Initiating Renders

Learn how to initiate render jobs in Nexrender Cloud by sending a POST /jobs request. Includes full payload structure, asset injection, settings, preview mode, uploading results and webhook support.

POST /jobs

Create new job

cURL

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.nexrender.com/api/v2/jobs \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '
{
  "template": {
    "id": "<string>",
    "src": "<string>",
    "composition": "<string>"
  },
  "preview": false,
  "fonts": [],
  "assets": [],
  "settings": {
    "frames": 1,
    "codec": "<string>",
    "engine": "ae2026",
    "multiFrame": true,
    "lottie": {}
  },
  "upload": {
    "prefix": "<string>",
    "outputUrl": "<string>",
    "provider": "s3"
  }
}
'

201

{
  "id": "<string>",
  "status": "queued",
  "outputUrl": "<string>",
  "children": [
    {
      "id": "<string>",
      "outputUrl": "<string>",
      "status": "<string>",
      "missingFonts": [
        "<string>"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "missingFonts": [
    "<string>"
  ]
}

​

Submit the Job

Submit the job with a simple POST request:

Simple Job

curl -X POST https://api.nexrender.com/api/v2/jobs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "template": {
      "id": "01JTGM9GCR71JV7EJYDF45QAFD",
      "composition": "main"
    },
    "assets": [
      {
        "type": "text",
        "layerName": "title",
        "value": "Hello World!"
      }
    ]
  }'

​

Job Request Expected Response

Expected Response

{
  "id": "01JTRDF7HCR8QAHYW8GPCP4S9Y",
  "status": "queued",
  "progress": 0,
  "stats": {
    "createdAt": "2025-05-14T12:00:00.000Z"
  },
  "outputUrl": "https://nx1-outputs-eu.nexrender.com/01K4B3YH2GP215NAWCZX42S2GH/outputs/01K4B3YH6H97ASTA8DS3MX8P8B.mp4"
}

​

Job Request Internals

Field	Type	Required	Description
template.id	string	🟢	ID of the template created earlier
template.composition	string	🟢	Composition to render (optional for .mogrt)
assets	array	🟢	List of asset overrides
preview	boolean	⚪	Set true for fast low-res preview
fonts	array	⚪	List of font file names to include in render environment
webhook.url	string	⚪	Callback endpoint for job status
webhook.method	string	⚪	Typically POST
webhook.headers	object	⚪	Extra HTTP headers to send with webhook
webhook.data	object	⚪	Custom JSON payload attached to webhook
webhook.custom	boolean	⚪	If true, webhook will send only custom data (no system metadata)
settings.type	string	⚪	Output type: video, image, aep or lottie
settings.lottie	object	⚪	Bodymovin settings for a lottie output (see Lottie Export)
settings.frames	int/arr	⚪	Single frame (int), frame range ([start, end]) or every n-th frame ([start, end, step], step 1-100) for still/image render
settings.quality	string	⚪	Render quality: draft or full
settings.codec	string	⚪	Output codec (e.g. video_h264_vbr_15mbps, video_prores_422, image_png)
settings.engine	string	⚪	After Effects engine version: ae2025 or ae2026 (default: ae2026)
settings.multiFrame	boolean	⚪	After Effects Multi-Frame Rendering: true (on) or false (off). If omitted, the render node’s default applies
upload.prefix	string	⚪	Folder path prefix for uploaded outputs (e.g. my-project/outputs/)
upload.outputUrl	string	⚪	Custom base URL for accessing uploaded files
upload.provider	string	⚪	Storage provider (s3 only at present)
upload.params.endpoint	string	⚪	S3-compatible endpoint (default: https://s3.amazonaws.com)
upload.params.region	string	🟢*	Cloud storage region
upload.params.bucket	string	🟢*	Target bucket name for file uploads
upload.params.acl	string	⚪	Access control (public-read, private)
upload.params.accessKeyId	string	🟢*	Access key ID for storage provider
upload.params.accessKeySecret	string	🟢*	Secret key for storage provider

🟢 = Required parameter

⚪ = Optional parameter

* Required only if you provide a custom upload block.

Each asset object must have:

• type: one of (data, text, image, audio, video, essential, function)
• layerName: exact layer name from the template
• property: like "Source Text" or "Source Name"
• value or src: depending on asset type

You can inspect available layerName using GET /templates/:id

​

Fonts Resolution

Nexrender automatically resolves fonts for most jobs - no fonts array required. When a job runs, the platform searches your team’s font bank for matches against every font the template references, installs the best candidates on the render worker, and lets After Effects make the final selection.

