Render for After Effects in the background
Learn how Media Encoder integrates with After Effects, acting as the background renderer.
Published
Adobe Media Encoder functions has a background renderer for After Effects and supports far more formats than After Effects ever did.
Let's see how Media Encoder integrates with Adobe After Effects.
Here's an After Effects project.
The client has requested to see the work in progress.
If I use Add to Render Queue that will lock After Effects because it would be busy rendering.
If I choose Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue... instead, that will render in the background and I can continue working.
So, I select that option.
This launches Adobe Media Encoder and places the comp in Media Encoders queue.
By default, the last used preset is applied.
If I want to change that, I can select one of the many presets that ship with Media Encoder.
To change the output location, click on the Output File and browse to the desired location.
When all is set, click the green Start Queue button to start the rendering.
As this is happening in the background, I can go back to After Effects and continue working or I can add another comp to the queue just by dragging it over.
Notice, that while I'm giving you this tour, Media Encoder keeps rendering.
If you want to customize a preset, just click on the preset name.
This opens the Export Settings dialog.
Here you can customize almost anything not only common things like pixel size and compression, but also if you want to publish directly to a video service like Vimeo and YouTube, you can do that here.
Another great feature is that you can add multiple outputs to one item, and these will render in parallel.
But my favorite feature is Watch Folders.
Sometimes it's still desirable to use the After Effects render queue, but Media Encoder supports more formats and is more efficient in creating the various derivatives.
When After Effects has rendered a video to a Watch Folder, it is automatically added to Adobe Media Encoders queue.
Of course, this can be done on a network or server.
Before you go now and try this yourself, I want to point out two caveats regarding rendering After Effects compositions in Adobe Media Encoder.
First, Media Encoder renders in a what you see is what you get way, meaning that features like motion blur and frame blending must be switched on here on comp level.
There is no way to switch them on once they are in Media Encoders queue.
Second, Media Encoder uses black as its background color ignoring the comp background color from After Effects.
So, if you need the background color to be anything other than black, place a solid with the desired color as the bottom layer in your comp.
