Templater installs twelve After Effects templates that decide how a batch gets rendered: four render settings and eight output modules, all named with a dclay prefix. Pick the render setting for how much of the timeline you want and how good it should look, pick the output module for the file you want back, and the two together cover a quick draft, a production final and a spot check.
The names look cryptic until you see that each one is built from the same few choices. Draft or best. Whole composition or work area. A still-image sequence or a movie file. Alpha channel or no alpha channel. Once you can read those four choices, you can read every template in the list. This guide walks through where the files live, how to load them, what each template does, and how to combine them for three different jobs.
Where the templates come from and how to load them
Templater installs two files. The output modules live in dataclay-output-modules.aom and the render settings live in dataclay-render-settings.ars. On Windows, both files install to C:\Users\Public\Documents\Dataclay. On macOS they install to /Applications/Dataclay. Our help pages describe the point of the set in one line: the templates give you a way to output drafts quickly, and they let you standardize final output formats across several machines. That second benefit is easy to skip past. If three workstations all load the same two files, then “dclay-best-comp” means exactly the same thing on every one of them, and nobody has to compare screenshots of settings dialogs to find out why one machine’s files look different.
After Effects does not read those files on its own. You load them once, inside After Effects, and each file has its own menu. Start with the output modules.
- Open After Effects and launch the Templater panel.
- In the main menu, click Edit, then Templates, then Output Module. A dialog titled Output Module Templates opens.
- Click Load in the lower left corner.
- Select dataclay-output-modules.aom from the folder for your operating system and click OK.
Output Module Reference
Five dclay output modules and what they produce
| Output module | Alpha channel | Platform |
|---|---|---|
| dclay-AVILOSSLESS | No | Windows only |
| dclay-AVILOSSLESS_Alpha | Yes | Windows only |
| dclay-PNGSEQ | No | Windows or Mac |
| dclay-PNGSEQ_Alpha | Yes | Windows or Mac |
| dclay-QT422HQ | No | macOS only |
The render settings follow the same pattern. Click Edit, then Templates, then Render Settings, click Load in the lower left corner, and select dataclay-render-settings.ars. In both cases, our help pages say that if an error dialog appears, you can safely ignore it by clicking OK again. We mention it here because an unexpected dialog in the middle of a setup procedure makes people stop and wonder whether the load failed. According to the docs, it did not need to.
Loading the files into After Effects is only half of the job. Templater keeps its own list of what it can use for spot checks, and that list has to be refreshed. Open the Templater panel, click Preferences, choose the Spot Checks category, and click Load Settings and Module Templates. That button fills the Render Settings and Output Module dropdown menus with every template After Effects knows about. After the click you will see the After Effects built-ins and the dclay templates side by side. If a dclay name is missing from the dropdown, check whether one of the two load steps above has not happened yet, or whether the button has not been clicked since you loaded the file.
Loading Templates
How to load dclay templates into After Effects
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Open After Effects and launch the Templater panelOpen After Effects and launch the Templater panel.
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Load output modulesClick Edit, then Templates, then Output Module; click Load and select dataclay-output-modules.aom from the folder for your operating system.
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Load render settingsClick Edit, then Templates, then Render Settings; click Load and select dataclay-render-settings.ars.
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Refresh Templater’s listOpen the Templater panel, click Preferences, choose the Spot Checks category, and click Load Settings and Module Templates.
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Confirm dclay names appearAfter the click you will see the After Effects built-ins and the dclay templates side by side.
One scope note before going further. Spot checking requires Templater 3.0 or newer, and it is supported in the Pro and Bot editions only. The Spot Checks category is where you tell Templater which pair to use when it exports checks. We cover that last, after the templates themselves.
The four render settings, and the two questions behind them
Render settings control how After Effects renders a composition: how long the output runs and at what quality. Our set has four templates, and they are the four combinations of two simple questions.
