macbook pro after effects cs4 frame by frame rendering horrible

[Michael Szalapski]

After Effects always renders frame by frame. What’s in each frame determines how long it takes per frame. Sometimes it can look like it’s doing more at a time because it moves so fast, but if there are a lot of things happening it will take longer per frame.
I’m using a computer with dual quad-core processors and 16 gigs of RAM. And even with that kind of horsepower, it’s not at all uncommon for me to see one frame take several seconds to render. Now, I often work in HD with 3d layers, particle systems and other render hogs in the mix, but that’s just normal for motion graphics work. You may think it’s slow, but 10 years ago people would be willing to kill to get speed like you have.

Also, After Effects 9 (CS4) is in no way 64 bit. CS5 is the first time we get to taste the 64 bit glory. Depending on how long ago you purchased CS4, you will probably be entitled to a cheaper upgrade cost.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Chris Mclaughlin]

Hi Michael…thanks for the response…i understand what you are saying but does that mean i will still get one after the other consecutive frames rendering one by one…when it renders it goes like this….numbers are frames…12…13…14…15…16…17 an so on..usually AE seems to render other projects like 6 or 7 frames at a time. I have not had where AE takes more than a second to render just one frame….is there any little short cut or settings to play with to help speed it up just a little…does it matter what kind of footage it is…should still images be JPEGS and not PSD’s….
thanks again…looking forward to CS5 if that’s the case
chris

[Michael Szalapski]

For your JPEG vs. PSD question, try a test.

Dave is correct in his post. It’s odd that you’ve never experienced AE taking a while. Either that or you haven’t done much in AE.

Here’s a page on improving your AE performance.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Chris Mclaughlin]

ok thanks…well back to the rendering I go…its all not that bad because the results are worth waiting for…thanks again for your input
chris

[Dom Panico]

I just got after effects and my new macbook pro with an i7 processor and 4 gb of memory. whenever i open after effects and import any clip of footage i have from my 1080p camera all HD, i press space bar to play it. And it goes very slow. I assume this is because it is rendering, but i mean it goes REALLY slow. more than 30 seconds and it slows down my entire computer in general. Once i close the program my entire computer studders because it is having a hard time to catch up from the Really long rendering job from just importing and testing the footage. Why is that?

[Michael Szalapski]

Why? Well, for one thing, you made the mistake of not learning the basics of AE before you jumped in. There is no good reason to use the spacebar to preview things in AE. I honestly don’t even know why that’s a function. Read up on previewing here [link].

Secondly, what version of AE are you using? If it’s CS4 then Dave’s Stock Answer applies:

Dave’s Stock Answer #1:

If the footage you imported into AE is any kind of the following — footage in an HDV acquisition codec, MPEG1, MPEG2, mp4, m2t, H.261 or H.264 — you need to convert it to a different codec.

These kinds of footage use temporal, or interframe compression. They have keyframes at regular intervals, containing complete frame information. However, the frames in between do NOT have complete information. Interframe codecs toss out duplicated information.

In order to maintain peak rendering efficiency, AE needs complete information for each and every frame. But because these kinds of footage contain only partial information, AE freaks out, resulting in a wide variety of problems.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Mark Mallett]

A different codec like…..?

[Michael Szalapski]

Quicktime with the PNG codec (NOT a PNG sequence) is pretty good. It’s a technically lossless file format, but is (usually) smaller in file size than Quicktime with the Animation codec. Be warned: Lossless video file sizes are going to be huge compared to the highly compressed formats off of most cameras.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Mark Mallett]

I’m shooting on a JVC HM-100 which is direct to Quicktime format (.mov). Is this a good format for Adobe Effects, and if it is, I can’t say I am experiencing much better rendering than the above users. It’s awful, actually, just to apply warp stabilizer to a clip.

[Mark Mallett]

I think it’s SONY XDCAM EX Code….