Playblast an animation

To playblast animation:

• Windows > Playblast
• In the Animation menu set, select Playback > Playblast

A Playblast is a quick preview that lets you make a "sketch" of your animation, providing a realistic idea of your final render result without requiring the time needed for a formal render. Playblasting gives you a fast way to evaluate your work on the fly, taking a screen grab of the animation in the viewport at each frame during playback, and then “blasting” those images to an image viewer.

By default, Playblast generates a movie or images using the active view and the current time range in the Time Slider to determine the animation range. The default scale is 0.5, which makes the Playblast image resolution one quarter the size of the active view.

By default, playblasted movies are saved to your Movie project location. (This is set in the Project Window.) If there are multiple directories set in the Movie project location, Maya uses the first location listed. You can also change the Directory in the Playblast Shot Options or Playblast Sequence Options to change where movie files are saved.

Note: You can change the default media player that the playblast previews animation sequences in the Applications preferences. (See also Specify default media players.)

Important: Before you playblast, review Known limitations for playblast.

To playblast an animation sequence

1. (Optional) To disable, re-enable, or use a specific output transform for a color-managed scene, set the Apply Output Transform to Playblast and corresponding Output Transform option in the Color Management preferences.
2. Select Playback > Playblast > to open the Playblast Options.
3. Select the Format for the playblast output.
   Tip: To create an image sequence instead of a movie, select image.
4. (Optional) Select the codec or image format you want to use from the Encoding drop-down list.
5. If you're playblasting a movie, set the compression Quality value you want.
6. Set Display Size to From Window.
7. Click in a view to make it active.
8. Click Playblast.

   The scene plays in the active view for the playback range in the Time Slider. After each time frame is drawn, Maya LT takes a screen grab of the active view.

   Depending on your platform and which output Format you selected, a new window opens and previews the playblasted animation.

   Tip: If you set a sound file (or files) to display in the Time Slider while Playblast is running, and you select a movie file type as the output Format, the sounds are included in the resulting saved movie file. See Display audio on the Time Slider.

To output single frames of your animation to Playblast:

1. Use the -frame flag with the playblast MEL command.

   For example:

   playblast -frame 1 -frame 4 -frame 7

   outputs frames 1, 4, and 7 of your current animation to Playblast.

For more information, see MEL Command reference.

Note: The -frame flag overrides any -startFrame/-endframe flags.

To cancel a playblast

1. Press Esc.

To run Playblast when Maya LT is minimized on your screen

Do either of the following:

• Turn on Render offscreen in the Playblast Options.
• Use the -os/offScreen flag with the playblast MEL command.

For more information, see MEL Command reference.

Related topics

• Previewing animation
• Overview of FCheck