Rendering VERY slow no matter what codec i chose

[danielp74485736]

Hopefully someone can help shed some light on this, because it's driving me up the wall. I am new to After Effects, I am getting into the Vj field. Basically i'm making 2-3 minute clips of still images with effects on them, by no means ground-breaking stuff. My problem is the rendering/encoding. The Vj software i'm using runs the clips best in Mpeg2 format. At first i was trying to render directly into Mpeg2 format in AME, and that was a nightmare. It literally told me over 24 hours to render a 1 minute clip!! No matter if i chose high bitrate, medium bitrate, 720p at 25 fps. I think i literally tried every one. Then i took a clip that i had already rendered into Mpeg4 then i put that in AME to render into Mpeg2 and it went relatively quick. So i thought i had found a way to make it work, buti started a new project in AE, 2 minutes, still even though im not rendering into Mpeg 2, I can't find ANY format that takes less than 3-4 hours to render. Im just thinking this can't be right, i only have 1 layer, maybe 2-3 sometimes 4 effects on it. I just don't see why it's taking hours and hours to render no matter what i chose. I will say i could definitely beef up my hardware, but i have looked all over the forums and there are people with super beefed up hardware that are having the same issues so thats making me hesitant to go and sink a bunch of money i don't have into some new super-computer. Please help, somebody.

[davidarbor]

Welcome to the world of After Effects, things can be incredibly slow. So there are a few things to understand and a few questions to ask:

1) What are the specs of your computer?

•      Processor type and speed
•      Total RAM
•      Type of drive you're working from (SSD or HDD) and whether or not you an additional fast drive for caching or whether you're running, Ae, loading your assets, AND caching your timeline to the same drive.
•      GPU (less important in After Effects for now, but some effects have become GPU-accelerated in the last couple of releases)

2) What resolution is your comp set to, and what is your Comp panel's resolution set to for previewing in your timeline (Full, Half, Third, Quarter, or Auto?)

3) What effects are you putting on your images and how are you using them? Are you just dropping them on or are you animating a lot of properties?

4) What version of Ae and OS are you running?

There are many more questions to ask, but understanding how After Effects works is important to getting good render/export speeds.

Additionally, you should be exporting a master file from After Effects like DNxHD or ProRes and then converting to your delivery format for best results. This is another conversation though.

[Mylenium]

Don't render to clips, render to image sequences from AE directly and compile the movie later.

Mylenium

[Dave_LaRonde]

It also helps a lot to know what you're doing in your comps.  For example: if you're trying to use ray tracing -- which you SHOULD NOT DO -- it's a huge time-suck.  So is noise reduction.  So is 3D and multiple lights.

[Rick Gerard]

My first clue to long render times is when you said:

Basically i'm making 2-3 minute clips of still images with effects on them, by no means ground-breaking stuff.

I'm guessing that these images come from a digital camera and that they are a lot bigger than the composition size. For maximum efficiency you should have all of your still images resized before you start to that they are somewhere close to 100% scale at some point in the design. I can't tell you how many workshops and seminars I've taught where folks were doing slide shows with images from their DSLR that were never more than 20% scale.

The only other suggestion that I have is to use the Adobe Media encoder to render directly to MPEG 2 using one of the presets (It's hard to believe that your VJ software will not read MP4's), then check the render time for something like a 2 minute piece, then render using the Render Cue and either the Lossless or the Tiff Sequence preset, record the render time, then drop the Tiff (or create a png sequence preset) in the AME and render your final product and add up the time. Most of the time, for me, it's faster to drop a comp in the AME and render directly to MP4, and then keep working in AE while the first comp is rendering.

One more FYI, If you are doing simple slide shows and the moves on the images are simple, you'll probably be better off using Premiere Pro. The renders will be way faster and so will the work of creating the sequence in the first place. You should only be using AE to do things you cannot do in a NLE.

