Large Comps = slow renders :( – any advice?

[Steve Roberts]

Unless your photos are unnecessarily large (i.e. big imported photos scaled down), I’d say you’re stuck. That sounds like a big comp, big photos, long running time. I used to do things like that overnight.

Did you enable multiprocessing?

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Motion Blur does extend render times. Is there a way you can pre-render the precomps OR Add CC fORCE Motion Blur after the initial render of the master comp?

HTH
RoRK

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[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I agree with Dave- pre-render is a time saver. It would be nice to be able to have complete control over all the elements at all time, but that will increase render time. Plus I think pre-rendering makes you think more and plan more- kind of like when you only had a roll of film to shoot pictures on an analog photo camera.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist
Bucharest, Romania
http://www.ennstudio.ro

[Tim West]

Thanks for the advice – think I’m just going to have to swallow the long render time on this one ….
… not sure pre-rendering a 2000 px x 3000 px comp would helpe me much … but I could be wrong 🙂

[Tim West]

Only say could as there really isn’t a lot going on in the big comps – no effects – just photos (at 100% of their original size so they shouldn’t be slowing it down too much).
Will give it a go later on – thanks for your input.

[Steve Roberts]

So the inside of each sub-comp is a still? No motion in there?

If that were the case, you should pre-render each sub-comp as a still. Why re-render a still effect on every frame?

[Tim West]

There is some animation – just not al ot – some of the photo’s scale and change position (the large comps are pages in a comic book style photo story) … other wise I would just use a still!

Thanks,

T

[Erik Lindahl]

A few things you might already be doing:

Prepare you media. Scale it to the maximum needed size, make sure it’s RGB PSD files and so forth. Never make them bigger than required. Avoid working with compressed files if you can.

Check that rendering. How is your system being taxed when you render? Fiddle with the multi-core settings. Really really large comps can be faster on fewer cores with more RAM addressed to them.

Work smart with proxies and pre-renders. If you end up with long render times you still have to get the jobb done. 5 hours is a full rez revision per evening if you may, hence during the day you might need to work with proxies and pre-renders.

We did a spot earlier this year that was a comp based on 3K RED material placed in an SD PAL comp (720×576) for the ability to pan, scan, scale, zoom and so forth. Some of the more complex part had 4-5 pre-comps with say 4-5 3K layers in each pre-comp. After a while you’re forced to pre-render unless you want to drive your self insane.

At the end of the day, the issue you have is something I think will be far far better on a high-end computer with CS5. It will still be there but less of a “block” in the road.

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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se

[Walter Soyka]

Erik, this is a great concise post on how to maximize AE performance by adjusting your workflow.

The only two things I’d have to add for the original poster are tips for working, not rendering. Check out Region of Interest rendering, and set up Shift-RAM preview to run at a low resolution and skip frames. I leave RAM preview at high quality settings for fine detail work, and then use Shift-RAM preview for fast and coarse evaluations.

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

[Erik Lindahl]

Ah, ofcourse! When working with preiviews go to regins of interest, work with half or quarter rez as well as every other frame. Turn off things like motion blur and frameblending and make sure you work in an 8-bit comp. You can often plan comps well also when pre-comping. Put effects on the 1024×576 pixel pre-comp rather than each 3K layer in the comp (if possible obviously).

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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se