Export a Video

Export a Video

Video Export specifications and system

You need at least 1 IO Channels Remove the watermark on Inputs and Outputs channels Read More to remove the watermark on your exported video Smode supports complex video export scenario with industry standards video file format.

Exporting a video

There are more than one way to export videos in Smode!
To launch an export of a Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More or a Scene Multi-target video composition bound to a Pipeline Read More , you can use the document menu:


As a shortcut, the same menu is available from the document tab:


If your Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More is not a simple loop, you probably want to export via its main Timeline Timelines specificity is to play, cut and edit video layers easily, and to animate layers and their parameters Read More .
For this you need to ensure that your Timeline Timelines specificity is to play, cut and edit video layers easily, and to animate layers and their parameters Read More is the main Timeline Timelines specificity is to play, cut and edit video layers easily, and to animate layers and their parameters Read More and is activated and launch mode is set at "Restart With Activation" value.
This will make your Timeline Timelines specificity is to play, cut and edit video layers easily, and to animate layers and their parameters Read More start at Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More opening. This also guarantees that this Timeline will be played during video export.

Video Export Dialog

Here is the video export dialog that enables to configure the parameters of the video export:


Here are the details of the parameters:
  • Resolution : This corresponds to a Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More export resolution. Note that licensing may restrict this value
  • Begin : This corresponds to the first frame time to export
  • End : This corresponds to the last frame time to export
  • Time Base : The exported video frame rate (in frames per second)
  • File Exporter : Allow to choose the file format of audio and video streams container
  • Audio Exporter : Allow to choose the optional audio stream codec to use
  • Video Exporter : Allow to choose the video stream codec to use
  • Output Directory : The location to store exported video file(s)
  • File Name : This is the output file name of your video (this parameter is automatically set when exporting scenes rather than compositions)
  • Start Immediately : This corresponds to action that will be done when clicking on the OK button: start the video export immediately, or add the exporting task into the rendering queue in a paused state

To create a 29.97 fps standard video export you can enter 30000/1001 fractional Timebase.

The image below shows the list of File Exporter currently supported by Smode:


Each File Exporter have different stream codec capabilities: Quicktime, AVI, Mpeg-2, Mpeg-4 Matroska, Windows Media file Exporter can mix audio and video stream. Aiff, Flac and WAV file format can only embed audio Stream. Image Sequence allow to export each generated frame in a separated Image file, with optional separated audio file.
Smode Studio Edition, only ship Mpeg-4 File Exporter.
The image below shows the list of Audio Exporter currently supported by Smode:


Each Audio Exporter have different frequency and channel capabilities. AC-3 And AAC are compressed, Flac and PCM are lossless.
Smode Studio Edition, only ship AAC Audio Exporter.
The image below shows the list of Video Exporter currently supported by Smode:

Each Video Exporter have different resolution, compression and pixel format capability: Alpha Layer exports capability and depends on the chosen export codec. For instance with Apple ProRes, only the Profile 4444 can support it, for Hap, only Hap Alpha will support it. For Image Sequence, PNG or Targa should be used, but not Jpeg.
Smode Studio Edition, only ship Open H.264 Video Exporter.
Note that Nvidia nvenc hap export is the fastest video export available as it use the GPU to encode the video which can make the video export faster than real time. This encoder require an nvidia GPU GeForce600 or above.

Each Codec format has its own specific settings:
  • Apple ProRes :
    The "Profile" parameter is the possible sub-format quality standard defined here: HT202410
    The "Thread Count" parameter is the number of thread allocated for the encoding process. It does not have any impact on the output file quality. To maximize the encoding speed this should be the number of cores your CPU has (but you can use less if you consider using Smode or another application while the encoding task runs in the background).
  • Quicktime MJPEG :
    Profile have the choice of pixel sub-sampling: Profile 422 or Profile 444 (for no sub-sampling at all) and bitRate for quality.
  • Hap (Smode Legacy Encoder) :
    This encoder is the historical HAP encoder with best quality but very slow exporting speed. The "Profile" parameter offers "Hap" and "Hap Alpha" (the "HapQ" and "HapQ Alpha" profiles are not yet supported for export). Using Hap Alpha will export the alpha channel of your compo.
    Hap is useful if you don't care about disk space (it creates kinda large files), but care about playback speed, want to read a large video (4K, 8K, etc.) or a great number of videos simultaneously.
    More information about the hap codec profiles can be found here: https://github.com/Vidvox/hap
    The "Number of Chunks" parameter defines the number of data chunks contained by each encoded image. this allows the video player to perform decoding on multiple CPU cores (multiple threads), hence making the playback even faster.
    The "Encoder Quality" can use the "Local GPU" option, to encode using your graphics card. This means the speed and quality will depend on your hardware (GPU) and your driver. "Squish Low", "Squish Medium" and "Squish High" use a software encoder (on the CPU), with the quality growing proportionately with the encoding time.
    Using Squish optimizes even more the reading performances of the video (playback speed), especially with big resolutions (and can increase negligibly the file size of your video).
  • Hap (FFmpeg encoder) :
    This Hap Encoder have less quality but have a very good exporting speed. This HAP encoder also support the HapQ profile.

Video Export tasks are displayed in the rendering task list, located in the Tasks Panel Shows the rendering and transcoding tasks currently running in Smode Read More :


This panel enables pausing, resuming and canceling the video export task.
Use the folder icon to reveal the folder containing your video exports.

Compo Video Export

When exporting a Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More into a video file, the resolution of the exported video file is the resolution of the Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More .
Note that it is not necessary for a Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More to be saved in order to be exported as a video.
The resolution of the Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More is defined in the parameters of the root element in the Element Tree The hierarchical structure of Smode elements Read More . This location also contains the option to enable/disable the Alpha channel of the Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More . Ensure that this parameter is enabled if you plan to export compositions with an alpha layer.

When exporting Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More , File Name designates the custom name of the exported video file without extension. The file extensions is added automatically by Smode based on the codec choice: i.e. .mov for QuickTime or .tga for Targa.

When exporting an image sequence, File Name corresponds to the folder name containing numerated images.

Scene Video Export

You can also export videos from scenes, used in a project setup pipeline.
Just like for compositions, video export can be launched by using the scene document menu.
When exporting a scene, the export dialog shows the ability to render different Video Processors at the same time:


Select the video processors that you want to export to videos.
Note that the settings of the codecs are shared between all video processors that are exported.
Each video file resolution will be the resolution of their corresponding video processor.
Take care to customize your Video Processor name carefully in the pipeline. The video file names are determined automatically by taking the corresponding video processor names. Only the Output Directory can be changed in this case.

Take care to customize your Video Processor Alpha Layer according to your codec choices. Both settings must be activate in order to obtain video file with support of the alpha layer.

Scene and project pipeline must be saved before doing a video export. Unlike with Compo Composite 2D Layer, Shape layer and 3D Layer together. [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] to create a new composition after opening Smode Read More document, exporting a temporary or unsaved scene is not supported.

Convert a video in HAP from Smode

Go check the chapter on that matter inside of the Medias directories Manage media directories Read More part of the documentation.

See Also: