Stop motion animation Rendering issues

[jtreadway0655]

I'm having some issues when rendering a quick stop motion video I'm working on. It's being a real nuisance, but 9 times out of 10 when I render it, it won't play or takes an incredible amount of time before loading the video, or plays just a black screen. It's a 4 second long video. The composition is set up with a sequence of jpegs. I initially started working on the project on my laptop, and after encountering the rendering issues, I thought that maybe the laptop wasn't powerful enough to kick out a video (very disappointing to think considering it's 4 seconds) I've tinkered around with the render settings but nothing I do seems to help much. I'll render it out once and it won't work. Next time with the same render settings, it will. Then I'll try again and it breaks again.

My main concern is the lack of consistency in the renders working/not working. I'm wondering if it's just this one comp being funny or if it's After Effects itself or maybe my render settings or my PC. But after moving from laptop to Desktop PC it's still having the same issues.

I'm running After Effect CS6 on Windows 10. Both are up to date.

My composition is 4 seconds at 23.976 framerate.

Render settings I've tried so far have been been pretty standard. Render settings at "Best Settings" and the Output set to Lossless with it being output as an .avi (i've also tried as a .mov with no luck) I've tried a few different codecs in both .avi and .mov outputs but honestly which would help and which would make it worse so I thought to ask.

For 4 secs, it is rather large, with the Comp set at 5184x3456 (the size of the jpg's in the animation). I'm not sure if that would even effect anything, but the few times I've had marginal success in rendering was when I changed the render resolution from "full" to "half."

I'm not sure what other information to include. I render out videos regularly, but they're usually edits of other video I've shot. I've never had this issue with those videos. Ideally, this stop motion video will be edited into a much longer video of recorded footage. This is my first stop motion render and I didn't expect this much of a hassle from 4 secs of video. Any comments or advice would be appreciated!

[Roei Tzoref · Accepted solution]

9 times out of 10 when I render it, it won't play or takes an incredible amount of time before loading the video, or plays just a black screen. the Output set to Lossless with it being output as an .avi (i've also tried as a .mov with no luck) I've tried a few different codecs in both .avi and .mov outputs but honestly which would help and which would make it worse so I thought to ask. For 4 secs, it is rather large, with the Comp set at 5184x3456 (the size of the jpg's in the animation)

lossless output is not for playback, they are for further editing or archiving. also, you should not render 5k resolution if you do not intend to playback 5k (most computers won't play even 4k).

it appears you are new to this. a common stop motion workflow would be:

1. import your jpgs as a sequence (it is best to do this in an editing software and not Ae). you should interpret them to a common frame rate - 12fps is a common frame rate.

2. create an HD 1920X1080 Composition at 24fps and drag your sequence to the composition. adjust the frame to the dimensions of HD.

3. when you are done, render your video through Adobe Media Encoder to create an mp4 playback version.

[jtreadway0655]

Thanks!  I figured rendering in such a resolution was part of the issue, I didn't want to downsize unless I absolutely had to because this little bit is going into a longer composition and thought any adjustments to dimensions and resolution I would save for then. I've always rendered directly out of Ae and haven't used Adobe Media Encoder so that'll be it's own little learning experience. Thanks a lot though! I'll try this out and then keep this info in mind for future renders

[Roei Tzoref]

I didn't want to downsize unless I absolutely had to because this little bit is going into a longer composition and thought any adjustments to dimensions and resolution I would save for then.

so you should not expect to play it back in anything other then Ae or Premiere. it is eventually supposed to be viewed on the web or a player, so you will need to create a compressed video file - H.264 mp4 is the popular format for that. more about rendering and exporting in Ae here: Basics of rendering and exporting in After Effects CC

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi JJK,

Did you ever solve your issue? Did any of Roei's responses help you get to the finish line? Please let us know the results of your efforts and if there's anything more we can assist you with.

Thanks!
Kevin