Talk:Render options

From Synfig Studio :: Documentation
Revision as of 18:56, 29 August 2014 by D.j.a.y (Talk | contribs) (Rewrite preparation for 0.65: lossless h264)

Jump to: navigation, search

Rewrite preparation for 0.65

Add png-spritesheet target

Lossless H.264 encoding profile. The resulting file is compatible with Sony Vegas and other software based on QuickTime AVC decoders.

How to create a flv file

I have to say that ffmpeg will take care about the extension of the file you're passing with the file name. In this way you can make a mov or a flv juts selecting ffmpeg and adding the proper extension to the file name.

When you select the extension you're selecting the container and not the codec. The codec is the one that is defined internally in the composed command line that the program send to ffmpeg. BTW it could be a cool feature to have the opportunity to select the codec and the main parameters like cinelerra does.

Almost in linux I can create .mov .flv .avi and .mpg (different containers) with same internal codec MPEG (libmpeg2).

So it is not needed to render to a png sequence and later use ffmpeg due to you can do it directly using synfig, almost in linux. --Genete 10:02, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

Can I ask you a favour? Can you go through and test that all the formats do render correctly under Linux - I'm assuming they do, but dooglus couldn't confirm.
I agree that rendering to the ffmpeg target allows you to change the extension of the filename. However, the ffmpeg target right now is hard coded to use the mpeg1video codec, no matter what the extension supplied is. So I don't know if that is creating a .mov, .flv, .avi file, but you may well get a mpg file with a .mov, .flv or .avi file extension....

The hardcoded commandline Synfig uses is:-

ffmpeg -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -an -r %f -i pipe: -loop -hq -title \"%s\" -vcodec mpeg1video -y \"%s\"
where %f is the framerate, the first %s is the canvas title and the second %s is the filename.

So, if you want to create a .flv file, I can't see how you would do it except by exporting the individual frames and then manually setting up the ffmpeg command line. (Unless you're doing some clever magic with ffmpeg under Linux that Synfig doesn't know about)

Also, under Windows, the ffmpeg target has been broken up to SVN 934 (17 October 2007)
P.S. I just tried rendering from Synfig with ffmpeg to a .flv file and got a 0 byte file...Hmmmm.... Pxegeek 01:37, 19 October 2007 (EDT)


OK, I'll do it and update to the Render Options page and to this talk page. Also I'll upload the file results to let you (or others) verify if the file is correct or not. I'll include my ffmpeg version (maybe it is important).--Genete 08:54, 19 October 2007 (EDT)
This is what I get in the console when I try to specify flv extension -

FFmpeg version SVN-r10464, Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Fabrice Bellard, et al. configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-pp --enable-swscaler --enable-pthreads -- enable-liba52 --enable-avisynth --enable-libamr-nb --enable-libamr-wb --enable-l ibfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libnut --en able-libogg --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libx vid --cpu=i686 --enable-memalign-hack --extra-ldflags=-static libavutil version: 49.5.0 libavcodec version: 51.43.0 libavformat version: 51.12.2 built on Sep 10 2007 10:31:22, gcc: 4.2.1 Input #0, image2pipe, from 'pipe:': Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A Stream #0.0: Video: ppm, rgb24, 480x272, 24.00 fps(r) Output #0, flv, to 'C:\Program Files\synfig\examples\eye.flv': Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg1video, yuv420p, 480x272, q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 24.00 fps( c) Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 [mpeg1video @ 0098D2D0]video codec not compatible with flv Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?) Pxegeek


This file was done under synfig and exported with ffmpeg and flv extension. The ffmpeg command gives this console output (info):

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) Save the file and play it in a flv player. I do it with mplayer. --Genete 06:47, 20 October 2007 (EDT)

Do we need a separate table for the 'Auto' target?

Assuming it's working now, all the auto target does it looks at the extension and uses the associated target, so for example, if ffmpeg rendering to .mpg doesn't work, then neither with Auto rendering to .mpg. We need a table show what is the default target type for each known extension, but I don't think individual test results need reporting. -- dooglus 04:15, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

Ugly animated gifs, How can we improve them?

Create an animated gif usually takes a long render time due to the way it is currently done (using internal code). Also its disposal method doesn't work properly leaving traces of previous frames. Maybe if synfig creates a series of png then they can be easily put together using Imagemagick's Convert command: http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_basics/ --Genete 04:29, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for pointing me at that page, but it seems to be talking about a different ImageMagick than the one I'm using:

 $ convert in.gif -layers optimize out.gif
 convert: unrecognized option `-layers'.

I can use this to attempt to optimize the file:

 $ convert in.gif -deconstruct out.gif

but it isn't very good. Each frame is reduced down to a rectangle that contains all the changed pixels. But if there's movement in two opposite corners of the screen, the rectangle is the whole screen... -- dooglus 09:56, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

.dv resolution

It seems that when you render to a .dv file, the resolution of the exported file is 720x480 regardless of what you put in the render dialogue. Since the render defaults to a 3:2 aspect ratio and the editor defaults to 9:16, bits get chopped off the rendered file. I just found this out the hard way and am now reworking the few files I've made to fit in a 3:2 ratio. Is this an issue with Synfig Studio, or with the .dv format?Envergure 19:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

No video formats on Windows?

I recently downloaded Synfig on Windows XP, and am new to the program. I've been testing out all the ffmpeg codecs, I can't get any of them to work. The only renders I've got to work right are the animated gif (unusable for serious work due to being limited to 255 colors) and the sequences of separate png files (requires sequencing in a separate video editor). Is this a problem with the Windows version of the program or is there something I could be doing wrong? I'd think that maybe it was just the Windows Media Player not recognizing the codecs, except a lot of the rendered files came out being listing as being 0 bytes in size. Myuu 02:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


I downloaded ImageMagick, hoping to get it to Avi through that, only to discover that .miff won't render either. Myuu 15:02, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


Wait a minute. Actually, now that I downloaded ImageMagick, and put a couple .dlls from Imagemagick's folder into synfig's, .miffs will render. However, it exports to a series of them anyway, rather than a single file. The fact that it rendered after I installed the program, however, makes me think that maybe I don't have ffmpeg, and that's why I can't render Mpeg's straight from synfig. Hmm. Myuu 15:13, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


More weirdness, I replaced the copy of ffmpeg that came with Synfig with the one that came with imagemagick, and now, instead of rendering empty 0 byte files, it renders (presumably one frame) 300 or so KB files that Windows Media Player and Avidemux still won't open, but imagemagick will open as a still. And yes, I'm sure that I had the "use current frame" box unchecked. Myuu 16:31, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

After wasting several hours, finally gave up on using IM as a proxy. Serendipitously, however, my thought process was led to using Pencil to sequence pngs into video. It was simple & fast to import PNG's from Synfig into pencil & export. The only codec that worked was Shockwave Flash (SWF), but that's better than what I've gotten Synfig's renderer/exporter to do. Kinda sad that a big 50 MB high-grade animation suite with advanced tools and auto tweening has more trouble rendering to video than a simple 5 MB bare-bones program. Am I taking up too much of the page? Sorry, I'll stop. Myuu 20:41, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

This sounds like an issue with the setup on your machine. Either ffmpeg isn't getting correctly installed, or Windows can't find it. If you're up for debugging it, we could investigate - probably easier to do on the forums, maybe? --Pxegeek 00:41, 6 February 2011 (UTC)