Animate cc export problems

[johnb87052352]

hello, I’ve just made my first animation and it works fine when you export as SWF, when I export via media encoder to achieve a .mov file the .mov doesn’t work, it just plays a short still image? I wanted to eventually chop the animation and use it in sections within a PowerPoint, I’ve set out in a html5 format, is this my problem? Thank you in advance, regards, John.

[_keyframer]

Sounds like you have animations inside of Movie Clip symbols. You must convert these symbols to Graphic behavior by selecting each instance on the stage at every keyframe and using the Properties Panel, use the Behavior drop down menu to change it to Graphic. Next you'll probably have to adjust the about of frames on your main timeline to accommodate the number of nested frames.

The rule of thumb here is, if you are exporting to a fixed frame format, the animation must be able to play on the main timeline inside of the Animate tool.

[johnb87052352]

That makes sense, yes I have a ton of animation within symbols (over 100 frames!) will I have to change each frame individually?

Regards, John

[_keyframer · Accepted solution]

Yes you will have to. If it plays inside Animate on the stage, it will export to video.

HERE'S WHY...

Movie Clips are dynamic and render on the fly (beyond their nested frame 1) inside the Flash Player. They have their own timeline that is NOT in sync with the parent timeline or any other MC timeline.

Graphic symbols ARE in sync with their parent timeline and all other Graphic symbols.

Scrub your main timeline and you will notice, Movie Clips will only show their 1st frame. Graphic symbols WILL indeed play all nested frames.

If you have Movie Clips across several keyframes/layers, every single one will need to be converted. It's a pain. It's a mistake we make only once. But it is one of those learning things. We've all been there.

[Colin Holgate]

Your description of exporting the swf through Media Encoder sounds odd, so just to be sure, are you using File/Export/Export Video...? If you are using that, and don't send it to Media Encoder, do you get an MOV that plays ok?

If you don't, then it could be you don't have QuickTime installed. If the MOV does play ok, then using the send to Media Encoder option should work was well. You can't successfully send a SWF to Media Encoder, unless you do the things _keyframer talked about.

If you're just animating for video, I would use an AS3 FLA, and not HTML5 Canvas. With AS3 you get to use Stream audio sync, and you have more filters available.

BTW, if you find you don't have QUickTime installed, and you're on Windows, the installer page is here:

Download QuickTime 7.7.9 for Windows

Don't worry about the "no longer supported" messages, your use of it in exporting video does not involve using QuickTime Player, or the QuickTime browser plugin. Animate is just using it as a way to get perfect frame rate video.

[johnb87052352]

Thanks Colin, it’s all sorted now. It was the Animations inside symbols that caught me out - I tried AS3 but it wouldn’t let me import the png that I created in illustrator for some reason?

[alyr34026706]

Hi,

I have a similar problem, when I export to the .mov I only get the first frame and not the rest of the timeline. I have changed all the symbols to graphic but this hasn't worked. What else could I have done wrong?

Many thanks for any help.

Aly.

[Colin Holgate]

Exporting to MOV does use whatever ActionScript is in the timeline. If you have stop(); on the first frame, it will stop there. Symbols can be movieclip, if you can do a regular test movie and watch the SWF working correctly, then it should export to MOV ok. There has been an issue in the past where if sound starts on frame 1, and is Event synch, the sound doesn't work. If that happens either make it be Stream, or start the sound on frame 2.

There are a few reasons not to use HTML5 Canvas, so if that's what you're using, convert it to ActionScript.

[alyr34026706]

Found the answer  - it was as simple as setting the end frame time on the export. It won't just go to the last frame you have to tell it when to record to.

[Colin Holgate]

If you're just doing an animation, that has as many main timeline frames as there are in the animation, you should be able to use the when last frame reached option. For any code driven animations, or if the last frame of the main timeline has a movieclip that will continue to finish the animation, then yes, you need to set a duration.