Motion and timeline

Rendering video

Render a piece to MP4, frame by frame, with its sound.

Render video turns a piece into video files: in any of the shapes or a custom size up to 4K, for as long as its timeline runs, at 30 or 60 frames a second, with its music and sounds mixed in, and once for each variation. The piece is drawn a frame at a time, so a heavy 3D scene comes out as smoothly as a light sketch.

Rendering happens in your browser, so there is nothing to upload and no queue.

Opening the Render dialog

Click Render in the Motion panel's header.
Or open Export in the top bar and choose Render video. This works on a phone too.
Or click Render all on the Motion panel's Variations tab.

Rendering a video

Tick the shapes
Under Shapes, tick any of Stage (as you see it), 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 and 4:5, and Custom with its width (W) and height (H) in pixels. Typing a custom size ticks Custom for you. The shape the timeline is made for is ticked to begin with.
Tick the versions
If the piece has variations, Versions lists Original and each variation, all ticked. Untick any you don't need.
Set the length, frame rate and sound
Length starts at the timeline's length; set anything from 0.5 seconds to two minutes. Frames is 30 fps (to begin with) or 60 fps. Sound appears when the piece has sound; switch it off for a silent video.
Click Render
The footer says how many videos you'll get and how long each is. Rendering shows which video it is on (for example "2 of 6 · 9:16 · Summer") and how far it has got. Stop cancels it.
Download
A single video downloads by itself when it is done. With several, each finished file has its own download button, and All (.zip) downloads them together in one zip.

You get one video for each shape and version you tick: three shapes and two versions make six videos. Render again starts over with the settings as they are.

What you get

	Each video
File	MP4 (H.264). A browser that can't make H.264 makes WebM instead.
Size	16:9 is 1920 × 1080, 9:16 is 1080 × 1920, 1:1 is 1080 × 1080 and 4:5 is 1080 × 1350. Stage is the stage's shape at your screen's sharpness. Custom is its own size. All of them stay within 4K (3840 on the long side).
Frames	30 or 60 a second, each drawn at its exact moment.
Sound	The timeline's sound clips and the piece's own sounds, mixed in step with the picture.
Names	The piece's title, the shape and the variation, such as `hero-shot-9x16-wild-berry.mp4`. A zip is named after the piece.

The dialog lists each finished file with its size, and says "sound" beside those with sound in them.

How a render is made

The piece runs again out of sight on a clock that waits for each frame. Every frame is drawn at its exact moment and at full size, however long it takes, so nothing is dropped the way a screen recording drops frames, even if you switch to another tab. The video starts at the start of the timeline, and the first frame waits until the images and fonts your layers use have loaded. The stage holds still while you render, leaving your computer's graphics to the render.

If Length is longer than the timeline, a looping timeline goes round again, and its sound clips play again on each lap. A timeline set to play once holds at its end.

Sound in a render

A render mixes in:

every sound clip on the timeline, with its trims, loops, volume and fades;
the sounds the piece plays itself, unless Piece sounds is off on the Motion panel's Sound tab;
the sounds of any pieces loaded onto it, and the clips on their own timelines.

Videos in the four shapes and custom sizes always carry a sound track, silent if the piece makes no sound, because social platforms expect one.

When a render fails

Your browser can't make video. The dialog says so. Chrome, Edge and Safari can render video.
The piece has an error. Render video is greyed out in Export until the piece runs. See Troubleshooting.

Press Esc or click outside the dialog to close it, except while it is rendering.