Advice on using Templates and bought video clips in After Effects CC

[Richard210363]

Hi,

I'm making my first After Effect project using After Effects CC 2017 release.

I'm making a short party invitation for my 55th birthday

I've bought into VideoBlocks so I have content to use: (www.videoblocks.com )

I downloaded some templates and I'm using to have a place to start: Inks Parallax Slideshow ( After Effects Project Files) - YouTube 

It's a nice looking template and helps the newbie as it includes embedded instructions.    

When I render the template project as I downloaded it, the render takes about an hour.

When I add the video content to the 18 "slots" in the template my render time goes up to over 35 hours.

I tried this using the mp4 and mov versions of the files and I also tried converting them to AVI.  All of them hold MPEG4.

Questions:

Is this a reasonable render time?

I can convert the files to other formats and Codecs using Sony Vegas.  What format/Codec should I use?

I'm I missing something?

My Setup:

Windows 7 SP1 x64

Intel i7 - 4930K @ 3.40HHz.  6 Cores

24GB RAM

Assets and .aep on standard SATA HD

Rendering to SSD SATA HD

NVidia GeForce GTX 760

[Peru Bob]

What model SSDs are they?

How long are the videos you inserted in the project?

[Richard210363]

The SSD is a Corsair Force GS 250GB

The videos vary from 3 to 20 seconds. 

Hmm, I haven't considered how long the slots in the template actually last.

[Peru Bob]

Did the render actually take 35 hours or did you not let the render finish?

[Richard210363]

@Peru Bob

I let it finish.

[Dave_LaRonde]

That's NOT a reasonable time.  I recommend purging memory & caches before rendering.

If that doesn't help, I'd cast an eye on your video footage.  mp4 can be very computationally-intensive.  I'd try transcoding to a good intermediate format like quicktime movies in Photo JPEG, PNG or Animation codecs.

And another thing -- the youtube thingy I saw used still images.  You're using video.  AE has a lot less thinking to do with still images than with video, so that could be the root of the problem.

[Richard210363]

@Dave LaRonde

I'll transcode to Photo JPEG and see what I get.

[Richard210363]

I transcoded to Photo JPEG  and Video UT (to try it out).  Times dropped to 20 hours (I didn't let it finish this time).

I think I have just picked the wrong template for use with video.  I'll keep playing around to see what works best.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Richard,

What did you end up doing to solve this issue? Did you end up exporting this template? Let us know what you did and if you can provide any advice to others, that would be great.

Thanks,
Kevin