[danielp74485736]

Hey guys thanks for the help so far. I'm honestly almost at a loss for

words at this point. As far as my hardware specs

-Processor is AMD E2-1800 APU, 1700mhz, 2 cores

-4g Ram

-Gpu is AMD Radeon 7340

I have the newest version of AE. I'm really hoping that getting a better pc

will help fix all this. As far as the images they're not from a camera,

their like psychedelic visionary art made in photoshop/corel painter etc. I

always have them sized the exact same size as my comp.Like i said though

i'm just lost at this point. I decided maybe i'm trying to do too much at

once? So i figured just to test my theory i'd try something more basic. So

still a 2 minute clip, 1 image, 1 layer, 2 effects. A mirror on the bottom

at 640x360, then on top of that a slant effect that i have keyframed. It's

an image of a face and with the mirror and slant it basically looks like

the face is kind of feeding into itself if that makes sense. Now i could be

wrong but i feel like this is something VERY basic and drop in the bucket.

As far as automations it's only 2 keyframes on the slant making it go from

-70 back to 0 as the 2 minute clip plays. I thought to myself theres no way

this can take a bunch of time to render. I tried to go ahead and render

into Mpeg2. The est time remaining did the same thing it's been doing since

i've been fighting with this thing since 5:00a.m. lol. It starts off saying

somewhere around 1 1/2 hr. then just goes up and up and literally doesn't

stop. Like i said i'm planning to get a a laptop with i7-7700k, 16g Ram,

Nvidia 1070 i think?, and 256 SSD. I'm really hoping that should take care

of this issue, but like i said i'm hesitant to even spend that kind of

money if i'm going to run into the same issues. Thanks guys.

On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 1:46 PM, Rick Gerard <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[Szalam · Accepted solution]

An ancient, dual-core AMD processor running at 1.7GHz?

Only 4 GB of RAM?

That IS going to be slow. Especially since you're trying to encode directly into an MPEG codec.

I'd get a bigger SSD, but yes, that laptop should be a big change from what you are currently trying to use.

[Rick Gerard]

4GB ram = slow renders

AMD processor = probably slow

3D layers = slower than 2D

Lights and cameras = slowdowns

Add them all together and you get slow performance. I have projects that I consider working well when the renders are taking five to seven minutes per frame. I have other projects that I expect to render at the rate of 5 or 6 frames per second. It all depends on what I am doing in the comp. 90% of my complex projects are rendered to image sequences because it's easier to go back in and fix 10 frames the director wants changed. More than 90% of my AE comps are seven seconds or less because I work on dramatic and narrative films and most shots in a sequence in most films of this type are seven seconds or less. It's a rare day that I assemble a sequence in After Effects. If it do the sequence is limited to one or two sentences, a phrase, a stanza, or a musical phrase. If I can do an effect in Premiere Pro instead of AE I do it there.

I hope this helps. Don't expect AE to be much faster in the near future. There's a lot that needs to change in the basic architecture of the app for rendering to take advantage of the new pixel mashing capabilities of the latest GPU's.

[Szalam]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Rick+Gerard  wrote

AMD processor = probably slow

AMD processor = not technically supported on the current version of AE at all.

Hopefully that changes as the new generation of AMD chips that were just officially announced start becoming more common because they look like they might be good bang for the buck and finally give Intel some competition.

[danielp74485736]

Okay, yea i definitely figured that my pawnshop laptop was giving me a bit

of a hurdle. I guess it would help if i give a direct example of what im

trying to do. I don't know if you guys have heard of Johnathan Singer, but

he's a live visual artist for bands/dj's. Ever since i got into this i've

been trying to get my works looking similar to his, but none of the

tutorials i can find relate to what im trying to do. Well i finially

started chatting with him and getting tips/tricks. I was trying to do

everything in my Vj software, but he told me just use that for triggering

clips essientially, and that i should start using AE so i have higher

quality effects. I guess i should have gone into further detail with him

and asked if there where anyother softwares but i just assumed he was

saying AE + Vj software=Boom. Heres a short clip from one of his live

shows. If any of you Adobe wizards can watch this and decipher "Hey that

was done this way, and done in AE or Premiere Pro etc." By all means let me

know because i've already gotten comments saying AE might not be what i'm

looking for. At least not to actually generate these moving shapes out of a

still image.Any help appreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CnUESgOlr8