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Multiple HD display project
I’m working on a huge project that will need to synchronize multiple HD displays and projectors. I’m trying to create content in a way where all of the displays act as a single canvas together.
I’ve done a little of this before, but not at this scale.My question is about After Effects and how I can realistically develop content. If I put all my displays and projection together my source comp is over 8000 pixels wide. Generating effects in this resolution is a little scary, but I’m more concerned about the rendering. If I take that massive comp and import it back into a HD comp (one for each display), does it still do the computation for the massive resolution or just the HD comp that it’s cropped to?
I did a couple quick tests and looked at my log files, but didn’t see that information.
I would work at a lesser resolution and scale up, but the content is a for a projection and display company and anything but true resolution is unacceptable.
Any information about how AE approaches it’s rendering, or any better ideas as far as work flow would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-B -
4 Replies
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Thanks Dave,
Yes playback will be a challenge, but we’ve got some good solutions.
DOREMI v1 UHD can synchronize for playback. They’re on the expensive side, so I’m seeing if they can sync with the DOREMI Nugget. Thanks for the feedback.
-Bart Stevens -
Bart, I generally proxy my extra-large comps to full-res image sequences, then allow the outputs to render referencing the proxies. This is very disk-intensive, so a fast RAID helps.
I almost always reuse my full-res renders for pre-visualizations anyway, so having that image sequence is a big plus in other areas of my workflow. Other big benefits to image sequences: you can easily resume a failed render, and if a small portion of a longer comp changes, you only need to re-render the changed frames.
And thank you, Dave, for the kind words!
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 -
Thanks for the info Walter.
Yes, I’ve learned the hard way that rendering image sequences is a safer way to go.
I did some more searches on the forum about my challenge, and came across an artist that would work with multiple cameras within the “gigantic multiple display comp”. Each camera would match up with a specific display, and he would render specifically for that camera.Would that method have better performance over importing the “gigantic comp” into a HD comp and position and crop.
I want to avoid the mass computations that would be needed if AE is rendering the massive comp vs. a cropped HD comp.
I’m still not sure if even re-importing the cropped “gigantic comp” into a HD comp would eliminate the processing for the entire Comp.Thanks again,
Bart -
[bart stevens] “I did some more searches on the forum about my challenge, and came across an artist that would work with multiple cameras within the “gigantic multiple display comp”. Each camera would match up with a specific display, and he would render specifically for that camera. Would that method have better performance over importing the “gigantic comp” into a HD comp and position and crop.”
That seems like a much, much harder workflow, and I doubt that it would be faster — but it should be easy enough to test.
[bart stevens] “I did a couple quick tests and looked at my log files, but didn’t see that information.”
Although the logs don’t calculate and show the render times per comp, they do show the time that each comp started and finished rendering, so you can easily calculate the render time.
The render queue window itself does show render time per comp.
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
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