The first question is duration. Does the render cover the whole target composition, or only its work area? The second question is quality. Best quality, or draft quality? Two questions with two answers each give four templates.
| Render settings template | Output duration | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| dclay-best-comp | Duration of the target comp | Best |
| dclay-best-workarea | Duration of the target comp’s work area | Best |
| dclay-draft-comp | Duration of the target comp | Draft |
| dclay-draft-workarea | Duration of the target comp’s work area | Draft |
dclay-best-comp is the production template. Our help pages call it the best choice when you want production level quality, and it renders the target composition at the highest quality level. It also carries a detail that matters if you use Time Sculpting. Templater’s Time Sculpting features can change the length of the target composition for each row. A template that only rendered a fixed span could cut a longer version short. The docs say that dclay-best-comp ensures the entire duration of the composition is rendered regardless of how Templater adjusts the length. The draft comp template makes the same guarantee about duration. If you are stretching, shifting or trimming time from your data, choose one of the two “comp” templates and leave the work area ones alone, because a work area is a fixed span you set by hand and it will not follow the data.
dclay-best-workarea renders only the frames inside the work area, still at the highest quality. Our help pages describe it as useful while pre-flighting an After Effects project for a batch, because you control how many frames render with each re-version. Pre-flighting is the careful part before a big run, when you are checking that the project behaves. You do not need two hours of finished video to find out whether a text layer overflows. A short work area at best quality shows you the true look of a few frames, and the rest of the timeline stays out of the way.
dclay-draft-comp and dclay-draft-workarea are for speed. The help pages are direct about the trade: the output quality is very low, but you can move through many render jobs quickly to test your output. That is the whole pitch, and it is an honest one. A draft render tells you whether the right data landed in the right place and whether the cut works. It does not tell you whether a gradient has banding or whether a thin font holds up. Do not approve a client deliverable from a draft file.
The eight output modules, and how to read the names
Output modules decide the container and codec of the file you get back, and whether it carries an alpha channel. The names compress that information. AVI and QT stand for the container. PNGSEQ means a PNG image sequence. LOSSLESS, ANIM and 422HQ name the codec or compression approach. A trailing _Alpha means the module outputs a transparency channel.
| Output module template | Container | Video codec | Alpha | Platform note from our docs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dclay-AVILOSSLESS | AVI | None | No | Windows only |
| dclay-AVILOSSLESS_Alpha | AVI | None | Yes | Windows only |
| dclay-PNGSEQ | PNG | None | No | Windows or Mac |
| dclay-PNGSEQ_Alpha | PNG | None | Yes | Windows or Mac |
| dclay-QT422HQ | QuickTime MOV | Apple ProRes 422 HQ | No | macOS only |
| dclay-QTANIM | QuickTime MOV | Animation | No | macOS only |
| dclay-QTANIM_Alpha | QuickTime MOV | Animation | Yes | macOS only |
| dclay-QTLOSSLESS | QuickTime MOV | None | No | macOS only |
The platform column is the first filter, so apply it before anything else. The two AVI templates are Windows only. The four QuickTime templates are macOS only. The two PNG sequence templates work on either system. If you run a mixed shop, with some Windows machines and some Macs, the PNG sequence modules are the only ones our docs list as working on both. For finals, that pushes a mixed shop toward deciding on one rendering platform for the final files, or toward writing its own output module template and loading it on every machine.
Among the Windows options, dclay-AVILOSSLESS is described as a quick render with a large file size. The _Alpha version adds the transparency channel and has the same large files. Lossless means nothing is thrown away by compression, and a file with nothing thrown away is big. That is a fair price for an intermediate file you plan to hand to the next stage of a pipeline, and a poor price for a file you plan to keep for months on a shared drive.
Among the macOS options, the docs separate three jobs. dclay-QT422HQ uses Apple ProRes 422 HQ. Our help pages say it offers excellent compression with superb quality and a reasonable file size, and they note the cost: After Effects renders it more slowly than uncompressed formats, because it has to calculate compression for every frame. dclay-QTLOSSLESS goes the other way. Render times are quick because no compression is calculated, and the output files are very large. dclay-QTANIM and its alpha twin use the Animation codec, which the docs recommend when the composition is mostly illustrative graphics rather than live action footage. They describe the compression as decent and the file sizes as acceptable.
