Create Videos

The process of creating a video with Biomovies is really straightforward. Once the edition of the movie is finished, just click one of the three options available to start recording.

Create New Preview

A preview is, in fact, a screen record. Biomovies plays the Timeline in real time and records it. Thus, the resolution is not standard, but depends on your screen.

For recording a New Preview, go to menu Create Video > New Preview or use the shortcut ⌘/Ctrl + P. This action will put Biomovies in full screen and will open a new window as well.

In this new window, users can choose the resolution and the frame rate for the new video.

  • As explained before, the resolution depends on the screen on which Biomovies is being executed. Therefore, if you have a Full HD monitor, the movie can have this resolution. All the available resolutions have the aspect ratio of the screen. There are four available resolutions:

    • XL: screen size width (1920x1200 in the figure above)

    • L: width 1280, height according to screen aspect ratio (1280x800 in the figure above)

    • M: width 1024, height according to screen aspect ratio (1024x640 in the figure above)

    • S: width 800, height according to screen aspect ratio (800x500 in the figure above)

  • As for the frame rate, users can choose between 25, 20 or 10 frames per second.

Once the Record button is pressed, the render process starts. This render process consists of recording the movie in real time, so it will take the same length of the Timeline.

After the render process is finished, it starts the video generation. This part can take more or less time depending on the resolution chosen and the resources of the computer where Biomovies is being executed. Once the video generation is finished, a system dialog is shown to ask the user where to save the video.

Tip: in macOS, the process of recording the screen captures the mouse as well, so though this is a preview video, if you don’t want to see the mouse in the video, it’s recommended to have it inside the Create Preview window. As the application only records the content of the main window, the mouse remains hidden in the render process.

All the Preview Videos generated by Biomovies are in MP4 format and H.264 compression. Take into account that, as the movie size depends on the screen size, not always the outcome will be a standard resolution, for doing that, please use the Create New Movie option.

Preview Video, note the black lateral bands indicating that it has been recorded in a non standard aspect ratio

Create New Movie

The process of the creation of a New Movie differs from the Preview and the GIF in one main feature: in this case, the render process consists of capturing and saving as images all the frames composing the movie. After saving all this images, the Movie is generated. Thus, the rendering time is not in real time, but it depends on the duration of the Timeline, the chosen resolution and the hardware specificacions of the computer where Biomovies is being executed.

For recording a New Movie, go to menu Create Video > New Movie or use the shortcut ⌘/Ctrl + M. This action will put Biomovies in full screen and will open a new window as well.

In this new window, users can choose the resolution of the new video and, optionally, the raw images folder where the rendering images will be saved.

  • In this case, the resolution doesn’t depends on the screen on which Biomovies is being executed. Therefore, there are three available standard resolutions, all of them with a 16:9 aspect ratio:

    • HD: or HD 720p, 1280x720

    • FULLHD: or Full HD 1080p, 1920x1080

    • QHD: or 1440p, WQHD, 2K, 2560x1440

  • Clicking in the raw images folder button will allow to save the render images in the selected place. Otherwise they will be stored in a temporary folder.

Once the Record button is pressed, the render process starts. This render process consists of saving one image for each frame of the Timeline, so the time it will take depends on multiple factors, such as the total video length, the chosen resolution or the hardware specifications of the computer in which Biomovies is being executed.

After the render process is finished, it starts the video generation. This part can take more or less time depending on the resolution chosen and the resources of the computer where Biomovies is being executed. Once the video generation is finished, a system dialog is shown to ask the user where to save the video.

Tip: it is highly recommended to have the Letterboxing tool enabled during the process of generating a movie. After enabling it, two stripes will appear showing to the user which parts of the stage will be rendered and which not. In some cases (when the screen aspect ratio is 16:9) these stripes won’t appear.

The render process will only take into account the part of the stage between the stripes

All the Movie Videos generated by Biomovies are in MP4 format and H.264 compression.

QHD Video, note that the aspect ratio is 16:9 and it can be reproduced up to 1440p (see YouTube settings)

Create New GIF

The process of creating a new animated GIF is very similar to the one seen above for creating a New Preview. That means, a screen record. Biomovies plays the Timeline in real time and records it. Thus, the resolution is not standard, but depends on your screen.

For recording a New GIF, go to menu Create Video > New GIF or use the shortcut ⌘/Ctrl + G. This action will put Biomovies in full screen and will open a new window as well.

In this new window, users can choose the resolution and the frame rate for the new animated GIF.

  • As explained before, the resolution depends on the screen on which Biomovies is being executed. In this case, and for the sake of the efficiency, it is not allowed to generate an animated GIF with the size of the whole screen. Take into account that animated GIFs have not the same compression and quality of a MP4 video. A GIF can be useful for putting a small video inside a markdown file, but for showing a long video in full screen, use always a video. All the available resolutions have the aspect ratio of the screen. There are four available resolutions:

    • L: width 1024, height according to screen aspect ratio (1024x640 in the figure above)

    • M: width 800, height according to screen aspect ratio (800x500 in the figure above)

    • S: width 640, height according to screen aspect ratio (640x400 in the figure above)

    • XS: width 480, height according to screen aspect ratio (480x300 in the figure above)

  • As for the frame rate, users can choose between 2, 5 or 10 frames per second.

Once the Record button is pressed, the render process starts. This render process consists of recording the movie in real time, so it will take the same length of the Timeline.

After the render process is finished, it starts the video generation. This part can take more or less time depending on the resolution chosen and the resources of the computer where Biomovies is being executed. Once the video generation is finished, a system dialog is shown to ask the user where to save the GIF file.

Tip: in macOS, the process of recording the screen captures the mouse as well, so if you don’t want to see the mouse in the video, it’s recommended to have it inside the Create GIF window. As the application only records the content of the main window, the mouse remains hidden in the render process.

All the animated GIFs generated by Biomovies are, obviously, in GIF format.

Animated GIF reproducing the same movie than the above videos