How to Export from Cavalry for Web and Social Media

Cavalry has a streamlined export system that supports all major formats for web, social, and broadcast delivery.

Accessing the Render panel:
Window → Render Manager, or click the Render tab at the top.

Setting up a render:
1. Click the + button to add a render item
2. Select your composition
3. Configure format, resolution, frame range
4. Click Render

Available export formats:

Video formats:
- ProRes 422 — high-quality master, excellent for AE compositing pipeline
- ProRes 4444 — with alpha channel (transparency)
- H.264/MP4 — compressed for web/social delivery
- H.265/HEVC — better compression than H.264 (newer devices)

Image sequences:
- PNG Sequence — with or without alpha (transparency)
- JPEG Sequence — smaller files, no transparency
- EXR/TIFF — high dynamic range for compositing

Web formats:
- SVG Animation — scalable vector for web
- Lottie JSON — lightweight animation for web/mobile apps
- GIF — direct GIF export (limited to 256 colors)

Recommended settings by platform:

YouTube/Vimeo:
- H.264, 1920×1080 or 3840×2160
- 30fps, high bitrate (15-40 Mbps)

Instagram/TikTok:
- H.264, 1080×1920 (vertical)
- 30fps, 8-15 Mbps

Web (embedded animation):
- Lottie JSON for interactive/lightweight animations
- SVG for simple animated graphics
- MP4 for complex video-quality animations

Compositing pipeline:
- ProRes 4444 + Alpha for bringing into After Effects
- PNG Sequence for maximum flexibility

Rendering with transparency:
1. Format: ProRes 4444 (for video) or PNG Sequence (for images)
2. Enable "Alpha" or "Premultiplied Alpha" in render settings
3. Make sure your background is transparent (no background shape in your scene)

Batch rendering:
Cavalry supports batch rendering — add multiple compositions or variations to the render queue and let it process overnight.

Pro tip: If your final delivery is social media, you can render directly to H.264 from Cavalry. But for professional pipelines, always render a ProRes master first, then compress. This gives you a high-quality backup and lets you quickly re-export to different specs without re-rendering from the Cavalry project. The render time difference is minimal, but having that master file saves you when the client inevitably asks for "the same thing but for Instagram Stories" after you've delivered the 16:9 version.