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Render set of same compositions with an updated element. Easy way?
Hello everybody,
I am working on a project for a university department creating videos of models performing simple tasks, tracking their heads and replacing them with heads of patients (helps them to learn the language). In the past I have created 20 compositions and each time I have added one composition after the other to Encoder, and then rendered them all at once. I need to do this 120 times. Since the only change in all the compositions is the transparent PSD file with a new face, is there any way where I can render over and over the same set of compositions without adding them always to the queue?
Ideally, I would open the project, open the composition to that holds the head image, replace it, and render all the compositions I have. I would like to avoid adding all the composition to the queue. Is there a way?
Thank you
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2 Replies
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That last sentence of yours sounds very doable – if the head element is in a precomp and that precomp is used by every composition, then changing that one head will ripple through all the comps.
For all the comps you can set up a single preset that will populate the render settings so you can just hit cntrl M in each comp and that will populate the render cue with everything already filled in.I’ll bet there is a script for multi comp renders but the issue is that not every comp will need to be rendered (the precomp of the head for instance) and you have to choose a name of the file and a destination (ok you don’t have to because it will render to the last place you did). The script would have to be shown the comps that will need to be rendered everytime.
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You could put all 120 comps in the Ae Render Queue once, then use the “Queue in AME” button to set them up for render en masse. After you render the first set and replace the image, go back to the Ae Render Queue, select all the render items, and click the Enabled checkbox for one of them. Because they’re multi-selected, they will all re-enable, and you can do a one-click “Queue in AME” again.
Personally, I would actually render directly from the Ae render queue to an intermediate format, then use AME after the fact to create compressed deliverables.
Further, I’d set it all up in one go, then let the computer render them all until it was done. If you IMPORT the original .AEP into a new project multiple times, you’ll get independent copies of the project, all in one place. This will let you do the first head replacement in the first imported project folder, the second head replacement in the second imported project folder, etc.
You could use one of these renaming script to batch-rename each set of 120 comps so you can keep them straight:
https://www.crgreen.com/aescripts/ (see Project_Items_Renamer.jsx)
https://aescripts.com/ae-global-renamer/If you have set up your original project such that the 120 render comps have one unique label color that is unused by any non-render items or comps (like maybe Green or Fuschia), you can click the label for one of them in the project panel, choose “Select Label Group,” and you will have every render comp across the entire open project selected. Then you can add them to the render queue and let them cook overnight.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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