As described in the Render Animation dialog's help page, animations can be rendered to memory or directly to hard disk. The following diagram show how rendering to memory adds an additional step before the animation can be saved.
Each rendering technique has its own advantages, as summarized below.
As indicated above, different export types are available depending on whether you render to memory or directly to hard disk. The following table clarifies which export types are available with each render option.
Export Type |
Available for Render to Memory? |
Available for Render to Hard Disk? |
Description |
Yes |
Yes |
A common video format used by many software applications. |
|
Yes |
Yes |
A format that can be used to add animation to websites. |
|
Yes |
Yes |
The animation is saved as a series of standard images. |
|
Yes |
No |
The frames of the animation are packed into a single square image. |
|
Yes |
No* |
Only a single frame of the animation is exported. |
* Although there is no dedicated export type for saving a single frame of an animation when rendering straight to disk, this can still be achieved by using the First Frame and Last Frame options of the Render Animation dialog in concert with the Image Sequence export type.