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Rendering multiple cameras
I have an AE comp with 8 cameras. It’s a 1080p comp with a great deal of 3D nested comps, so render times are really long. I need a separate render for each camera for the length of the comp. Since the render times are so great, I would prefer to queue these up and leave the machine overnight.
The problem is that in between renders, the active camera must switch or I’ll just get the same thing. So I have to stay up with it and every 3-4 hours click the eyeball and then queue the render. Perhaps there is a script out there to automate this? I know that I can just dupe the comp 8 times, one for each camera, but not only is that a kludge, every time I make a change I’ll have to ditch the dupes, make the change, and re-dupe them, or else risk variations between cameras.
Am I missing a simple solution? It seems silly that you can’t render multiple angles at a single go. Clearly I can do this, but I’d sure like to avoid the above procedure. I’m in CS4 if that matters.
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5 Replies
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you can probably pre-comp all you layers (not you cameras or lights) and then click the ‘collapse transformations’ box in the layer switches (looks like a little sun icon).
now you dup your comp and change the active cameras and you can render those. when you make a change to the pre-comp (more like the scene comp now) it will be reflected in the other ‘camera’ comps.
however making changes to the lighting will still envoke a re-duping of the main comp and switching of the cameras.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
This is for an on-disc menu system. The menus exist in a created 3D environment, with each in a different location. Navigating from one menu to the other moves the virtual camera to a different location where the next menu lives. Six of the cameras run the length of the comp to provide the loops when you are parked on a menu. Two of the cameras are for the transitions where the camera flies from one menu to the next.
So, alas, there is no “cutting” per se. The transition cameras will be divvied up into the individual moves, but those edits are already lined up in the animations.
There’s a great deal of dynamics on the “walls,” so keeping some consistency is important to sell the conceit of the thing, since parts of the environment are common amongst the views.
The idea of precomping everything seems the optimum approach (as if I didn’t have enough nesting already!). Seems like an ideal project for scripting, though, if I decide to wade into that end of the pool.
Thanks for the responses.
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you might be able to get a script to duplicate a comp based off the number of cameras, of course enabling each camera as needed, then adding them to the render queue…
you’d still have a bunch of duplicate comps that would need to get thrown out if you made changes, but it could save a bit of time.
have you checked aenhancers.com?
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
A clarification to Kevin’s method:
1. Take your entire comp and nest it in a new one.
2. Copy all your CAMERAS AND LIGHTS and paste them in the new comp. (You don’t have to disable them in the other comp — they’ll disappear soon enough)
3. Enable collapse transormations for the nested comp.
4. Only enable one of the cameras.I haven’t done this for a while, but I’m pretty sure that will give you the results you’re looking for. All you need to do is duplicate this meta-composition and enable a different camera each time. Queue it up and render ’em all!
(NOTE / DISCLAIMER: I know that nested cameras have NO influence on a comp with collapsed transformations enabled. I know that in previous versions of AE lights didn’t have influence, either. But I haven’t tried this lately. If things haven’t changed then the nested lights won’t actually illuminate anything, which is why you need to copy/paste the cameras AND lights.)
An alternate (less elegant) option is to make a new AE project file and import that other AE project a dozen times, each time enabling a different camera for the render comp. Queue ’em up and go!
Ben Unguren
Motion Graphics & Editing
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So to follow up and give some closure here, I did the precompose and comp duplication. Specifically, I precomped everything but the cameras, then duped the outermost comp by the same number as I had cameras, then deleted all cameras but one from each comp, so that I ended up with 1 camera per comp. This allowed me to put all the cameras in the render queue and let it render overnight. And then some 😛
Render was murder as the motion blur didn’t work for some 3D boundaries, so I had to use CC Force Motion Blur. So I was going to have to precomp for that anyway.
Thanks again for the pointers.
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