That leaves the question every motion designer asks: which module for finals? Our docs do not name a single winner, and we are not going to invent one. What they give you is the trade. ProRes 422 HQ trades render time for a reasonable size at high quality. Lossless trades file size for render speed. Animation suits flat, graphic comps. Choose by what the file has to do next. If a downstream editor expects ProRes, render ProRes. If the comp is a lower third with a transparent background, you need one of the _Alpha templates, because the modules without alpha are listed as not outputting an alpha channel.
macOS Output Modules
ProRes 422 HQ trades render time; Lossless trades file size
- Compression
- dclay-QT422HQApple ProRes 422 HQ
- dclay-QTLOSSLESSNone (lossless)
- Render speed
- dclay-QT422HQMore slowly than uncompressed formats
- dclay-QTLOSSLESSRender times are quick
- File size
- dclay-QT422HQReasonable file size
- dclay-QTLOSSLESSOutput files are very large
Choose by what the file has to do next.
Three jobs, three combinations
Here is a hypothetical, labeled as such: a motion designer on a Mac has a rigged template for a product announcement video, and a data source with a few hundred rows. She runs three kinds of passes over the same project. None of these numbers or timings come from a real customer. They are meant to show how the templates snap together.
The draft pass
She wants to know if the right names and prices land in the right places across the whole batch. Looks are not the question. She pairs dclay-draft-comp with a quick output module. Draft quality is very low, but the entire duration of the target composition is rendered, so any timing problem caused by Time Sculpting still shows up. If she only cared about the first second of the video, dclay-draft-workarea with a short work area would be faster still.
The final pass
Once the drafts look right, she switches to dclay-best-comp for production quality across the full length. The output module follows the delivery requirement. If the editor wants ProRes, she picks dclay-QT422HQ and accepts the slower render. If she is delivering a transparent graphic, she picks dclay-QTANIM_Alpha. The render setting and the output module are independent, so changing one never forces a change in the other.
The spot check pass
Here the templates do something different, and our docs give an unusual recommendation. For spot checking, they recommend an output module that generates still images, such as PNG or JPG. That makes dclay-PNGSEQ the natural pick, and the alpha version if your layers need to be inspected over transparency. Both PNG sequence modules are described as useful for quality control of batch processing. The docs add a trick: set the target composition’s work area to a single frame, choose the PNG module, and you get one still image for each video. One frame per version is a very cheap way to see how every row of your data treated the design.
The properties reference gives a second rule of thumb that fits. For single-frame timeline markers, it is preferable to use sequence output modules like PNG or TIFF or JPG. For markers that have a duration, use video output modules like MOV or AVI. In other words, the type of marker you drop in the composition tells you the family of module to pick.
Setting up spot checks from Preferences
Everything above comes together in one dialog. Open Preferences, choose Spot Checks, and work down the list.
- Click Load Settings and Module Templates so the dropdowns fill.
- Pick a render settings template from the Render Settings dropdown.
- Pick an output module from the Output Module dropdown. Use a still-image module for spot checks.
- In the field labeled Sample ___ frames from comps without timeline markers, enter how many spot checks Templater should render when a target composition has no markers.
- If you want Templater to spot check while it renders or replicates, enable either or both of the Create when Rendering and Replicating checkboxes.
The sampling field is a fallback, and our docs describe it that way. It provides a back-up in case spot checking fails, and it can stand in for markers you did not place. There is a catch, and the docs state it plainly. Templater spreads the sampling across the entire composition, so you may or may not see the information you need. A frame sampled at an even interval might land between the moment the headline appears and the moment the price appears. If you know which frames matter, put markers on them. Label each marker with a name that tells you what the still captured. As of Templater 3.3 you can leave markers unlabeled, and Templater then names the images SPOTCHECK_1, SPOTCHECK_2 and so on. The docs warn that you cannot mix labeled and unlabeled markers, or spot checks may fail.
Before you run anything, three practical checks from the batch instructions apply. The Templater Settings effect has to be on every layer meant to be dynamic. Column names or property keys in the data source have to match the names of the dynamic layers. And the Batch Assets section needs a data source, a footage folder and an output folder. Then set a valid data range under Transport. The rule on the start row: it must be greater than 1 for Google Sheets and tab-delimited files, and greater than 0 for JSON object arrays. Put an identifying name in the Job prefix field so every spot check file from this run shares a prefix. Finally, click Spot Check to generate the stills right away, or click Render or Replicate if you enabled spot checking for those tasks.
