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AE 6.5 freezing temporarily
Hi,
I am using After Effects 6.5 on an iMac Intel Core Duo 2.4GHz machine with 2G ram.I am building a layered composition, and every now and then when I click on something, weather I am moving the playhead, wishing to select a keyframe, or anything else really the mouse will turn to the rainbow spinning ball and hang for a bit. Sometimes it can be for quite a while before resuming again.
This is frustrating as I have a great deal of work to do on this composition and could do with out the unnecessary wait.
I am thinking that it has something to do with the number of layers I have (95), and I plan to start a new composition to finish off this one, but I need to find a suitable place to stop first.
I was just wondering if anyone else has had the same problem? And if so what can I do to stop it!
Thanks,
Martin -
6 Replies
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What size are you working in (SD, PAL, HD etc.)?
Are any/many of the layers set to 3d layers? if so, are you using After Effects lights and cameras?
What dimensions are the layers you are working with? As in, are many of your layers larger than 1,000×1,000 pixels?
What types of layers? Are there more than a few video layers?
All these questions lead to one thing – 95 layers is quite a few, especially on a machine with 2GB RAM and an older version of AE, and I am assuming your source materials are on your single internal hard drive or a single external drive, which is also going to choke on that much material at one time. If many of these layers are video, are very large stills (bigger than 1,500×1,500) or are in 3d space, you are going to bog down very quickly and might need to make some adjustments to your workflow. Your render times are going to get quite hideous as well.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Hmmmmm….oh dear.
Well, the project I am working on is for an installation and exhibition, so the comp is 3072 x 768, running at 25fps.
Some of the layers are 3D but not all. There are only 2 lights and they are brief. And only the active camera so far. Although I don’t plan to add more.
There is one main video clip playing through out (dancer on a keyed out background, with nothing else going on), and then mainly animated still drawings for the rest of it. some images are bigger than 1000 pixels for scaling reasons.
Unfortunately I am running the files off a single internal hard drive (I usually edit video off an external, but don’t know why I started this project on the internal one!).
The render times are quite long. Can you suggest anything to improve my workflow with this project?
Thanks for your input.
Martin -
If you have many layers that make up one element of your project, try rendering them out as a group to an Animation code Quicktime and replacing their usage in your comps with the movie file. This can help substantially, and is especially true of any layers/animation with 3d layers, lights etc. which tend to bog AE down in large comps.
Other than that, most tactics for improving perfomance are best done before you begin, because trying to retool your project once it’s underway can be more time than it’s worth.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Hi Brendan,
Thanks for your help. As I was trying to get to sleep last night I did wonder whether exporting some of the layers and then bringing them back in would ease things up a bit. I’ll give that a try later today.Unfortunately the project kind of snowballed out of control before having the time to properly figure out the best way to go about building it all!
Thanks again. Time to get back to work and to try and sort it out!
Martin -
As mentioned Pre-rendering some of your elements will help immensely… also reduce the scale and resolution of your Composition window and temporarily turn off layers you’re not currently working with. Also temporarily turn off effects that you’re not currently working with. Turn everything back on when you’re ready to wait for a decent resolution preview or render. Accurately trim the in and out points of all of your layers as well. It is my understanding that a layer that is obscured by another layer, out of frame, or that has an opacity of zero still uses processing power. It sounds like this project would be a bear even on a MacPro running CS3. My condolences and good luck.
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Thanks for your help again, I’ve just been through and accurately trimmed my layers, some hadn’t been and some were a bit out!
I had previously been working on the comp at the lowest quality resolutions and with the other suggestions you mentioned, but I was unaware that it would still process the layers which weren’t trimmed, hopefully that should speed things up a bit now!
My next task is to try and get the size of the final file size down….Any ideas?
Thanks again for your suggestions and moral support!
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