QUESTION:
Using the OpenGL option I have managed to make a really nice solar/shading study of my building.
The only problem is that I can't figure out how to export the small animation it does of a single day into a movie file e.g. .mov or a quicktime clip that I can play on window media player.
Is this possible, and if so how do I do it ?
ANSWER:
Saving animations from ECOTECT is and isn't possible, if that makes sense 
The current version of ECOTECT (v5.20) cannot save any direct animation file formats. There are 2 reasons we have not really done this...
- is because it is quite a complex process to code and implement a system within ECOTECT that would be able to accommodate all the different types of animation that would be possible. For example, people might want to save animations of the view changing, or the sun changing as in this instance, or cycling through graphs for a year of data etc etc... it would be great to do them all, but quite complex as ECOTECT is no animation program.
- The practicality of which animation file format to use, and there are many, some of which require royalties for use...
So instead, we have used the scripting capabilities in ECOTECT and written some sample scripts that will do essentially the same thing.
The good thing with this, is you can alter the script to capture any output from ECOTECT, and can also customise the intervals and almost every other thing that you can do manually in ECOTECT.
The bad thing is, it can be a bit daunting for non-programmers (like me) to work out what is going on with a script and get it to do what you want, but hopefully you will find our examples reasonable well documented and self explanatory... and as well, you do have to piece together the still images that make up the animation yourself, in something like ImageReady or AnimationShop -- but hopefully the flexibility offered is outweighed by the little hassles
Anyway, to try out the script I am talking about, just go to the ECOTECT Scripting page, and download the script titled "AnimateShadows.zip".
Stop the animation
The new 5.5 version support a range of video formats. Great! I made some nice solar analysis animations, but I cannot figure out how to stop the animation in order to save the file. The only sulution I found is to to exit EcoTect to get the Stop/Save prompt! There must be a better way?
Stop Animation
Hello Hans,
There is a button (it is small indeed)called "Finish Recording"...a little square, fifth from the left of the animation control buttons, under the Display Setting Tab.
You can also use the user Toolbar that has the Animation Control there as well.
Best,
Olivier