RAM Preview vs. Final Render?

[Jim Dodson]

PS – I have the entire comp Cached to the hard disk – so I can’t understand why those cached RAM preview frames can’t be used for the final render…

Jim Dodson

8 Core Intel — Mac – OSX

[Graham Macfarlane]

Hi Jim,

When you initially did your RAM cache, did you have AE set to show full resolution?

Graham Macfarlane – 3D visualisation and VFX
3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

http://www.elyarch.com – London UK

[Jim Dodson]

Hi Graham-

Great question – I thought we had cracked it, because I did not have it set to full resolution. But I just ran a test; RAM previewing at full resolution – cache’ing those frames then doing a final render and it does indeed still need to re-render those frames again.

Jim Dodson

8 Core Intel — Mac – OSX

[Graham Macfarlane]

In the render settings you can set a final render to full, half, third, quarter or custom, just like the setting at the bottom of the main comp window for the RAM/disk caching. I take it they both match?

Don’t forget that even if AE is rendering from RAM/disk cache, it won’t render at real-time playback speed. This is because it has to compress the data into a video stream or compress the image files and store them too. Depending on the destination location, drive speed and compression choice, you could experience slowdowns of perhaps the order of a second or two per frame for HD.

Graham Macfarlane – 3D visualisation and VFX
3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

http://www.elyarch.com – London UK

[Jim Dodson]

Thanks Graham — thanks to you — I have a solution of sorts… Although, considering my settings and the fact that I am not using motion blur on any layer and the master Motion Blur button remains off, it feels like an AE bug or at least a strange hiccup. Here’s what I discovered:

My render queue settings automatically sets Motion Blur to “On for Checked Layers”.

Even though I have no layers with checked motion blur (I’m not using motion blur at all), when I manually change Motion Blur to “off” in the Render Settings, AE successfully uses the Cached frames in the final render and it goes REALLY fast.

THEN I realized if I change Motion Blur Render Settings to “Current Settings” it also uses the CACHED frames – this is probably the best choice for that setting…

Thanks again Graham!! Really appreciate it!!!

Jim Dodson

8 Core Intel — Mac – OSX

[Graham Macfarlane]

Glad you got to the solution!

Graham Macfarlane – 3D visualisation and VFX
3D Studio Max | Vray | Pflow | PhoenixFD | After effects | Mocha

http://www.elyarch.com – London UK