Exporting a Flash Movie (.swf)

Once you have completed your storyboard and animatic, you can export as Flash Movie (.swf) file which you can share and play back.

  1. Select File > Export > Movie.

The Export to Movie window opens.

  1. In the Destination Path section, click the Browse button and choose a folder in which to save the exported files.
  1. In the File Pattern field, type in a prefix or a file naming pattern for the exported files—see About File Naming Patterns.
  1. In the Movie Format drop-down, select Flash (*.swf).
  1. In the Resolution dropdown, select whether you want the exported movie to be in Full Size, Half Size or Quarter Size, relative to the resolution of your project. It is recommended to export your animatic in full size unless you want to quickly export a test video.
  1. In the One Clip drop-down, select how you want your video clips to be separated:
    • Per Scene: Create one movie file for each scene in your project.
    • Per Sequence: Create one movie file for each sequence in your project, if any.
    • Per Project: Export your whole animatic into a single video file.
  1. Click Options.

    2. The Flash Export Settings dialog box opens.

    1. To protect your movie from being imported in another application, select the Protect from Import option.
    2. To optimize the size of the exported Flash file, select the Compress option.
    3. If your project includes any bitmap images or video clips, set the JPEG Quality to the preferred setting. A lower setting will save disk space but will affect the quality of all bitmap images in the exported file. A higher setting will preserve the quality of bitmap images.
    4. Click OK.
  1. In the Export Range section, select whether you want to export the entire project, or only specific parts of it:

    • All: Exports the entire storyboard.
    • Selected Scenes: Select this option to export a specific selection of scenes. Then, click on the Select button to open the Scenes Picker dialog box, in which you can:
      • Type the number of a sequence or of a scene in the Sequence or Scene fields in the Filter section, to only show matching sequences or matching scenes in the list.
      • Click and drag to select a range of scenes.
      • Hold the Ctrl key and click on each scene you want to add to your selection.
      • Hold the Shift key, then click on the first scene and the last scene you want to add to your selection, to select every scene between those two scenes inclusively.
      • If your project has sequences, click on a sequence to select every scene in that sequence.
    • Current Scene: Exports only the currently selected scene.
    • Current Panel: Exports only the currently selected panel.
    • Tracked Panels:Exports panels on which tracking changes is enabled—see About Track Changes.
  1. In the Burn-In tab, choose what kind of information you want to have printed into the exported files:

    • Print Time Code: Prints the global timecode on each rendered image.
    • Print Scene Names and Panel Numbers: Prints the scene names and panel numbers as an overlay on your video.
    • Print Additional Duration: Prints another time code counting the time for the current panel, scene or sequence, depending on what is selected in the Repeat drop-down.
      • Units: Whether to print the additional duration in time units (seconds, minutes, etc.) or in frames.
      • Repeat: Decide what to count the time of for the additional duration. For example, if set to per Panel, the time elapsed since the beginning of the current panel will be printed.
  1. In the Camera Grids tab, using these options, decides whether you want any kind of camera frame to be printed into the exported files:

    • Title Safe Area: Prints the Title Safe Area over the picture. By default, this area is 20% smaller than the camera frame. It is used as a guideline of the area that CRT displays might crop out of the picture. Visual elements such as text and logos should be placed within this area.

    • Action Safe Area: Prints the Action Safe Area over the picture. By default, this area is 10% smaller than the camera frame. It is used as a guideline of the area that CRT displays might crop out of the picture. Characters and action should be placed within this area.

    • 4:3 Safety: Prints the title safe area and the action safe area for the 4:3 camera frame over the exported image. They can be used to position elements in projects that are meant to be displayed in both widescreen and 4:3 proportions.
    • 4:3 Reference: Prints the 4:3 camera frame over the exported image. This frame corresponds to the camera frame if the aspect ratio of the picture was 4:3. It can be used to position elements in projects that are meant to be displayed in both widescreen and 4:3 proportions.
  1. In the Captions tab, you can choose to print any of your storyboard’s captions into the exported movies using the following options—see About Captions.

    • Print Captions: Choose whether to not print captions (None) or select one of your project’s captions to print into the exported movies. By default, a Storyboard Pro project has Action Notes, Dialog, Slugging and Notes captions, but you can also choose to print custom captions if your project has any.
    • Font: Select which font the captions will be printed in. By default, they will be printed in Arial.
    • Height %: Sets the size of caption lines relative to the height of the exported movies. For example, if exporting a movie at 1080p with 3% Height captions, each caption line will be 32 pixels in height.
    • Position: Prints the captions at either the Top Left, Top Centre, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Centre or Bottom Right of the movie. By default, captions are printed to the Bottom Centre.
    • Max Lines: Sets the maximum amount of caption lines to print on each panel. If a caption being printed requires more than the maximum amount of lines, it will be cut off with an ellipsis (...) at the end. Note that even if captions are printed at the bottom, they will be aligned to the top of the space reserved for them, which is calculated by the amount of Max Lines x the Height %. Therefore, if this setting is too high and captions are printed at the bottom, they may appear closer to the middle of the picture than to the bottom.
    • Text Colour: Select the font colour in which to print the captions.
    • Bg Colour: Select the background colour on which to print the captions. If the checkbox is unchecked, the captions will be printed directly into the rendered picture. Otherwise, they will be printed in rectangular boxes of the chosen colour.
  1. If you want to automatically play the video or view the exported files once the export is done, check the Open document/folder after export option.
  1. Click on the Export button.