When rendering using Movie Render Queue, there may be a requirement to render from multiple Cinematic cameras within a single sequence or Shot. For example, you could be rendering a product demonstration video or training material, which may require multiple angles. Rendering from multiple angles within a single shot can be more ideal than using Takes, as Takes cause new Level Sequence assets to be created, diverging your content.
This document provides an overview of how to render multiple camera angles from a single shot using Movie Render Queue.
Prerequisites
- You have a basic knowledge of how to create and open a Level Sequence
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Movie Render Queue is a Plugin you must enable prior to use. From Unreal Engine's main menu, go to Edit > Plugins, locate Movie Render Queue in the Rendering section, and click the checkbox to enable it. Then, restart Unreal Engine.
First Camera Setup
Assuming Sequencer is already open within the Level you want to render, the first step is to start creating your Cinematic Cameras.
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Click Camera in the Sequencer Toolbar. This creates a spawnable Cine Camera Actor, Camera Cuts Track, and then binds the Cine Camera Actor to the Camera Cuts section.
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Next, move and keyframe the camera to your desired framing and animation for this shot.
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Enable the Camera icon on the Cine Camera Actor track, which pilots the camera.
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You can also adjust camera-specific properties, such as Aperture, Focal Length, and Focus Distance to help with your shot composition.
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Additional Camera Setup
You can now start to add new cameras to the sequence. Do this the same way you added the first camera, by clicking Camera in the Sequencer Toolbar. Each click will add a new camera, so add as many as you require. Although the Camera Cuts Track still is bound to the first camera (making it appear as if this shot only has one camera), these other cameras will be correctly rendered with Movie Render Queue in the final steps of this guide.
Similar to the steps taken for the first camera, enable the Camera icon on each new camera track to pilot it and set up your composition.
Although not required, we recommend you rename your camera tracks to better reflect their content or usage. Right-click on a track and select Rename, or press F2. If two cameras share the same name, Movie Render Queue automatically renames them to avoid a filename conflict.
Open Movie Render Queue
Once all your cameras are composed and animated within the sequence, you can now render using Movie Render Queue (MRQ). To open MRQ, click Render in the Sequencer Toolbar.
If MRQ is not correctly opening from this button, check the dropdown menu next to Render and ensure it is set to Movie Render Queue.
Render Settings
With the MRQ window open, click the Settings entry to open the Render Settings window.
Click Add Setting (+) and select Camera, then select the newly added Camera entry and enable Render All Cameras.
Although optional, you may want to edit Output Directory or File Name Format in Output settings with the {camera_name} Format String. Using this provides you extra control over how your output renders are named or categorized. For example, setting Output Directory to {project_dir}/Saved/MovieRenders/{camera_name}/ outputs each camera angle to a different folder.
If you don't use {camera_name}, then MRQ automatically adds the camera name as a suffix to the file name when Render All Cameras is enabled, to prevent file name conflicts.
Render and Results
Once your render settings are set up, click Render (Local) to start the MRQ render process.
When the render completes, click the Output entry to open a file explorer window to the output directory. You should see your multiple angles rendered here. In this example, the different angles were separated by folder using the steps detailed above.
