image buffer problems

[Erik Waluska]

Check the related threads below or do a search as this has been discussed here many, many times.

-E

[Todd Kopriva]

Moving to a 64-bit application for After Effects CS5 means that this error is a thing of the past. But, for folks still on After Effects CS4 and earlier, this search pulls up useful information.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Paul Golden]

Hi Todd…

I hate to break it to you, but I’m on CS5 and getting the dreaded “After Effects error: invalid image buffer size (1605×30067)”

I’m on a Mac 8 core with 24gb of ram. I’ve enable multiprocessor rendering. In an image sequence, my timeline craps out at frame 471 every time. I’ve tried this file on another Mac running CS5 as well as a PC running it.

I can’t seem to locate anything thats causing it….

Help!

[Todd Kopriva]

30067?! That’s big. The internal limit is 30,000 pixels high and wide in After Effects. If you’re running into that limit, you’re doing something quite extraordinary.

First of all, turn of Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing. There’s no point in trying to get multiple processes to render multiple frames simultaneously until you’ve succeeded in getting one frame to render at a time.

Do you have a really large footage item that’s the source of a layer that starts at the frame that’s causing you problems?

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
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[Paul Golden]

Thanks Todd…

I’ve managed to track down the layer that’s causing the issue and turned it off (it was another artist’s comp so I wasn’t sure what its function was, but it doesn’t affect it too much visually).

This comp size is 1500 x 1500 (to be used as a sub element later) so I’m trying now to figure out why that layer is giving me a 30K wide element. I agree that’s ridiculously large.

One question: does AE do math on stuff outside the rendered area (1500 x 1500)? The comp would render at everything other render size than Full image res (that’s the way I figured out the rogue layer). If the comp renders at Half res, does AE not bother calculating outside of the visible area or is it essentially 15K across within the memory of what I’m doing?

And how does 64bit change this equation from CS4 in this circumstance?

Paul

[Todd Kopriva]

> This comp size is 1500 x 1500 (to be used as a sub element later) so I’m trying now to figure out why that layer is giving me a 30K wide element. I agree that’s ridiculously large

It could be any number of things. One thing to keep in mind is that the image buffer isn’t necessarily the size of the layer; it’s the size of the box in rendering space that is needed to process the layer. Various effects, 3D manipulations, and such can cause a layer to require a larger image buffer than the size of the layer.

> One question: does AE do math on stuff outside the rendered area (1500 x 1500)?

Yes, things outside of the composition frame can be considered for rendering.

> And how does 64bit change this equation from CS4 in this circumstance?

In 32-bit After Effects CS4, the theoretical maximum amount of RAM that an isntance of the application could use was 4GB (and was 2-3GB in practical reality). In 64-bit After Effects CS5, the amount of RAM that an instance of the application can use is way, way, way beyond what you can cram into a computer.

The practical outcome is that After Effects can hold many GB of rendered images, intermediate caches, and so on in RAM. Specific to this case, the RAM available to the process doing the rendering is far greater than it would’ve been in After Effects CS4. In After Effects CS4, people would hit the dreaded image buffer error just trying to render 4K digital-cinema-sized frames (about 4,000 pixels across). Now, that just doesn’t happen.

The 30,000-pixel limit persists in CS5 and for somewhat different reasons. But that is way beyond where people were getting with CS4.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
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[Brian Brown]

Ok coming from an ametuer standpoint please tell me how did you find the layer that was rouge. Is there a way to view properties on each layer if so how?