Editing

Using a 3D model (.glb or .fbx)

A 3D model is not footage. Render it as a video from the Media Library, then cut with that clip.

You can upload a 3D model to your Media Library like any other file, but a model is not footage: nothing can play it on the timeline as it is. Vidmoat turns it into a video clip first, with a moving camera, and you edit with that clip.

Uploading one

Use Upload / drop media in the Media Library tab and pick a .glb or .fbx file. It appears in the library marked 3D model with an orange 3D badge instead of a thumbnail, and it is never put on the timeline by itself. Dragging it onto a track is refused with a message saying what to do.

Render as video

Press Render as video on the model (or double-click it, tap it on a phone-sized screen, or choose it from its ⋮ menu). A small window asks for:

  • Camera. Orbit circles the model like a turntable and is the default. Fly-through, Crane, Dolly in, Pull back and Chase also move; Three-quarter, Front, Side, Low angle and Close-up hold still.
  • Background. Transparent is the default and gives a clear-background clip that sits over your footage. Project background uses your project's background colour. There are also four backdrops (studio, sunset, mint, night) and five 3D worlds (park, city, desert, space, snow).
  • Length and frame rate. 6 seconds at 24 fps by default. The 3D renderer allows up to 12 seconds, 24 fps and 240 frames, so at 24 fps the longest clip is 10 seconds. If you ask for more, the window shows the length it will actually render before you start.

Press Render and add. It usually takes under a minute and the window shows each stage. The finished clip is added to your library as "name (3D render)" and placed at the playhead on a video track above whatever is showing there, so a transparent render sits on top of your footage. The model stays in your library, so you can render it again with another camera.

If the file carries its own animation, the first one in the file plays. A model with no animation, such as a logo, holds still while the camera moves around it.

What it needs

Rendering uses the 3D Animation Studio plugin, which is part of the Creator and Studio plans. If it is not installed on your account, the window says so and offers Install the plugin and render. Rendering spends no credits.

The model must have finished uploading first. Models up to 48 MB work. Use .glb where you can: a .gltf file points at separate files that do not come with it, so it is refused (export it again as .glb), and an .fbx whose textures are separate files arrives untextured.

A model already on the timeline

Projects from before this change could have a model placed as a video clip, which showed nothing. Such a clip now shows a card reading 3D model: render it as a video first, and an export refuses to start and names it rather than leaving a blank gap in your video. Render the model from the Media Library, put that clip where the model was, and delete the model clip.

Asking the AI agent

The agent can do the same thing: ask it to bring your uploaded model into a 3D scene, and it imports the model, renders it and places the video. It can also stage the model alongside built-in characters, vehicles and buildings.

In the phone app

The phone app cannot render a model. Open the project on vidmoat.com to render it, and the clip is then available in the app like any other.

Did that not cover it?

Send us a ticket and we will answer. If you are signed in it arrives with your plan and any recent errors attached, so you do not have to describe them.

Also in Editing

Will I lose my work?How autosave works, what the Saved indicator means, and the one thing that does not survive.Cutting, trimming and the keyboard shortcuts that existHow to split and trim a clip, the real key bindings, and where the audio and colour controls live.Adding captionsTwo different caption panels, what each costs, English only in the browser, and no SRT.