
Managing the Movie Conversion
Once you load a composition into Silica, set the output attributes found to the right of the window.
Setting the Movie Duration
- Silica allows you to specify the duration of the movie created from a composition. The default duration is one minute. Silica does not limit you to a time duration, however you should be aware that compression settings and disk space may limit the size of file that can be created during the conversion process.
Select a Video Encoding Format
- The Format pulldown menu lets you select the video format to use when processing your Quartz Composition into a movie. Silica provides codecs for encoding movies as H.264, JPEG, Apple ProRes 4444 and Apple ProRes 422. For more information on video encoding settings, see the QuickTime Documentation at the Apple Website.
Setting the Frame Rate
- Silica provides several preset frame rates for your output movie. The frame rate controls how often you Quartz Composition is sampled during the movie creation process. Silica include standard rates for film, video and broadcast. Frame rate may vary from 1 to 120 frames per second. The default value is 24 frames per second.
Other Video Attributes
- Encodings that use H.264 may set a key frame rate and select an output size: 480p, 720p or 1080p. Movies that are JPEG encoded have the option to set the output quality.
Once you have set all of the attributes above, click the Export toolbar item, provide a destination directory to store your results.
Silica creates a thread that runs in the background to handle the Quartz Composition conversions. Click the Activity Monitor item on the toolbar to manage the status of any composition submitted for conversion. If unfinished exports remain active when you exit Silica, you will be asked whether to cancel any remaining exports or continue exiting the application.