Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 719)

713 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Rendering and exporting
Last updated 12/21/2009
For a video tutorial on rendering and exporting to FLV and F4V formats, go to the Adobe website at
www.adobe.com/go/lrvid4097_xp .
Jan Ozer provides technical details and tips in “Encoding options for H.264 video” on the Adobe Developer
Connection website for encoding video using the H.264 video codec.
Kush Amerasinghe provides an overview of H.264 and F4V in “H.264 for the rest of us“ on the Adobe Developer
Connection website.
For more information about the Adobe Media Encoder (AME), the FLV and F4V formats, and the H.264 codec, see
“Using Adobe Media Encoder” on the
Adobe website .
Robert Reinhardt provides information about video for Flash Player in some sample chapters from his book Video with
Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Studio Techniques on the Peachpit website. In the
"Compression primer" chapter, he
explains in great detail the advantages and disadvantages of the On2 VP6, Sorenson Spark, and H.264 video codecs. In
the
"Delivery and deployment primer" chapter, he provides information about distributing and deploying video.
Rendering and exporting still images and still-image
sequences
Rendering and exporting a sequence of still images
You can export a rendered movie as a sequence of still images, in which case each frame of the movie is output as a
separate still-image file. When you render one movie using multiple computers on a network, the movie is always
output as a still-image sequence. Many 3D animation programs accept sequences of still images. Sequences of PNG
files are often a good choice for transfer of visual elements from After Effects to Flash Professional.
If you are creating a movie for transfer to film, you will need to create a sequence of still images that you can then
transfer to film using a film recorder.
Creating a sequence of PSD files is a good way to transfer frames to Photoshop for touchup and editing. You can then
import the image sequence back into After Effects.
When specifying the output filename for a still-image sequence, you actually specify a file-naming template. The name
that you specify must contain pound signs surrounded by square brackets ([#####]). As each frame is rendered and a
filename created for it, After Effects replaces the [#####] portion of the name with a number indicating the order of
the frame in the sequence. For example, specifying mymovie_[#####].tga would cause output files to be named
mymovie_00001.tga, filmout_00002.tga, and so on.
The maximum number of frames in a still-image sequence is 32,766.
Note: You can export a BMP image sequence using the export components installed by QuickTime in the File > Export
menu. Choose File > Export > Image Sequence, and then choose BMP from the Format menu in the Export Image
Sequence Settings dialog box.
More Help topics
“ Render and export with the Render Queue panel ” on page 691
“ Automated rendering and network rendering ” on page 725