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Large file sizes creating problems, I think.
Good Morning,
I was handed off a project that someone else started working on in AE. I rendered it out last night and came back this morning to find several issues with the exported .mov file. I went back to original comp and noticed a few things:
• First thing I noticed was file size of comp given to me was 8000×4000. My fault for not catching that before trying export.
• AE was VERY sluggish when trying to load RAM previews or just playing through with the spacebar.I tossed the 8000×4000 mov file into Encoder and after a few hours viola, I had a file size I could work with, but not without some issues like audio cutting out and certain effects and text not showing up.
I suspect the problem is due to the enormous size of the comp added with a lot of moving pictures and text, but I could be wrong. Problem of AE gumming up could be duplicated on two similar Mac’s.
A little about the project:
It’s a 5:30 slide show with photos and moving text that a client wants. The person who started it isn’t familiar very with After Effects . I was brought in after the s—t hit the fan
Comp had been made into 5 separate pre-comps and I rendered out each precomp and stitched it all together in PPro to get a completed version
My question is whether or not my hunch is correct about the comp size being the reason I was having problems with and if so, how I can fix it.
Thanks!
Alan Balch
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Videographer/Carle Foundation Hosptial
al********@***le.com -
9 Replies
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Thanks for this response, Dave. Very well said indeed. Now I need to figure out how to streamline this process to make revisions easier.
Alan Balch
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Videographer/Carle Foundation Hosptial
alan.balch@carle.com -
Assuming that you are looking for a 1920×1080 output, the 8000×4000 precomp stuff sounds like a rookie mistake on the part of the previous artist. You are now stuck rendering almost 15.5x as many pixels as required for your output. As you note, this will slow Ae down enormously.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Thanks for your response, Walter. Something I thought may work to speed up the process is to change the sequence settings in AE to what I want and thereby adjust the file sizes. My rationale for this is when I’m in PPro I can create a sequence to the dimensions I want and if a file comes in larger (like a photo) I can resize it to match my sequence settings.
I tried this in AE and it did change the comp size, but not the file sizes. Am I on the right track for this thinking?
Alan Balch
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Videographer/Carle Foundation Hosptial
alan.balch@carle.com -
An update:
After making a copy of the project I have decided to get a little creative with my problem solving so here is what I have done.changed the comp size from 8000×4000 to 1920×1080 then selected all files in comp and used “Fit to Comp”. While the photos fit to size, the animation and graphics associated with them all went askew.
After an “undo” I tried again batch processing all files in photoshop to create file sizes in 1920×1080, then imported all files in AE and used opt+click to replace each large file with the recently created 1080 file. The same result occurred. The photo fit into the comp, but all key frames associated with them were way off.
Any idea why this would happen?
Thanks!
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All the animation assumes the original sizing. Resizing the comp and/or swapping out the underling assets will not adjust the position keyframe data. Use the “Scale Composition.jsx” script instead. With one of your 8000×4000 comps open, File > Scripts > Scale Composition. Set the new width to 1920 and run it.
HOWEVER — if the original artist is using an 8000×4000 comp as a very high-res source to pan around in somewhere else in the project, your overall approach of resizing these precomps will not work.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “Use the “Scale Composition.jsx” script instead. With one of your 8000×4000 comps open, File > Scripts > Scale Composition. Set the new width to 1920 and run it.
“Walter, this technique worked beautifully. Thank you for walking me through that. If you’re ever in my area, let me know because I owe you a drink…. a few of them.
Alan Balch
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Videographer/Carle Foundation Hosptial
alan.balch@carle.com -
Hey Walter, project is all done and wrapped up, thanks again for your help. Now that it’s finished I want to try to address an issue I had from the beginning, that is the original file sizes being so large.
The original artist was using .png files created in InDesign and migrated over to AE, that’s why the files were so big. Using the technique you told me about, I was able to scale everything down, but I’m still working with some pretty large source files that are around 30mb apiece. My source files are all photos so I resized them all in Photoshop and saved them as .jpgs at 1920×1080, what they should have been originally and now each photo is a manageable 3mb. I have saved my original project, so now it’s time to experiment a little with the copy I’ve made.
My goal is to replace all the .png’s with my correctly sized .jpgs and have a easier time with this project the next time it comes up.
I took one comp that had been resized using the “Scale Compositon.jsx” and replaced all the .png’s with my 1920×1080 .jpgs. The result is the image below.
the text and animation remains the same, but the photo size has shrunk. Do you know what causes this and if there is a way to achieve the result I am after?
Thanks again for your time.
Alan Balch
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Videographer/Carle Foundation Hosptial
alan.balch@carle.com -
Thanks, Dave. I’ll give that a shot.
Alan Balch
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Videographer/Carle Foundation Hosptial
alan.balch@carle.com -
Funny that file size and project reminds me of past work with display setups for Christie MicroTiles system.
I was able to playback from an old MacPro at something over 5000×4000 (forgot the actual pixels).
I could have just scaled up an HD clip but where’s the fun in that 🙂Back to bad pre-comp size, yes Ive inherited some crazy sizes due to DSLR photos used as starting points.
Just gotta dig deep and resize them.
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