The fonts array is only needed when you want to force-include a specific file that auto-resolution isn’t picking up:

{
  "fonts": ["Montserrat-SemiBold.ttf"]
}

If any filename listed in fonts isn’t in your team account, the job response will include a missingFonts array. The job still queues, but rendering may produce incorrect results - upload the missing files via POST /fonts before resubmitting.

Always upload the original font files bundled with your After Effects project. Fonts downloaded from other sources may share a family name but differ in metrics or kerning, causing layout shifts even when the platform matches the name correctly.

See Font Resolution for a full explanation of the resolution process and how to debug font issues.

​

Render Settings

Render settings and Preview mode are mutually exclusive.

The settings object allows you to specify the render output:

• type: “video”, “image”, “aep” or “lottie” (see Lottie Export)
• frames: single frame number, [start, end] or [start, end, step] array (required for image; step between 1 and 100)
• quality: “draft” or “full”
• codec: string identifier (e.g., video_h264_vbr_15mbps, video_prores_422, video_vp9, image_png, image_gif). See Render Settings for the full list.

Supported quality list:

• draft
• full

Supported codecs:

• video_h264_vbr_1mbps
• video_h264_vbr_5mbps
• video_h264_vbr_15mbps
• video_h264_vbr_40mbps
• video_h264_cbr_1mbps
• video_h264_cbr_5mbps
• video_h264_cbr_15mbps
• video_h264_cbr_40mbps
• video_prores_422
• video_prores_4444
• video_vp8
• video_vp9
• video_vp8_alpha
• video_vp9_alpha
• image_jpeg
• image_png
• image_gif

WebM (video_vp8, video_vp9 and their _alpha versions) and image_gif are converted from a source render; see WebM and GIF.

​

Examples

Draft video

{
  "template": { 
    "id": "01JTGM9GCR71JV7EJYDF45QAFD", 
    "composition": "main" 
  },
  "settings": {
    "type": "video",
    "quality": "draft",
    "codec": "video_h264_vbr_15mbps"
  }
}

​

Lottie Export

"type": "lottie" exports the template to Lottie with Bodymovin instead of rendering a video. Lottie access is turned on per team: contact [e-mail] to have it enabled. Without it, a Lottie job is refused with 403 and errorCode LOTTIE_DISABLED.

The output is always a zip (outputUrl ends in .zip), with everything in a lottie/ folder:

• lottie/data.json: the Lottie animation, with its images in lottie/images/, or inside data.json with should_encode_images.
• lottie/banner/, lottie/demo/, lottie/standalone/ and lottie/report/ when settings.lottie.export_modes turns those exports on.

settings.lottie takes Bodymovin’s settings. These can be changed, each to a value of the same type as its default:

• export_modes: standard (the Lottie JSON, on by default), banner, demo, standalone, reports
• should_encode_images: embed images in data.json as base64, for a single self-contained file
• rasterize_text: turn text layers into images (see below)
• hiddens, guideds, original_names, skip_default_properties, shouldTrimData, pretty_print, useCompNamesAsIds
• expressions: shouldBake (on by default), shouldBakeBeyondWorkArea
• metadata.customProps: a list of objects with plain values, e.g. [{ "name": "job", "value": "abc", "active": true }]
• demoData.backgroundColor
• banner: lottie_origin (local or cdnjs), lottie_library, lottie_renderer, use_original_sizes, width, height, click_tag, shouldIncludeAnimationDataInTemplate, shouldLoop, loopCount

Every other setting has to keep its default value, so a whole settings object saved from Bodymovin’s panel is accepted as long as nothing outside this list was changed. (export_mode, which the panel saves too, is accepted but has no effect: use export_modes.) A request that changes any other setting, or sends a key Bodymovin doesn’t have, is refused with 400 and errorCode INVALID_SETTINGS, as is one with frames, codec or quality, which don’t apply to a Lottie export.

Text stays live Lottie text and references its fonts by name, so your Lottie player has to provide the fonts. With "rasterize_text": true, text layers become images instead and no fonts are needed, which we recommend for banners. The trade-off: per-character text animation and text that changes over time are frozen, the images have a fixed resolution, and the text can’t be edited later.

Load the fonts before the animation starts. Players such as lottie-web measure each character when the animation loads, so text measured before its font is ready keeps the spacing of a fallback font. The fonts are listed in data.json under fonts.list, as fFamily and fStyle:

// Inter Bold and Inter Medium, already declared on the page with @font-face
await Promise.all([
  document.fonts.load('700 16px "Inter"'),
  document.fonts.load('500 16px "Inter"'),
]);
lottie.loadAnimation({ container, renderer: 'svg', animationData });

• .mogrt templates: the values from essential assets are applied to the export.
• Only PNG and JPEG image layers are supported. A template with other images (PSD, AI, TIFF, SVG, …) or video footage fails, naming the layers.

