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Rendering hell…
I have over 50 after effects projects that each have anywhere from 1-10 compositions in them that need to be rendered. Surely someone here must know a way that I can have AE open each consecutive project, render the queue, then open the next project (and so on, until all are rendered)?
I’ve been using AE for 15 years, and always hated the technique of making a new blank project and importing multiple projects into it to render. It takes too much time to set up, and easily overloads the computer if you’re working with data heavy material.
I’ve also tried Media Encoder, but apparently watch lists won’t work for it as it doesn’t have the ability to “see” inside a project’s render queue? It’s also terribly frustrating importing projects into encoder only to have it default render names to the AE project name rather than the comp name. Surely there must be a workaround on that? And further frustration having to repeatedly navigate to and open the same AE project in encoder just to add different comps (why no multiple selection option?).
AE watch folder seems to be specifically for network rendering which isn’t what I want to do, so that’s a no-go for me.
Anyone? Maybe a script?
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4 Replies
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Actually, I think watch folder rendering might be useful here — you could use it with a single computer.
Personally, I’d add the word RENDER to the name of all my comps that needed to be rendered, import all the projects into one big render project, then use the renderNamedItems.jsx script to add them all to the queue.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
As I mentioned, the technique of importing all the projects into one clean project is a non-starter for me in this case. The projects are so big that if I import more than about five, everything starts moving very very slowly and often crashes.
But to ask a follow up based on your comment about watch folders, can I have after effects use a watch folder for just one computer, open consecutive projects in that folder, render the queue (as a quicktime movie with audio, not an image sequence), then close and move to the next project? This is exactly what I would like to have AE do for me. Will it, and if so, how?
thanks in advance,
Eric
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Have you considered using Adobe Media Encoder? Not exactly what you want and a bit laborious adding the comps but it could batch render the files for you.
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[Eric Patrick] “But to ask a follow up based on your comment about watch folders, can I have after effects use a watch folder for just one computer, open consecutive projects in that folder, render the queue (as a quicktime movie with audio, not an image sequence), then close and move to the next project? This is exactly what I would like to have AE do for me. Will it, and if so, how?”
You’ll have to open each individual project, then run Collect Files, and gather all the projects within the same watch folder. Once you’ve done this for each project, you can point AE at the watch folder, and it will process everything in the folder.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
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