ANaIMATOR
DInstructions to install FFmpeg on Windows
FREDO6 – V1.0 – 31 MAR 2016
1. Why d installing FFmpeg?
Animator uses FFmpeg to generate video files in various formats (MP4, MOV, AVI …). If you do
not install FFmpeg, Animator will only generate the animation as a sequence of images.
FFmpeg is an open-source program (from FFmpeg.org), completely free for any usage.
All you need to do is to install FFmpeg once on your
computer, following carefully the instructions below.
2. Downloading and installing FFmpeg
1) Go to the download page of FFmpeg.org: https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html
2) Click on the Windows tile and then on the Windows Builds link
3) Click on the Windows Builds link. The page below should be displayed:
Fredo6 – Instructions for installing FFmpeg Page 1 / 3 v1.0 – 31 Mar 2016
4) Click on the grey bar “Download FFmpeg git-be746ae 64 bit Static”. You should always
select STATIC versions. Use the 32 bits versions if you have Windows 32 bits (Windows
XP). On Windows 7, 8 and 10, use the 64-bits version. Clicking on the link will download a
zip file in your browser, with a name like:
ffmpeg-20160330-git-be746ae-win64-static.7z
5) Open the Zip file (with 7-Zip program or equivalent). You will find a hierarchy of
subfolders in the zip file
The only file you need is ffmpeg.exe, which is the subfolder bin.
Depending on your Unzip utility and how you master the process, you may alternatively
extract all files in a neutral directory, so that you can later copy ffmpeg.exe elsewhere.
6) Copy the file ffmpeg.exe to one of the following directory on your computer
a. C:\Program File\ffmpeg: you may have to create this directory under C:\Program
Files. The benefit is that ffmpeg will be accessible from all Sketchup versions. The
limitation is that you may not have administrator rights to create a folder under
C:\Program Files.
b. The SU Plugin Directory or the directory where you installed LibFredo6.
Typically:
On Windows, Sketchup 7.1 and 8.0
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\plugins\
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 8\plugins\
On Windows, Sketchup 2013
C:\Program Files (x86)\SketchUp\SketchUp 2013\Plugins\
On Windows, Sketchup 2014 and above (Sketchup 20xx)
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SketchUp\SketchUp 20xx\SketchUp\Plugins\
c. Any other location, provided you keep track of where it is. Once in Animator,
you will prompted to locate ffmpeg.exe, once for all.
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3. Locating FFmpeg within Animator
If you did not install FFmpeg and you try to generate a video with Animator, you will get the
following flavor of the dialog box for generating videos:
The button How to get FFmpeg? opens the present PDF file.
Once you have installed FFmpeg, click on the other button Find FFMPEG program. If you
installed ffmpeg.exe in a standard directory, then the process is finished. If you put ffmpeg.exe
in a custom place on your computer, then you will be prompted with a file-open dialog box in
order to select the location of the file.
Once Animator knows where the FFmpeg program is located, then you will go directly to the
normal flavor of the dialog box, allowing you to generate videos files in various formats:
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