animation - Export Animate command to MOV video

I'm trying to export a rather complex Animate command into a full-HD resolution video, but having no success so far. The animation has around 520 frames (the number of elements in the trajectory array). What I should be seeing is a tube object moving with a sphere object, and whilst I can see the animation is working with the Animate command, I cannot see the same results when I export the animation. I have tried different things but this just doesn't seem to work, I'm probably not using the export command in the right way. Instead of the 500~ frames trajectory of the tube and the sphere, I just see the animator moving from one side to other.

I'm using the Export function, in the following way:

Export["my_output.mov",animationObject,"QuickTime",ImageSize->{1920,1080}]

My animation object follows this pattern:

(*theta and phi work as a function of s (the only animated variable) to change the view point*)
theta = N[Table[q, {q, 0.1, 2 \[Pi], (2 \[Pi] - 0.1)/Length[trajectory]}]];
phi = N[Table[q, {q, 0.5 \[Pi], 2.5 \[Pi], 2 \[Pi]/Length[trajectory]}]];

Animate[
 Show[
  (*data is a static array of around 5000 points*)

  ListPointPlot3D[(*my list plot options and data*)],

  (*A tube *)
  Graphics3D[{White, Thickness [0.01], Opacity[0.4],Tube[trajectory[[1 ;; s]]]}],

  (*A sphere*)
  Graphics3D[{Yellow, Sphere[{trajectory[[s]]}, {0.02, 0.02}]}],

  (*Just showing some grids with 10 grid lines*)
  FaceGrids -> {(*Specific options for the face grids to show more lines, etc*)},


  (*ViewPoint changed according to the corresponding value of s in the theta and phi arrays*)
  ViewPoint -> Dynamic[{Sin[theta[[s]]] Cos[phi[[s]]],Sin[theta[[s]]] Sin[phi[[s]]], Cos[theta[[s]]]}],
  ViewAngle -> 50 Degree],

 (*Animate Parameters*)
 {s, 1, Length[trajectory], 1}, DisplayAllSteps -> True,AnimationRepetitions -> 1, AnimationRunning -> False]

I'm using Mathematica 8 student version.

Answer

Since your code is not running due to the lack of trajectory and data it's not possible to give a verified solution, but the tips should help too. What you have to keep in mind is

• you don't need Animate because to export a movie, you can just give Export a list of images or graphics. Use Table in exact the same way where you have Animate and remove the Dynamic from your ViewPoint


• your static ListPointPlot3D does never change but you call it for every new frame. Store this (e.g. with a With block) into a variable and use this


• speaking of this: maybe it is better to create a list of images because they are usually faster to render than Graphics3D objects. This can be done by converting the Graphics3D you create with Rasterize[gr, "Image",...]. There you can specify your image size. If you only want to export it as movie, than it make in my opinion no difference, where you rasterize it.


• on the other hand 500 images of HD-size use a bit of memory, so maybe you have to try different things here if you run out of mem.

Finally, if you really want to create a movie of high quality, where you don't care about movie-size, than it's maybe worth to antialias the images before putting them into the movie. If you use a high-compression in your movie, then you can skip this since it maybe will not be visible any more. If you create your list of graphics with

With[{lp = 
    ListPointPlot3D[data, 

     PlotStyle -> Directive[PointSize[0.009], Opacity[0.6]], 
     PlotRange -> {{-0.6, 0.4}, {-0.4, 0.6}, {-0.5, 0.5}}, 
     SphericalRegion -> True, RotationAction -> "Clip"]},
  imgs = Table[
    Show[Graphics3D[{White, Thickness[0.01], Opacity[0.4], 
       Tube[trajectory[[1 ;; s]]]}],
     Graphics3D[{Yellow, 
       Sphere[{trajectory[[s]]}, {0.02, 
         0.02}]}], Background -> Automatic, 
     Boxed -> False, 

     BoxRatios -> 
      Automatic,
     FaceGrids -> {{{0, -1, 0}, {Table[l, {l, -1, 1, 0.1}], 
         Table[l, {l, -1, 1, 0.1}]}}, {{0, 
         0, -1}, {Table[l, {l, -1, 1, 0.1}], 
         Table[l, {l, -1, 1, 0.1}]}}, {{1, 0, 
         0}, {Table[l, {l, -1, 1, 0.1}], 
         Table[l, {l, -1, 1, 
           0.1}]}}},
     ViewPoint -> {Sin[theta[[s]]] Cos[phi[[s]]], 

       Sin[theta[[s]]] Sin[phi[[s]]], Cos[theta[[s]]]}, 
     ViewAngle -> 50 Degree, ImageSize -> {1920, 1080}],
    {s, 1, Length[trajectory], 1}]
  ];

You can do in the export

Antialias[g_Graphics3D] := Module[{
   resolution = 72, factor = 2},
  ImageResize[
   Rasterize[g, "Image", ImageResolution -> factor*resolution], 

   Scaled[1/factor]]
  ]

Export["tmp/my_output.mov", Antialias /@ imgs]