[Jackson Camarato]

Thanks for the reply Michael. The example picture shows only one shape layer, but I’m planning on implementing many more. Since it’s an animation, I have the animated layer playing out within the 3D layer. I have the whole thing set up to where the characters can interact with the environment and move forward / backwards in Z-space without the scale of the image changing. (This is done using an expression on the layer’s scale). If I put the layer into Element, I won’t be able to use the expression, which will basically throw off the entire scene.

I need to have the layer outside of Element. I’ve been looking at doing things with 3D shadow catchers, but doing that is fairly limiting. All I need is for a 3D layer’s shadow to cast onto the Element Scene. If I wasn’t too clear on what I’m working with, I’ll try to get the image uploader to work and post the photo’s here. (The image uploader is really buggy for some reason.) I can do that when I get back from school. Again, thanks for the reply.

[Jackson Camarato]

Interesting, Dave. I’m currently rendering a 10-second, 1280×720 clip at 24 fps. According to the ETA, it should take just over an hour to render the entire thing. If I were to get more RAM (say 24 GB like yours), and maybe an additional hard drive, how significantly would this process speed up? Or are there other factors that come into play, like the GPU?

[Jackson Camarato]

I appreciate the response, Walter!

I’ve always been planning on buying a new GPU, however, if I can continue to use the one I have without any issues, then I’ll wait and hold off my purchase for a later time. That being said, I looked into some of the suggestions you offered.

I went to my preferences and saw that the”Hardware Acceleration Composition…” box was already unchecked. I decided to render it as it was, and after about 20 min, I got the same TDR error message. I restarted AE and decided to check the “Hardware Acceleration…” box, and after another attempted render, I got the same message…

However, I unchecked the box again, and to my total surprise, the clip rendered without a problem.

I’m not completely sure what’s causing the errors to occur. They seem to pop up at random points in the rendering process. I went ahead and increased the TDR length to 36 seconds instead of 2, which could possibly help me avoid timing out, but I’m still not totally sure if the errors have been taken care of.

Also, I looked into using Ray-Traced, and yes, I foolishly kept it on for the grueling 12 hour render. I guess I thought I’d be having the window reflect the characters’ back sides when I first started… Hmmm. Oh well. Good news is that turning it off decreased the time significantly, so thank you for pointing that out.

Now, I’m not too knowledgable when it comes to ram usage. I’m aware that I can designate a certain amount of it to After Effects, but that’s about it. My task manager says that I’m using only 30-40% of it while I’m rendering stuff. What about the other 60-70%? Can I use more of my 8GB, or am I limited to >40%? It’s probably a stupid question to ask, but again, I’m pretty new to this stuff, and I’m also fairly curious about it. My motherboard’s manual says I can get more of it, which I can definitely look into.

The new clip I made was a 5 second long animation. It took around 50 min to render. I’m wanting to speed up the process, and I think that getting another hard drive (and now) additional ram will help me. I’m pretty sure you’re right though, the new GPU might have to wait. For now at least.