

Ah, the Render Queue. After Effects' method of pushing out your compositions to movies. Ah, the Render Queue. After Effects' method of pushing out your compositions to movies.

It's pretty straight forward to use, but it also has some powerful and very useful features tucked into it. So, let's take a look at the Render Queue.

1. Set Default Output Module





The Default "Output Module" is

This mode renders uncompressed AVIs, which leads to hilariously huge files (like a few seconds leads to a few GBs of space). Although this is great when you're planning to use the files in another program, it's not very good for final delivery. For one, its high bitrate makes it difficult for most media players to play, and lastly, on some connections uploading and transferring a few GBs is quite a time-consuming task.





Another reason to change the default is for common renders. You've probably had to go through different renders changing the settings and wishing you could just make those settings the default.

Well, that's pretty easy. As explained in this Quick Tip video on my channel:











Proxies and RAM Preview are in there too!

You'll need to have pre-defined Settings for this, but once you have it down you're good to go.



2. Output Multiple Files from the Same Render Job



Okay, but that only sets the default for Video outputs. What about "Save Frame As", which defaults to a Photoshop file. Using the same process, you can click the drop and select "Make Template". At the top, you'll find these guys:Proxies and RAM Preview are in there too!You'll need to have pre-defined Settings for this, but once you have it down you're good to go.

Have you ever noticed the + and - icons next to the Output Module?

Hitting the plus allows you to define a new set of output. This will render that comp to as many files as needed. Though its important to remember that this will only be a little faster than rendering individually in most cases.



