Natron and Docker: Video template automation rendering

Generate video from template using Natron and Docker

Natron is a open source alternative to Adobe Aftereffects that have also a command line interface.

In this article we will see how to configure a project and run a render by command line using docker and docker-compose.
The project can be find at this repo.

Create Natron Project

As first step create a natron project that must have a reader named MyRead and a Writer named MyWrite. (you can find an example here)

Project example

Prepare folder and Docker

Into a fonder put the project (test.ntp) and the image (cancellino.jpg).

We can add also a docker-compose.yml that use rodrigobrito/natron docker container:

services:
  natron:
    image: rodrigobrito/natron
    volumes:
      - ./:/render

Now it is possible to run the command:

docker-compose run natron NatronRenderer -i MyRead /render/cancellino.jpg -w MyWrite /render/es.mp4 /render/test.ntp

To fix the problem of root user permission on output file you can run:

sudo chmod 777 es.mp4

You can change input inmage and output video name as you want to obtain different videos.

Conclustion

Thanks that open source software it is possible to create automatically some video that have specific template also inside docker.

So be free by using open source and make contribution!