Rendering Versioned Video in a Batch Process

Before you begin, ensure all of the following conditions are met:

• The Templater Settings effect has been applied to all layers intended to be dynamic.
• Column names or property keys in your data source match the names of dynamic layers.
• A data source, footage folder, and output folder are entered into the fields in the Batch Assets section of the Templater panel.

1. Specify a target composition. See Specifying a Target Composition to learn how.
2. In the Templater panel, under Output Options, choose a render settings template from the Render Settings dropdown menu.
3. In the Templater panel, under Output Options, select an output module from the Output Module dropdown menu.
4. In the Templater panel, under Transport, enter a valid data range from your data source that the batch render will process.

NOTE  Start row must be greater than 1 for Google Sheets and tabbed-delimited files. For JSON object arrays, start row must be greater than 0. Also, the end row must always be greater than the start row .

5. In the Job prefix field, enter an identifying prefix to give each output file the same prefix for this particular batch render.
6. Click Render.

Using Dataclay's Output Module and Render Setting Templates

Templater installs two files containing After Effects output module and render setting templates. The output modules are stored in dataclay-output-modules.aom and the render settings are stored in dataclay-render-settings.ars .

On Windows, these files install to C:\Users\Public\Documents\Dataclay, and on macOS they installed to /Applications/Dataclay.

These templates help you setup your output workflow by offering a way to quickly output drafts and by enabling you to standardize final output formats across multiple machines.

Follow these steps to load Dataclay's output modules into Templater.

1. Open After Effects and launch the Templaterpanel.

2. In AE's main menu click Edit > Templates > Output Module ... a dialog titled Output Module Templates will appear.

3. In the lower left corner, click Load...

4. Find and select the dataclay-output-modules.aom file specified at the location above for your operating system. Click OK.

   NOTE  If an error dialog appears you can safely ignore it by clicking OK again.

5. In the Templater panel, click Load Settings & Module Templates. Click the Output Module drop down menu to see the list of loaded Output Module Templates.

6. Refer to the table for specifications of each Output Module Template.

   Output Module Template	Container	Video Codec	Outputs Alpha Channel	Notes
   dclay-AVILOSSLESS	Audio Video Interleaved (.AVI)	None	No	Quick render on Windows. Large file size.
   dclay-AVILOSSLESS_Alpha	Audio Video Interleaved (.AVI)	None	Yes	Quick render on Windows with transparency channel. Large file sizes.
   dclay-PNGSEQ	Portable Network Graphics (.PNG)	None	No	Quick render to sequence of still images. Also useful for quality control of batch processing by enabling you to spot check how Templater treats your data in each video. Set your target composition's work area to a single frame duration and choose this to render out a still images for each video.
   dclay-PNGSEQ_Alpha	Portable Network Graphics (.PNG)	None	Yes	Quick render to sequence of still images with a transparency channel. Use this for quality control of batch processing by enabling you to spot check how Templater treats your data in each video. Set your target composition's work area to a single frame duration and choose this to render out a still images for each video.
   dclay-QT422HQ	QuickTime (.MOV)	Apple ProRes 422 HQ	No	Apple ProRes offers excellent compression while offering superb quality. Output files will be a reasonable byte size, but After Effects renders them at a slower pace compared to uncompressed formats because it must calculate compression for each frame.
   dclay-QTANIM	QuickTime (.MOV)	Animation	No	Useful for when your target composition is comprised mostly of illustrative graphics rather than live action footage. It offers decent compression with acceptable file sizes.
   dclay-QTANIM_Alpha	QuickTime (.MOV)	Animation	Yes	Useful for when your target composition is comprised mostly of illustrative graphics and you need a transparency channel in the final output. It offers decent compression with acceptable file sizes.
   dclay-QTLOSSLESS	QuickTime (.MOV)	None	No	Quick render times as no compression is calculated. Uncompressed output comes with very large file sizes.

 

Follow these steps to load Dataclay's render settings into Templater

1. Open After Effects and launch the Templaterpanel.

2. In AE's main menu click Edit > Templates > Render Settings... a dialog titled Render Settings Templates will appear.

3. In the lower left corner, click Load...

4. Find and select the dataclay-render-settings.aom file specified at the location above for your operating system. Click OK.

   NOTE  If an error dialog appears you can safely ignore it by clicking OK again.

5. In the Templater panel, click Load Settings & Module Templates. Click the Render Settings drop down menu to see the list of loaded Render Settings Templates.

6. Refer to the table for specifications of each Render Settings Template.

   Render Setting Template	Output Duration	Render Quality	Notes
   dclay-best-comp	Duration of target comp	Best Quality	This is the best choice when you want to output production level output. Use this when you want After Effects to render your target composition at the highest quality level. If using any of Templater's Time Sculpting features, this template ensures the entire duration of the composition is rendered regardless of how Templater adjusts the target comp's length.
   dclay-best-workarea	Duration of target comp's work area	Best Quality	Use this when you want After Effects to render only a portion of the target composition's timeline at the highest quality level. These settings are useful while pre-flighting your AE project for batch processes because you can control how many frames should render with each re-version. With these render settings, After Effects outputs frames within the target composition's work area only.
   dclay-draft-comp	Duration of target comp	Draft Quality	Use this when you need to Templater to speed through its batch rendering processes. Output quality is very low, but you can plough through many render jobs to test your output. These settings guarantee the entire duration of the target composition are rendered.
   dclay-draft-workarea	Duration of target comp's work area	Draft Quality	Use this when you need to Templater to speed through batch rendering processes. Output quality is very low, but you can plough through many Templater render jobs to test your output. These settings will only render frames within the target composition's work area.