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rlemieszek
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Premiere takes forever to render an AE composition that renders in seconds inside AE. (CS6)

Feb 22, 2013 8:00 AM

Tags: #after_effects #premiere #rendering #exporting #optimization

So, I have a Premiere project that's basically a lot of After Effects compositions put together. It's a presentation of an architecture project, so it's mostly perspectives and a few animated sequences. No effects applied in Premiere, just a few cross dissolves and some titles.

 

Each of the After Effects compositions in After Effect is quickly rendered (I'd say about 2 seconds per frame, if that). But  whenever I'm rendering them from Premiere (be it to export them or just "render effects in work area"), they take forever. Like, 30 seconds each frame. For a 6 minute film, that adds up to 3 entire days. That happens even when I set the work area in Premiere to a bit where there's nothing but the AE composition with no effects.

 

I could just pre-render them all in After Effects and they'll render much quicker in Premiere, but then I'll have to it once for every composition (about 30 in total), and then do it again whenever one of the compositions is changed. That doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

A few details:

 

- Rendering in Full HD 23,976fps

 

- There are a few different types of compositions. All of them are giving me a hard time. Some of them are compositions from 5000px wide PSD files with 2 layers and a linear wipe. Other is are DSLR .MOVs that are warp-stabilized and then timewarped to add motion blur. A few are .EXR sequences composed with a few effects and backgrounds.

 

- When I'm rendering them in Premiere, Task Manager shows 13% CPU being used (1 core) and 2,5gb RAM. When I'm rendering the exact same sequence in AE, it's usually about 28% CPU and 6gb RAM. "Render multiple frames simultaneously" is unchecked. There's 16gb RAM and 3gb reserved for other applications. Everything is, of course, 64bit.

 

- I'm using a Windows 7 on a 128gb SSD (plus a 1tb 7200 rpm HDD as a scratch disk and another for footage). i7 2600k, 16gb RAM.

 

So... any ideas?

 

Thanks.

 

P.S.: Man, I think I just got it. You're the best!

I'd been banging my head against the wall for three days. I just realized every single sequence had a keyframe for time remapping where it was set for 100% speed the whole sequence, but went to 0% like 3 seconds after it ended. AND time remapping fx was unchecked (off). No idea why someone would put it there or why that would affect the rendering time of the whole sequence which is set for 100%... but apparently just toggling animation on that solved my problem. So here it is for if anyone else has the same problem.

426 Views   7 Replies   Latest reply: rlemieszek, Feb 22, 2013 12:18 PM
 
Replies
  • Jeff Bellune
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    1. Jeff Bellune,
    Feb 22, 2013 8:02 AM   in reply to rlemieszek
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    Are you comparing Pr's render time to AE's RAM Preview time?  Try rendering to video file from AE using the render queue and a codec similar to what's being used in Pr, either for the preview files or the exported video.  If the render queue times in AE approach the render times in Pr, you'll know what's going on.  And the dynamic link pipeline will always slow the process down a bit compared to a straight render out of AE or Pr. 

     

    Jeff

     
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  • Fuzzy Barsik
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    2. Fuzzy Barsik,
    Feb 22, 2013 8:28 AM   in reply to rlemieszek
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    Irrespective of whether you resolved your current issue, you may probably want to check this PPro with AE dynamic links slow to render discussion - it should help you understand when it's wise to rely on Dynamic Link, and when - on a digital intermediate. Pay special attention to Todd's comments.

     
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  • rlemieszek
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    3. rlemieszek,
    Feb 22, 2013 8:57 AM   in reply to Jeff Bellune
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    Thanks!

     

    Yeah, I'm counting both of them when rendering a H.264 file with the same settings.

     

    I'm ready to sacrifice about 20 or 50% of rendering time using dynamic links, since it's quite common to have to adjust something inside a composition.  1500% - that's a bit too much! But the time remapping thing solved it. If that's the only stance where rendering time is so compromised, then that's ok, since speed remapping is always better done inside AE anyway. I just hope nothing else elevates rendering time that much again.

     
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  • rlemieszek
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    4. rlemieszek,
    Feb 22, 2013 8:58 AM   in reply to Fuzzy Barsik
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    That's an excellent thread. I hadn't found that one yet. Really helpful. Thanks!

     
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  • Jim Simon
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    5. Jim Simon,
    Feb 22, 2013 9:14 AM   in reply to Jeff Bellune
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    the dynamic link pipeline will always slow the process down a bit compared to a straight render out of AE or Pr. 

     

    In my tests, I was actually getting slightly faster exports out of PP using DL than directly out of AE.  There may be conditions when the DI is faster, but not 'always'.

     
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  • rlemieszek
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    6. rlemieszek,
    Feb 22, 2013 10:01 AM   in reply to rlemieszek
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    Here's what Todd Kopriva said in another thread: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3813422#3813422

     

    "When the headless version of After Effects is called upon to render frames to serve Premiere Pro for a dynamically linked composition, it's just a single process---not the multiple processes that can run when when you're using After Effects as the primary application. Other resources (e.g.,CPU threads, RAM space, hard disk bandwidth, memory bandwidth) also must be shared with Premiere Pro in the Dynamic Link scenario."

     

    So I guess that's the whole answer. In any AE composition that's resource-heavy in terms of CPU, rendering through Premiere is way slower - especially on an i7, which has 8 logical cores. That means you're using a computer that's 8 times slower and it makes a lot of sense to pre-render in AE before, as troublesome as that might be when you have 20 or 30 AE comps in your PPro project.

     

    The "speed" glitch I had helped a lot, but didn't really solve it.

     

    There's a way around that. Not sure it affects anything quality-wise. You just open AE and do a full RAM preview of the sequence. Then go to PPro and "render effects in work area" for that specific part of the project. If you go ahead and do alter the original composition you're gonna now it because the preview in PPro will be gone. A bit troublesome, but better than manually duplicating and pre-rendering 30 comps and having side comps with the actual effects as backup.

     
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  • rlemieszek
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    7. rlemieszek,
    Feb 22, 2013 12:18 PM   in reply to rlemieszek
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    Man, apparently the time remapping thing had nothing to do with it. Probably just a lucky coincidence at some point. It's taking forever to render again.

     

    I guess dynamic link just wasn't made to be used with heavy comps... which is unfortunate, because that's usually when you need it the most. At least in my case.

     

    Edit: Apparently Adobe Media Enconder does make use of full AE rendering capabilities. I just hadn't used AME in a long time because there was no point for my kind of work (I just exported directly from PPro), but now it makes a whole lot of sense. All's good after all.

     
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