file.yuv

I can also convert a .yuv to a series of .png files. This makes file-0.png through file-23.png for a 24 frame animation:

 convert -size 480x270 file.yuv file.png

I also discovered that ffmpeg will happily convert a .yuv to .avi if you just tell it the image dimensions:

 ffmpeg -s 480x270 -i file.yuv file.avi

svn r980 adds headers to created .yuv files, so you no longer need to specify the size when using them. -- dooglus 21:50, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

Mmmm I can play yuv files with mplayer and with ffplay. Also I can convert a yuv file to an avi (or whatever ffmpeg can encode) without telling the video size. I think it depends on how ffmpeg was compiled. Genete 11:59, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

note 3 - mng not working?

The extension is recognized but it shows this pop-up window message: Unable to create target for /home/carlos/Videos/pruebasynfig/RenderTest/mng-auto/RenderTest.mng. Please report if it renders in your machine (Using Ubuntu 6.10 and svn 945)

How did you get the mng extension to be recognised? The module isn't built by default. Did you uncomment it in configure.ac? -- dooglus 10:49, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

In fact it is not recognized. You'll have same answer if you put any other unknown extension. This target mng doesn't should be here. I was in a dream :).--Genete 16:24, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

I fixed mng rendering in svn r973-979. You can test it now. -- dooglus 18:14, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

note 4 - bug in 'auto' (fixed in svn)

Bug - Seems to generate a bmp (or series of bmps) regardless of extension.

Synfig was only checking the extension the first time Auto was selected -- fixed in r941.

r975 changed some of the default render targets (for instance it used imagemagick instead of built-in for .gif) accidentally. r984 put it back as it was. -- dooglus 21:52, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

note 5 - bug in .bmp (fixed in svn)

Please retest with r965 or newer to see if the inverted text bug is fixed.

note 6 - how to render for TV formats

If you need to render stills (pngs) for something where the final format does not have square pixels, such as PAL or NTSC DV, you can use the approach outlined below.

0) Select png format as you would otherwise

1) Use square pixel when you edit it in synfig (1024x576 for PAL 16:9 and 768x576 for PAL 4:3. (Pixelgeek calculates this to be 958x540 for anamorphic and 720x540 for SD NTSC)

2) Just before rendering, in canvas property->Other->Locks and links, set checkboxes for Image Aspect and Image Span, and uncheck Pixel Aspect (Depending on synfig version, this may possibly be the options dialog for File|Render, at least it is for me)

3) Change back to the Image settings

4) Change resolution to 720x576 for PAL, 720*480 for NTSC

5) Render

That should produce stills with the right "pixel aspect". When viewed on the PC using square pixels, a circle will appear as an oval. When viewed on a TV with the right pixelaspect, the circle will become a circle.

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