How to run two AE apps at the same time, on the same computer?

[Steve Roberts]

Here’s a previous cow post:

The best use of that box would be to set up a render using the “multi-machine” preset, then to save that project. Next, from the command line, launch 3 new instances of AE thusly:

“C:…Program Files…Adobe…After Effects 6.5…Support Files…AfterFX.exe” -m

(dots substitute for slashes here – COW don’ like no slashes)
Open the project in each instance and hit render.
Remember, this only works when rendering image sequences. When done, do a quick render of the sequence into a movie if you like.

In other words, just add space-minus-m after the normal target path, but outside the quotes.

Steve

[Nate Biehl]

Could you please direct me to the earlier discussion of this subject or go into a little more detail about this method of running multiple applications? The ability to render in the background while still beng able to work would increase my efficiency a great deal, but I don’t understand the above response. Thanks
Nate Biehl

[Steve Roberts]

You can search the COW on “instances”. You might need to search the archives.

The response above referred to rendering faster by using two instances of AE to render a sequence of stills. One instance renders frame one, the other frame 2, then they leapfrog odd and even like that. It allows you to use your processors to the max. Yes, it should work on a single-proc box, but not as quickly, obviously.

For your situation, launch AE, set up a render, and go. For the second instance, copy/paste the normal AE shortcut, then add space-minus-m as mentioned to the target field of the shortcut under its “properties”. To launch the second instance, click this shortcut and work normally.

If you’re on the mac, duplicate the application icon and rename it “copy of AE” or whatever. Click this icon to launch the second instance. Or the first. Clicking one specific icon before the other isn’t crucial.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Jaime Lackner]

Oh that’s right!
That post stated that this only works when rendering image sequences.
But I have rendered quicktime movies just fine.
So I don’t really get that
Thanks again
Jaime

[Steve Roberts]

You can render a QT movie on one instance while you work on another instance, another file, but you can’t use two instances to render the same QT file — it has to be an image sequence that you render with two instances simultaneously.

Unless I missed the memo … 🙂

Steve

[Nate Biehl]

Thanks for the clarification. Worked like a charm. I can’t wait to use this.
Biehl

[Fredriksdv]

One thing to remember, uncheck “Use storage overflow” and check “Skip existing files” in Render Settings to make this work. This whole multiple instances hack is a hidden gem imo. After Effects isn’t multithreaded well enough to take full advantage of a dual or quad proc setup during rendering. With this you will see your render times on multiproc systems going down quite a lot…

Cheers,
Fred