Export Video

This is the dialogue window for exporting a video from Notch.

ui-screenshot-exportvideo-23

If you’re exporting a slow scene with heavy render settings, we strongly recommend you turn off your computer’s sleep-wake settings, as this can interrupt the rendering process and cause a render to fail.

Filename Macros #

You can use macros to create unique output filenames. Each macro must be prefixed and postfixed with a % sign.

Notch supports the following variations:

Macro	Description
`%YYYYMMDD%`	YearMonthDay.
`%DDMMYYYY%`	DayMonthYear.
`%MMDDYYYY%`	MonthDayYear.
`%DATE%`	Equivalent to the DDMMYYYY macro.
`%TIME%`	The current system clock time.
`%HHMM%`	HoursMinutes.
`%HH%`	Hours.
`%HHMMSS%`	HoursMinutesSeconds.
`%V%`	Single-digit version id.
`%VV%`	Double-digit version id.
`%VVV%`	Triple-digit version id.
`%VERSION%`	Four-digit version id.
`%LAYERNAME%`	The name of the layer.
`%CAMERANAME%`	The name of the camera.

For example: filename_%YYYYMMDD%_export_%VVVV%.mov would translate to filename_20200125_export_0001.mov when saved to disk.

For the V, VV, VVV, or VERSION macros, if a file with the same name already exists the id is incremented by 1 until a free filename is found.

Presets #

Label	Description
Create/Select Preset	Create or choose preset values for the rendered video.

Settings #

Label	Description
Export Type	Choose various export file types.
Filename	Choose the file name and path to the file will be saved once rendered.
Codec	Choose which codec you want to use, dependent on the file type chosen and the codecs you have installed.
Export Audio	Toggle whether to export audio along with the video.
Allow Looping	This allows layers to loop if the duration of the render timeline is longer than the layer being rendered. Allow Looping does not loop content, it simply allows the layer to play on longer than the duration dictates.
Render Alpha Channel	Toggle whether the Alpha channel is rendered with the video. This may not function, depending on which codec you choose.

Duration #

Label	Description
Start / End Time	Time period which will be rendered. Some effects will need some time to build up, so keep this in mind when deciding render times.
Use Range Duration	Uses the Range Duration set in the Timeline window.
Use Project Duration	Uses the Project Duration set in the Timeline window.
Enable Preroll	When enabled, the project will pre-render a certain time frame before the initial start time. This can help to avoid problems for some effects which are dependant on previous frames.
Preroll Duration	Sets how long before the initial frame the scene should be pre-rendered for.

Resolution #

Label	Description
Width / Height	Change the image resolution for the rendered video.
Output Resolution	Set resolution which will be rendered, after upscaling.
Frame Rate	Frame rate for the rendered video.
Use Project Resolution	Automatically uses the project resolution set in the Project Settings.
Upscaling	Upscale each frame in post, using bilinear filtering.
Use NVIDIA Upscaler	Use the RTX powered AI image upscaler to upscale the image. This is more accurate than bilinear filtering but not as accurate as rendering at full resolution and can sometimes introduce artefacts during the upsampling process. This requires an RTX-level GPU as well as driver version 441.12 or newer. This feature only works on 20-series NVIDIA GPUs.

Motion Blur #

Label	Description
Motion Blur Frames	How many frames are overlapped to generate motion blur.
Blur Amount	Scales the time frame between the frame before and following, within which motion blur will be calculated.

Rendering Passes #

Label	Description
Antialiasing Passes	An extra layer of antialiasing, calculated by re-rendering the frame with a sub-pixel offset. Increasing the passes increases the number of samples taken per pixel.
Refinement Passes	Controls how many refinement passes are generated, to increase the render quality of the Raytraced image. Only functions if RT is enabled in the Root Node.
Use Scene Refinement / AA Settings	Forces the exported video to use the same settings as are in the current viewport. This means that AA passes and Motion Blur will no longer function.
Tiled Rendering	Force the renderer to use tiled rendering to help reduce VRAM usage.

Audio #

Label	Description
Audio Offset	Offset the audio from the video playback. Can be useful with certain codecs.

Rendering Camera #

Label	Description
Motion Blur Frames	How many frames are overlapped to generate motion blur.
Blur Amount	Scales the time frame between the frame before and following, within which motion blur will be calculated.

Command-line Transcode & Render Queue export #

Using command-line arguments, Notch Builder is able to transcode video files, image sequences and export the contents of a project’s render queue. When using command-line arguments, Notch Builder is run in batch mode and therefore does not show the application window. Logging information is outputted to the window running the batch process.

Command-line arguments (Required) #

Argument	Description
`-transcode`	Transcodes an input video file from one format to another (default NotchLC, changed via the `-codec` argument).
`-renderqueue`	Render the entire render queue from the provided dfx project.

Command-line arguments (Optional) #

Argument	Description
`-outputwidth <width>`	Specify the output width for the resulting video file. e.g. `-outputwidth 1280`
`-outputheight <height>`	Specify the output height for the resulting video file. e.g. `-outputheight 1280`
`-outputfps <fps>`	Specify the output FPS for the resulting video file. e.g. `-outputfps 30`
`-outputalpha <alpha>`	Toggle the export of an alpha channel. e.g. `-outputalpha 1` (exports alpha channel), `-outputalpha 0` (no alpha channel). Default is `1`.
`-codec <codecname>`	Specify the codec to use for the resulting video file. See below table. If the `-codec` argument is omitted, NotchLC (`nclc`) is used by default.

The following codecs are supported:

Codec	Description
h264	The resulting video file is encoded as H.264 using FFMPEG.
hap	The resulting video file is encoded as hap1.
hapq	The resulting video file is encoded as hapq.
nclc, notchlc	The resulting video file is encoded as NotchLC

Examples #

Transcode an input video to NotchLC:

NotchApp.exe -transcode "C:\input_video.mp4" "C:\output_video.mov" -codec "nclc"`

Transcode an image sequence to NotchLC:

NotchApp.exe -transcode "C:\input_image00000.png" "C:\output_video.mov" -codec "nclc"`

Transcode an input video to h264 using a custom resolution:

NotchApp.exe -transcode "C:\input_video.mp4" "C:\output_video.mp4" -codec "h264" -outputwidth 640 -outputheight 480`

Render the render queue:

NotchApp.exe -renderqueue "C:\input_project.dfx"`