Make Movie

Background: Commercial video-recording software may miss a frame when recording the screen. The Make Movie dialog-box does not skip frames.

Use Make Movie to record :

• a movie: use the GIF file-type.

- or -

•a number of images, use PNG, JPG, or BMP file-types.

The images are numbered, and are at equal increments of the Master Machine Angle.

Open Make-Movie dialog-box

Icon-MakeMovie
1.Click File toolbar > Make Movie

- or -

1.Click File menu > Movie

The Make-Movie dialog-box is now open

Make-Movie dialog-box

Make Movie dialog-box

Make Movie dialog-box

Top-Tip - Before you open the dialog, do ALT+H to home the model to zero degrees.
btn_delkeyword Frame Size and Position 

Dialog-13.2-MakeMovie-FamSize

You should see a black square in the Graphic-Area. This is the recording Frame.

Usually, you will want to edit the size and position of the recording Frame.

Select a typical Frame size, use the:

Pre-set Frame Size...

1.Use the Pre-set Frame Size...  list-box to select a typical frame size

OR

Edit the Size of the Frame:

1.Edit Width and Height to define the size of the frame.

Top-Tip: When you use a Pre-set Frame Size, remove the focus from the Pre-set Frame Size... list-box. Click the Left box. If you do not, you may select a different Pre-set Frame if you use your mouse scroll-wheel.

To edit the Position of the Frame:

2.Edit the Left and Top to position the frame in the graphic-area.
btn_delkeyword File-name and File-type 

Dialog-13.2-MakeMovie-FileType

File-path and File-Type button

1.Click the File-name and file-type... button (at the bottom of this separator)

Use the standard Windows® Save As dialog to:

a.Browse to a File-path and enter a File-name
b.Use the Save as type* list box to select a file-type - Note: different file-types have different results - see File-Types
2.Click Save button in the Windows® Save As dialog

The File-path and File-name show in the boxes.

IMPORTANT: FILE-TYPES

GIF file-type.

Makes a movie in GIF format.

GIF files can be very large when the frame-size is large.

PNG, JPG, JPEG, BMP file-types.

Saves one image file for each frame. See Number-of-Frames

MechDesigner appends 001, 002, 003, ... to the name of each image. Eg: Hinge-A000.png, Hinge-A001, Hinge-A002, ... "HingeA"&"Number-of-Frames"

Top-Tip: Enter a file-name that ends with text and not a number.

To compile separate PNG images as a movie, I use Avidemux 2.6. - a free tool you can download from the internet. My lawyer tells me I cannot recommend it.

In Avidemux2.6:

1.Open the first image in the sequence of images - e.g. Hinge-A000.png

Import the first image only. Avidemux2.6 automatically imports the other images in the numbered sequence.

2.Save the movie with the MP4 movie format.

MP4, with the x264 codec, is the recommended format for YouTube®.

Save the Movie file with the same frame-size as the recorded images
btn_delkeyword Make Movie... 

Dialog-13.2-MakeMovie-MakeMovie

Number-of-Frames

1.Edit the Number-of-Frames box (Default = 30 Frames, Minimum=5 ; Maximum=10000)
2.Edit the Machine Start Angle (Default=0 ;  Maximum > Minimum ≥ 0)
3.Edit the Machine End Angle (Default=360 ; 720 ≥ Maximum > Minimum)

Make Movie... button

4.Make Movie button

When you click the Make Movie button, the model moves the model to the Start Angle and makes the movie.

If you think the model does not complete a machine-cycle, please wait file(s) are being saved to your drive.

 

Tutorials and Reference Help Files for MechDesigner and MotionDesigner 14.2 + © Machine, Cam, Mechanism, and Motion Design Software by PSMotion Ltd