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Yesterday I was working on a simple animation, an animated logo.

Here is an image of the progress:

enter image description here

I already have the animation working and everything is okay with the project, but I can't figure out how I can render the animation and turn it into an AVI format video.

How do I render an animation in Blender?

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  • $\begingroup$ Yeah but when l click on the animation and when it's finnished l can only save as an image only can't find a way how to save as a video $\endgroup$
    – Paulius
    Aug 20, 2014 at 12:17
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    $\begingroup$ Scrool down that tab, until you find "Output" and then select a video format where it says png, or look at this video for converting stills into an animation : vimeo.com/26366908 $\endgroup$
    – someonewithpc
    Aug 20, 2014 at 12:23
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    $\begingroup$ Related: blender.stackexchange.com/q/3470/599 $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Aug 21, 2014 at 1:20
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    $\begingroup$ @someonewithpc When I started with Blender I had no idea what rendering even meant, let alone how to save renders. $\endgroup$
    – Anson Savage
    Aug 28, 2015 at 23:57

2 Answers 2

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You have created an animation and want to make it into a final video format. Here are the steps -

  1. Choose an output location for your animation under the Output Settings tab by clicking on "Output".

  2. Set the Path to the folder where you want your output files to be saved, whether it is rendered as image files or a video file.

enter image description here

Before you make a video file of your animation, it is a good idea to render it as an Image Sequence first. If you render it directly to a video file, you can't stop/pause the render or there is a chance that you will get a corrupted file and have to render all of the frames all over again. Having an image sequence will allow you to experiment with different formats for and settings for encoding to video.

(If you want to render directly to video without saving as images, skip to step 8)

  1. When you have chosen an output directory for your Image Sequence, choose an Image Format.

enter image description here

  1. On the main menu Select Render > Render Animation (or press the shortcut Ctrl + F12)

enter image description here

Blender will now start rendering the scene frames one by one.

  1. When the rendering is finished you will have a lot of numbered images. To encode them as a single video file, start a new project and choose New > Video Editing.

enter image description here

  1. On the Sequencer window, click on Add > Image Sequence

enter image description here

  1. Select all of the image files of your animation with A and click on "Add image strip".

  2. In the Properties Window now select FFmpeg video as File format.

enter image description here

A new tab will appear with Encoding options.

There you can select the Container and the Codec for the output video file.

Container is the file format for the file, (Mov, Avi, Ogg, MP4, to name a few) sometimes is referred as a "wrapper".

Codec (short for Compression-Decompression) Is how the image is compressed. The picture quality, file size and processing power needed to view the file are largely determined by the kind of codec used and the settings used for it.

  1. On the main menu Select Render > Render Animation (or press the shortcut Ctrl + F12)

enter image description here

The result of this will be a video file.

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For older versions of blender (previous to 2.79)

The options to choose formats are like this:

enter image description here

Choose a video format for your animation here:

enter image description here

The Render Animation" is located in "Render" tab.

To open the video editor click on "Choose screen layout" and then "Video Editing".

enter image description here

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Check this Meta post meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/436/… ; Your answer is purely based on my comments above... $\endgroup$
    – someonewithpc
    Aug 20, 2014 at 15:16
  • $\begingroup$ No problem, if I wanted to I could have answered it... $\endgroup$
    – someonewithpc
    Aug 20, 2014 at 15:43
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    $\begingroup$ @Laira It does serve a purpose, question should be answered in the answer section, not on comments; Leave your answer there $\endgroup$
    – someonewithpc
    Aug 20, 2014 at 15:55
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    $\begingroup$ @Paulius If this answer has satisfactorily answered your question, consider marking it as accepted by clicking the checkmark next to it :) $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Aug 21, 2014 at 21:05
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    $\begingroup$ For 2.81 beta, what does this process look like now? I can't find the menu for PNG/JPG from Animation in Preferences at all. $\endgroup$
    – watercollider
    Nov 28, 2019 at 5:04
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I found you don't have to use the video editor. If you set the output, it saves the file as it renders, that way you can use a video editor you are already familiar with.

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    $\begingroup$ How would I add audio? This audio belongs to a MPEG video file though. Let me know if I should start a new question. $\endgroup$
    – drpeppercan
    Jan 21, 2017 at 0:49
  • $\begingroup$ He is saying if you are only use blender for the first step and want to add things like audio in another video editor. If you want to know how to add video search for that question or make a new one. $\endgroup$
    – Anonymous Type
    Jul 1, 2020 at 7:01

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