Before You Render
Checks to complete before running a batch
- Templater Settings effect must be on every layer meant to be dynamic
- Column names or property keys in the data source must match the names of the dynamic layers
- Batch Assets section needs a data source, a footage folder and an output folder
- Set a valid data range under Transport (start row greater than 1 for Google Sheets and tab-delimited files, greater than 0 for JSON object arrays)
- Put an identifying name in the Job prefix field so every spot check file from this run shares a prefix
If you run Templater from the command line, the same settings exist as keys in the templater-options.json file. The spot_checking group holds spot_samples, which defaults to 3, plus on_render and on_replicate, which default to false, and render_settings and output_module, which name the templates to use. The defaults in the reference are “Best Settings” for render settings and “Photoshop” for the output module, so a command line run that never sets those two keys will not use a dclay template. To export spot checks only, set spot_check to true in the tasks object and every other task key to false. We cover the longer command line story in our guide to preview modes and spot checks before a big batch.
Who should skip the dclay set
The templates are a convenience, not a requirement. If your studio already has a tuned set of render settings and output modules that match a delivery spec, keep using them. Templater’s dropdowns list everything After Effects knows, so your own templates appear beside ours. The case for the dclay set is mostly a case for a shared starting point. If you need an output our eight modules do not include, such as a particular delivery codec, you will want to build that template yourself in After Effects and load it on every machine that renders. Our modules also do not touch the choice between rendering and replicating. If that question is open, read which Templater output mode to use, and for sending finished replicas to a second renderer see rendering a batch through Adobe Media Encoder.
The bottom line
Read each name as a set of choices. Best or draft sets the quality. Comp or workarea sets the duration. PNGSEQ, QT or AVI sets the container, and _Alpha adds transparency. For drafts, use a draft render setting. For finals, use dclay-best-comp and choose the output module by what the file has to do next, within the limits of your operating system. For spot checks, use a still-image module, preferably PNG, and put labeled markers on the frames that matter. If you want the full walk through a batch from start to finish, our guide to rendering versioned video in a batch process picks up where this one stops, and the Templater page lists the editions.
Still deciding which pair fits your job? Here are the questions worth settling before you set these templates up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I find the dclay render settings and output module files?
Templater installs them for you. The output modules are in dataclay-output-modules.aom and the render settings are in dataclay-render-settings.ars. On Windows the folder is C:\Users\Public\Documents\Dataclay. On macOS it is /Applications/Dataclay. Load each file inside After Effects from the Edit, Templates menu, then use the Load Settings and Module Templates button in Templater’s Spot Checks preferences so the dropdowns refresh.
Which render settings template should I use for a production final?
Our help pages call dclay-best-comp the best choice for production quality. It renders the target composition at the highest quality level and for its full duration, including when Time Sculpting changes the composition’s length. Use dclay-best-workarea only when you deliberately want a portion of the timeline, such as while pre-flighting a project.
Which output module should I choose for spot checks?
Choose one that generates still images. Our docs recommend PNG or JPG types, and the dclay-PNGSEQ and dclay-PNGSEQ_Alpha templates both work on Windows and Mac. For single-frame markers, sequence modules are preferred. For markers with a duration, the properties reference says to use video modules such as MOV or AVI.
Why are the QuickTime and AVI templates missing from my dropdown?
Our docs list the AVI templates as Windows only and the QuickTime templates as macOS only. Check the platform note first, since each of those templates is marked for one system. If you are on the right system and a template is still missing, confirm that you loaded the file from the Edit, Templates menu and then clicked Load Settings and Module Templates in Preferences.
What happens if my composition has no spot check markers?
Templater samples a number of frames evenly across the composition. You set that number in the field labeled Sample frames from comps without timeline markers. In the command line options, the matching key is spot_samples, and its default is 3. Our docs warn that even sampling may miss the frame you care about, so place labeled markers when you know which frames matter.
Do spot checks work in every edition of Templater?
No. Spot checking requires Templater 3.0 or newer and is supported in the Pro and Bot editions only. The Spot Checks category in Preferences is where Templater applies the templates to checks.
Can I mix labeled and unlabeled markers in one composition?
Our docs say not to. Using a combination of labeled and unlabeled markers may cause spot checks to fail. Since Templater 3.3 you can leave markers unlabeled, and the images are then named SPOTCHECK_1, SPOTCHECK_2 and so on. Pick one approach per composition, and label markers when more than one person reviews the output.
