Movie Player

This is convenient tool can be used for playing back preview sequences – not complete videos, although it is possible to export a video out of the application. The "Movie Player" itself works like any other player and shows similar elements. To attach it to the layout, just drag the windows headline area (“Movie Player”), drop it to the desired place and save the layout.

RealFlow's "Movie Player".

The main part is the canvas, which is empty by default and shows the label “No sequence loaded”. Directly below there is the timeline, showing the number of available frames. You can easily scrub the frames by dragging the slider. If you want to restrict playback to a custom range, then you can enter a start and stop frame in the fields next to the timeline. The L button turns on the loop function.

Fit

Checking this button adjusts the video to the canvas. In this case the currently loaded video appears downscaled, enlarged or cropped. By default the video is displayed 1:1 and therefore the borders might not be visible. You can resize the player by dragging its edges.

Skip

By activating “Skip”, some frames might be dropped to guarantee playback at the adjusted frame rate.

Folder Icon

With the folder symbol you can choose a previously recorded file sequence and load it to the player. Once the images are buffered, playback starts automatically. The next symbol provides a function to export the sequence as a video. You can also set this option as a default under "Preferences". When you want to store a video, you will be asked to choose a video format. Please note that the selection of video formats strongly depends on your operating system and the installed codecs.

Playback Control Buttons

The following buttons work exactly like their counterparts in the timeline control section. You can start playback or jump to the beginning/end of the sequence and go through the clip frame by frame. The last button clears the canvas. Finally, you can specify the frame rate for playback. This field is connected to RealFlow’s "Simulation options".

Time Slider

You can easily scrub the animation's frames by dragging the slider back and forth.

Clear Canvas

A click on the black cross removes the currently active preview from the canvas.

Start Frame/Stop Frame

If you only want to play back a defined part of a preview you can specify the start and end frames with the two fields. By default the range goes from 0 to the number of simulation frames.

Loop

When this feature is enabled, the preview sequence will be played until you stop it.

FPS

This field is directly connected with the “FPS Output” settings of the current scene's “Simulation Options”. To adjust playback to your needs, please enter a new value, e.g. 25 for PAL, 24 for HD and cinematic formats, or 33 for NTSC.