[Dave Koblesky]

Thanks Dave! That’s a great solution. I use nulls in 3D all the time but rarely think of using them in AE. Need to start doing that. However, I was trying to use the Text animation pre-set to have each character grow up independently….but this may work fine for what I need to do as well. Need to get in there and try it.

[Dave Koblesky]

LOL. Thanks for your reply, but I was trying to avoid just that. If you have ever worked at a giant company, contacting IT can often turn into a big hassle and take a long time. I was hoping I could just find an .ini file (or something like that) and change a setting from H:\ to C:\

Looks like I will wind up contacting IT anyway. Thanks again!

[Dave Koblesky]

This is just MY way of working. But your issues is important, because you need to be efficient and able to check what you are doing as you work.

1. Always set preview to a lower quality, like 1/2 or 1/3 so you can see animation and changes quickly
2. Adjust your work area constantly to a small set of what you are working on. I usually have it set to about 90 frames, 150 frames? Depends on what you are doing
3. Render preview (numpad 0) at lower resolution a lot to see a real time view of your work in that small areas
4. Purge your memory a lot, every few minutes so it is all available for you to do preview with
5. Empty your cache frequently. This can easily get full and cause speed problems

Every hour or three:
1. Change your preview resolution to Full to eyeball what you are doing and check for errors
2. Render a section (maybe 2-3 of the above mentioned 90-150 frame sections) at half resolution to see if you have made any errors

Once you render the full version what you are doing, this should help ensure you make fewer mistakes. But they will still be there! Good complex work takes time and requires a lot of patience.

Now, if you are using AE to do long form work, I would say move to a program like Premiere or Final Cut. AE is best for intensive short videos. I say this only because it SOUNDS like the work you are doing is long based on the description.

Anyway, hope this helps! Good luck!