Is it posible to get realtime hd playback in aftereffects?

[Jeff Brown]

AE (like Combustion) plays back from RAM, not from disk. So, no, it is doubtful you can get RT playback without caching or rendering first.

-jeff

[Miles Blow]

Thanks Jeff
Can paging files and disk cache do much towards play back performance…I have been a bit scared to play with any settings?

thanks
Miles

[Jeff Brown]

I can’t address Macintosh performance issues, but on WinXP, the best thing is as much memory as possible (up to the system limit). I use Combustion, which can take advantage of XP’s ability to address 3 GB of RAM for an application (boot.ini modification is required– search Microsoft for “3 GB switch”), so 4 GB of RAM is the practical limit at the moment for 32-bit apps; about 3 GB can be used by Combustion, with the system using much of the remaining 1 GB.

Disk-related performance gains can be seen by having footage on the fastest media, such as a RAID 0 stripe set connected locally. This will let the software load files faster, and with complex comps, even a little bit of improvement can add up to more efficient workflow. _DO_ backup your data to a safer storage area, however!

Hope it helps,
Jeff

[Miles Blow]

Thanks for the reply. We are pc aswell. I’ll try that microsoft 3gb ram fix. Ive got the raid stripe happening. So I will see if it helps to speed things up.
thanks
Miles

[Agent2a03]

Hey Miles I recognized you from the stopmoanim message boards… I’m finishing up my stopmotion feature now so we might be able to share some experiences as I have nearly the same Computer setup as you and we are both probably working with massive image sequences from our DSLR’s… Send me an email as I would love to interact with another animator attempting the impossible 🙂

My email is Mike@wearethestrange.com

[Miles Blow]

Hi Mike
Yes it always good to know there there are others out there feeling the same pain..Ha Ha. I’ll email.

Miles

[Kevin Watkins]

I’m getting up to 15 secs of RAM real time preview in AE (on a G5). One trick I’ve learnt is NOT to render at a smaller frame resolution – for some reason it takes more processing power to scale down.

What is ‘stopmoanim’? I’m doing an animated piece using DSC images as well. Would love to connect with others who are ‘doing the impossible’ (wait till you see what madness I have been up to!)

[Miles Blow]

Hi Kevin
sounds like your having fun! Unfortunatly we need to scale down(to preview ) as our original files are 3k. What files size are you working with?….I think agent was refering to stopmotion animation forum

.https://www.stopmotionanimation.com/dc/dcboard.php

here it is here..Its great for info on stopmo.

[Kevin Watkins]

Yeah, I have the same issue. I scale down to about 55% to fit within a 16×9 HD frame. I then output a sequenced in-between file, which I re-import and work on (mostly roto). Sometimes I nest sequences but have found realtime playback issues.

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

[Kevin Watkins] “One trick I’ve learnt is NOT to render at a smaller frame resolution – “

Close 🙂 It’s not really a matter of not preving at a smaller resolution, but rather making sure that the RAM preview options match the Composition viewing options. This is, if RAM preview is set to “half”, then the Comp options should match that by having 50 per cent magnification and half resolution. When RAM preview is set to Full, the Comp settings should be 100 per cent and Full. In other words, RAM previews work best when the settings match the current Composition viewing settings. In the last versions of AE, you have “Auto” as an option for most RAM preview settings, so it will work well that way.
Hope this helps.

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
adolfo(AT)adolforozenfeld.com