Playblast animation

 
 
 

Before you playblast, be aware of the following issues and known limitations:

To playblast an animation

  1. Create or open an animation.
  2. Select Window > Playblast > .

    The Playblast Options window opens.

  3. Select the Format for the movie output.

    The Encoding drop-down updates automatically with associated codecs.

  4. (Optional) Select the codec you want to use from the Encoding drop-down list.
  5. Set the compression Quality value you want.
  6. Set Display Size to From Window.
  7. Click in a view to make it active.
  8. Click Playblast.

    The scene plays in the active view for the playback range in the Time Slider. After each time frame is drawn, Maya takes a screen grab of the active view.

    Depending on your platform and which output Format you selected, a new window opens and previews the playblasted animation. For more information, see Window > Playblast.

    Tip

    If you set a sound file (or files) to display in the Time Slider while Playblast is running, and you select a movie file type as the output Format, the sounds are included in the resulting saved movie file. See Display audio on the Time Slider.

To output single frames of your animation to Playblast

  1. Use the -frame flag with the playblast MEL command.

    For example:

    playblast -frame 1 -frame 4 -frame 7

    outputs frames 1, 4, and 7 of your current animation to Playblast.

For more information, see Help > MEL Command Reference.

Note

The -frame flag overrides any -startFrame/-endframe flags.

To cancel a playblast

  1. Press the key.

To run Playblast when Maya is minimized on your screen (Linux only)

  1. Use the -os/offScreen flag with the playblast MEL command.

For more information, see Help > MEL Command Reference.

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