​

Preview Mode vs Final Render

Render settings and Preview mode are mutually exclusive.

Nexrender Cloud supports the ability to render videos in preview mode. A fast, low-resolution render is helpful when debugging new templates or job payload changes.

Use preview mode when:

• Verifying that layerName overrides are correct
• Testing a new template or composition
• Integrating webhooks or downstream automation
• You want to run a batch sanity check before scaling

{
  "template": { 
    "id": "01JTGM9GCR71JV7EJYDF45QAFD", 
    "composition": "main" 
  },
  "preview": true
}

Previews render faster and are cheaper on infrastructure resources. If your template is broken (bad expression, missing font, wrong composition), it’s better to catch it here.

You can build an internal CI pipeline that runs preview renders against all newly uploaded templates.

​

Uploading Rendering Results

By default, outputs are stored in Nexrender Cloud storage. With the upload object, you can push rendered outputs directly to your S3-compatible storage.

Render Upload

{
  "template": { 
    "id": "01JTGM9GCR71JV7EJYDF45QAFD", 
    "composition": "main" 
  },
  "upload": {
    "provider": "s3",
    "prefix": "marketing/campaign-42/",
    "outputUrl": "https://cdn.example.com/media",
    "params": {
      "endpoint": "https://s3.amazonaws.com",
      "region": "us-east-1",
      "bucket": "nexrender-outputs",
      "acl": "public-read",
      "accessKeyId": "${secrets.AWS_KEY_ID}",
      "accessKeySecret": "${secrets.AWS_KEY_SECRET}"
    }
  }
}

Don’t embed raw keys in client-side requests. Use the Secrets API to manage credentials securely.

​

Webhooks

You can extend your rendering job with a webhook:

Webhook Configuration

{
  "template": {
    "id": "01JTGM9GCR71JV7EJYDF45QAFD",
    "composition": "main"
  },
  "webhook": {
    "url": "https://yourdomain.com/webhooks/render-complete",
    "data": {
      "customField": "someValue"
    }
  }
}

​

Targeting Layers in Alternate Compositions

By default, assets are injected into the composition defined in the template.composition field.

However, you can override this on a per-asset basis using the composition key inside the asset definition.

This is useful when you want to render a specific comp (like main), but modify a layer in a supporting comp (like main2).

​

Example

{
  "template": {
    "id": "01JTGM9GCR71JV7EJYDF45QAFD",
    "composition": "main"
  },
  "assets": [
    {
      "type": "data",
      "layerName": "title",
      "composition": "main2",
      "property": "Source Text",
      "value": "Hello World!"
    }
  ]
}

​

Validate the Assets Before Submitting

Before rendering, always validate:

• composition name exists (from template introspection)
• layerName matches exactly
• URLs for assets return a 200 OK
• Font dependencies have been preloaded

​

Full API Reference

Authorizations

Authorization · string · header · required

Bearer token authentication using API tokens for team-based access control.

You can generate your own API token at: https://app.nexrender.com/settings/api-tokens

Body

application/json

Configuration object for creating a new render job with template, assets, and options

template · object · required

Template configuration defining the After Effects project and composition to render

Show child attributes

preview · boolean · default: false

Generate a low-quality preview render instead of full quality output

fonts · string[]

List of font file names to include in the render environment

assets · object[]

Collection of media assets (images, videos, audio, scripts, text) or nested job assets (type: 'job') to use in the render. Nested job assets render as child jobs first, with output injected into the parent composition. For supported NX layer functions, params.layerName can be a string or an array of strings; array values are expanded in place while preserving asset order.

Asset to be used in job rendering, containing source information and target layer details. For function assets, provide the function identifier in name and arguments in params.

Option 1

Option 2

Show child attributes

settings · object

Render configuration settings for output format, quality, and frame selection

Show child attributes

upload · object

Custom upload configuration for output files to external storage providers

Show child attributes

webhook · object

Webhook configuration for job status notifications and callbacks

Show child attributes

Response

201

application/json

Job successfully created and queued for processing. Returns 'pending' status with children array when nested job assets are present.

Response after creating a job, includes children info for parent jobs

id · string · required

Unique job identifier

status · enum<string> · required

'queued' for regular jobs, 'pending' for parent jobs waiting on children

Available options: queued, pending

outputUrl · string · required

URL where the rendered output will be available

children · object[]

Child job details (only present for parent jobs with nested job assets)

Show child attributes

missingFonts · string[]

List of fonts referenced in template but not found in team's font library