Rendering Movies with Sequencer

Hi

I have completed an Archviz scene and made a short movie with sequencer in Ue4. I now want to render the movie out and export to another video editing software to add audio. ( I am using Hitfilm editing software)

I cannot get a smooth rendered video. The clips are always lagging once exported. Choppy.

I have unchecked Force Fixed Frame Interval Playback. I have tried with and without compression. I have tried from 24 fps - 60 fps and it continues to render choppy. I have tried to render it separately. I have tried every different type of format and option and it still renders jerky.

Can anyone tell me what settings I need to render to get best results. The video rendered is choppy, jerky and doesnt track smoothly. Does anyone know the best render settings if I want to export it and import into HitFilm Editing Software.

Thanks

Hi Graeme!

I’m a bit new to sequencer rendering personally so I might just be taking a shot in dark here, but have you tried encoding the video into another format? Just playing the renders straight out of unreal generally results in very choppy videos on my high-end work PC - This is because the video files themselves are so vast in data (Even renders as short as 5 second can easily get up to 10 GB depending on settings) your computer likely can’t buffer the frames and end up looking choppy when played back.

What you need to do is encode the video to reduce the file size but keep the quality. I’d recommend using Handbrake: https://handbrake.fr/ - It’s a free open source video encoder that works great for when I render out my VFX sequences from Unreal. Simply add your rendered sequence to it and choose some settings that fits your project - I usually just go to the video tab and select H.264 as my video codec, framerate 60, and quality between 22 and 18 - This should get you a much smaller file that plays back smoothly in your video player.

You should probably render to image sequences instead.

Hi Coolkalle, thanks I used Handbrake and its works like a charm. The files were too large I was exporting from Ue4. I’m just worried about the quality of video, does compression affect the quality?

If so, I think I will export like Cyaoeu said to image Sequences, thanks for that suggestion.

Compression will “technically” affect the quality of your video, but I’ve yet to be able to tell the difference from any encodes I’ve made when I look at them side-by-side. If you are really worried about image quality, you could bring up both the compressed and uncompressed one next to each other and try to spot any differences - I’m willing to put money on that you won’t be able to find any :slight_smile:

You might already be doing this, but one thing I usually do when I render from sequencer is bumping up the resolution to 3840x2160 to get a very clean video for handbrake to work with. It might be a bit placebo, but if you are really concerned about getting the highest quality pixels it’s something to consider.

Render to an image sequence, it’ll still be a large amount of data, but that’s the typical workflow, and then you can use your video editing software to convert to your compressed video format.

As far as rendering at 4K–you can do that and scale it down to 1080p and it’ll increase the anti-aliasing on the edges giving you a better result.

Thanks for the advice. I decided to render to Image Sequence as most people I speak to follow this workflow. Thanks again for the all help. Much Appreciated.

I am having a problem, i’m rendering out a movie and i can’t get the movie set on the correct camera, i using multiple cameras in the matinee and then used director group to switch scenes but when i press movie and render it out it is focused on the wrong camera and not the movie i created