In this video we're going to go over
how to export a broadcast quality video file,
such as a QuickTime file directly out of After Effects
using the render queue.
So to start, I'll go to the project panel
and double click on the composition I'd like to output.
So I'll double click on the pollinators comp,
which will make the timeline panel active.
Now when I grab the current time indicator and scrub,
you can see this is an animated title that I wanna output.
Now before I go to the render queue,
I always look in the bottom of the project panel,
and I'll even click on this button
so you can see what I'm talking about.
I wanna make note of the bit depth.
For broadcast quality graphics,
8 bits per channel is the absolute minimum.
If I click on this drop down,
you'll notice I could choose 16 bits per channel,
or even 32 bits per channel (float).
It's important to note what this setting is
because only specific codecs will allow you to render
at these different bit depth levels.
Okay, I'll go ahead and click OK.
And to add this file to my export,
I need to click in the timeline,
go up in the Composition,
and choose Add to Render Queue.
The render queue will pop up here
and you'll notice there are three main sections.
Let's start with the Render Settings here.
I'll click on the blue text say Best Settings.
I'll leave the Quality set to Best
and the Resolution set to Full.
A setting you might change regularly
is this drop down here for Time Span.
You could render just the work area
or the length of the comp.
For this specific project, it doesn't matter
because they're both exactly the same.
If I wanna choose a custom duration,
I can do that by clicking the custom button over here.
I'll click OK and move on to the output module.
Click on the word Lossless,
and that'll open the module settings.
Up at the top under Format,
click on the drop down
and make sure you've chosen QuickTime.
That'll be the default on the Mac
but maybe not on Windows.
Now, after that, go to the Format Options here
in the video output section.
When I click on that button,
go to the Video Codec drop down.
Notice I have several different codecs I can choose.
Codec stands for compress decompress.
Now, since I'm only working in 8 bit,
I can go ahead and choose Apple ProRes 422,
and that'll be perfectly fine.
If I was working with high dynamic range footage,
I would wanna choose something like
Apple ProRes 4444.
I would also choose that
if I were rendering a graphic with an alpha channel.
Other popular codecs are DNxHR/DNxHD, and GoPro CineForm.
But let's choose Apple ProRes 422 and click OK.
We can leave the default audio settings set up
and then click OK.
If we go to the output to section,
this is where we can name our files.
So I want you to click on the name, or the blue text there,
and I'll call this the pollinators_ProRes.
And I'm rendering it to my Renders folder,
which is in my Export Broadcast Quality Video folder.
Then I'll click Save.
To create an additional file
without necessarily having a second render,
you can click this plus button here next to Output too.
Then go back to the new output module
and click on the word Lossless to open its settings.
If you're on Windows,
you'll need to make sure QuickTime is chosen
from the Format drop down menu,
then click on the Format Options button.
Now we can change the drop down
for the video codec to DNxHR/DNxHD.
Notice that resolution will default to the HQ 8-bit,
which will be perfect.
Go ahead and click OK
and click OK one more time.
And to render this, just click the Render button.
Notice the render bar
is only going to travel across the screen once.
But if I jump into my Renders folder,
you'd notice I've created two different high quality renders
directly out of After Effects utilizing the render queue.