How to fix a timeline crash in AE?

[bryang62335704]

Hey guys,

I'm trying a new technique in After Effects and it involves using the brush tool... a LOT. I'm doing a frame by frame animation on top of a video and each frame clocks about 30-40 strokes. As a result, my video layer has thousands of brush strokes on it. This isn't necessarily a problem, but I think the fact that there are so many strokes is causing the timeline to crash. Whenever I get down to stroke 2700, the scroll stops working, goes completely white and doesn't function properly until the program is closed and reopened. The rest of the After Effects still works, which is super strange to me.

If you guys have any have insight, recommendations or ANYTHING to fix this problem, I'd really appreciate it. I'm sure I'm not doing this process in the most efficient way as well, so please let me know if you have any suggestions

[Roei Tzoref]

what are you exact Os and Ae version number?

after checking your software and GPU is up to date,

1. sounds like a memory issue. how powerful is your workstation? give us information about it.

2. about your workflow, can we see what exactly you are doing? maybe we can offer a more efficient workflow or learn something new

3. if it is memory, try going to the memory section in the preferences and checking this on:

and to try other things that may cause this, see if you can check this off

[bryang62335704]

Whoops sorry! Meant to post specs, kinda brain farted. I'm completely up to date w/ AE 2017. Running El Capitan 10.11.6.

I have 16GB of ram on my Mid-2012 MacBook Pro. I gave AE 13GB of RAM to use on its own. Despite my old system, I haven't had any significant problems since bumping up my RAM to 16GB.

I tried out what you recommended, but still no luck. Is there a way to merge strokes together like photoshop? I feel like reducing the total stroke count will help with the issue maybe...?

[Roei Tzoref]

No merging. if you can render in segmenta that could be a workaround. Try to save a copy as 13 version and see if 2015.3 is better because you may have broken Ae. I would reset preferences too, you may have changed something that is crucial maybe too much RAM to AE or just curropted pref file.

[bryang62335704]

yeah I guess merging is gonna be my solution. I appreciate the help! It's probably just my system not able to handle it or something...

Thanks!

[Roei Tzoref]

still curious what are you doing with so many brush strokes. feel free to share

[bryang62335704]

Behance https://www.behance.net/gallery/45822593/AM-draft

^ There's a link to a draft of it on my behance, I'm going frame by frame in after effects and drawing all it in at 30 FPS. I've only gotta some line work on a few pages, but it still clocked me at 5000 strokes