AVI videos provide the best quality output as a single file and can easily be uploaded to
YouTube or other any video sharing site. AVI videos can also be edited in video editing software for adding additional effects, captions or audio. AVI is a container format and supports many different
video codecs. The AVI options enable you to save as a large uncompressed file for optimum quality, or compress the video using any of the
video codecs installed on your computer.
Click 'Export Animation' in the File menu, select 'AVI Video (*.avi)' from the drop-down list of file types, specify a file name and click 'Save' to display the AVI Video options and save. After setting the options, click 'OK' and wait for the progress bar to reach the end.
Video Speed
Make sure that the speed of your animation is correct when playing before Exporting the animation because the same frame rate will be used when exporting the video. This can be adjusted using the scroll bar next to the Play and Stop buttons.
Resize
The Resize option allows you to specify a percentage to resize the dimensions of the animation. 50% is set by default to reduce the file size. Change the value to 100% if you want the resulting video to have the same dimensions as your animation.
Super Sample
The Super Sample option effects the quality of the resulting video by making the edges of lines and other objects smoother. The maximum value of 4 will result in the smoothest possible result, while the minimum value of 1 will give no smoothing, and will therefore make the figures appear as they do when playing in Pivot. The higher the value, the longer it will take to export the animation.
Super-sampling works by drawing each frame of the animation several times bigger than the resulting animation and then shrinking the image down to the correct size by averaging pixels. The resulting image is therefore
anti-aliased and smoother.
Compress
The compress option allows you to choose to compress the video using one of the
video codecs installed on your computer. If you plan to perform further editing using video editing software, then it is suggested to not compress the video so that there is no reduction in quality. You can then compress the video afterwards using the video editing software before uploading to
YouTube, etc. Alternatively, you could install a lossless video codec such as
Lagarith.
Lagarith offers the same quality as uncompressed video but with a much smaller file size and faster decompression for playing the video. It can be downloaded and installed from the link below. After installing, it should automatically appear in the Compressor list in the Video Compression options.
If you choose to compress the video directly from Pivot, then the following window will appear after clicking 'OK'. The options shown in the Video Compression window are specific to the codec selected.
Note: Some video codecs require that the video dimensions be a multiple of 4. If the animation dimensions are not a multiple of 4, the video will therefore be padded out with black borders to the next multiple of 4.
