[Keith Mcgregor]

“Can After Effects CS5 and higher handle 5k RED EPIC file size workflow and renders?”
I’m using cs4 keying with red 4k R3d in AE and it’s laggy but it does work. I’m on a 8core 2.6 ghz with 22 gig ram. If you can get your hands on the original footage I suggest you re-transcode it from red raw to tiff sequence in the red cine-x app free from red. If you are just rendering out a title sequence in 5k you shouldn’t have a problem unless you are running an i5 processor and below with only 8 gig ram, you will have a lot of lag and it will feel really bogged down. If you can work in proxy mode or use third resolution from the resolution pop up menu do that, but render in full quality. I don’t think the 16 bit will make a difference unless your title sequence has gradations, blurs or anything that demands 16 bit color precision.

For your export you should be rendering out just your title sequence only, not comped with footage as that will take you longer to render, and comp the text in the final edit. And yes, on a laptop you will experience long render times. Dude, it’s 5k. Hope this helps.

“It’s a first for me and only HD 1920×1080”
Do you mean you are exporting to 1920? Then it really shouldn’t be a problem

-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

Yowza! This is going to take a while. When I zoom in it looks a little soft as well. I tried some masking but as far as a matte I couldn’t really pull one as the greens are not uniform. I hope it isn’t a long shot cause this would give me a headache. If you only have to do some of the bushes and depending what goes there or how much movement is there then you could get away with fudging it without too many people noticing.
Sorry to not be of much help.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

With mpeg2 setting you need to open the format options and increase the bit rate. The default quality level is actually a joke in my eyes. 4? That’s horrible. But I would not export out with mpeg or h264 ever, and the reason being is that when we as graphics artists need to hand the file off to others they will expect a certain degree of quality and we can’t/don’t/shouldn’t edit or work with mpeg/h264 files as they are for final delivery and will be compressed again upon their output, making the resulting file look terrible. Out of AE you want to use the lossless setting and compress with a compressing app, like media encoder, to obtain/keep the highest quality.
You shouldn’t be afraid of large file sizes when exporting, you should expect it. Plus mpeg2 is sd not hd.
Hope this helps
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

It would help us when you explain your problems you post a screenshot so we can see. But I usually use an effect to exaggerate the edges or color to see the separations better just to work on it. Then you just delete the effect.
Hope this helps!
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

Since the project file just links to original media all you have to do is go to: File/Collect files choose the option to collect all source files and set a destination. AE will copy everything into a folder and place a copy of the project file in there as well.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

Sorry to say but that looks like all the info is gone. With digital, and especially with hdslr footage you really need to light carefully, as with digital when you over-expose it’s lost and gone, not like film where it can retain the information with it’s wider latitude. You can try to bring it down but I assume you have already tried that in fcp with the 3way cc and you saw it turn grey and flat and no definition on the door. You should get the cine-look plugin and shoot flat (web search for your camera), then you can retain a higher degree of latitude. As far as uncompressing, I would also like to know how this is possible when the footage is already at h264 and didn’t get the information in the first place. As far as I know there is no way; if it wasn’t there, you can’t add it. Say, as in if you shoot 4:2:0, transcoding to 4:2:2 or HQ or 4:4:4 will do nothing for your colorspace.
Sorry, no good news from me.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

Yes I know, it’s a year later and I just wanted to let others know the problem was with the machine having 2 video cards installed along with the kona. Removing one makes it all work fine.

Reality? What did you make it?

[Keith Mcgregor]

Actually no, I don’t do anything else while my machine renders. It started when I plugged in a MyBook external harddrive and everything went goofy, and then the system went down. I had photoshop, after effects, maya, fcp, soundtrack and safari all open at once and learned my lesson; I’m far less stupid these days. When ae goes, it’s using your resources so it’s a good idea to let it use what’s there and not have other apps using memory, (especially if you don’t by ECC memory) I won’t even access other drives anymore and when I render in maya, there is no power to use anything else as it takes it all, so it’s a no-brainer.
When rendering go have lunch, exercise, get a girl, watch a movie on your tv, play twister, draw, randomly call other countries and order pizza, anything but use the computer and it’s resources.
I’m not trying to be mean, I just want you to understand the best thing to do is let ae have it all.
-Keith

[Keith Mcgregor]

If you precomp and set to draft, then open the comp settings (cmd+K), choose advanced and check “Preserve resolution when nested” does that work? I think AE is trying to give you a clean image when you scale it up but you don’t want it to.
-Keith

Reality? What did you make it?

[Keith Mcgregor]

Well, as far as I know AE doesn’t render in the background and allow you to keep working. If you render something out, that’s all AE can do. If you have Nucleo pro I guess it renders in the background and allow you to continue to work, but I have never used it. When you ram preview it’s the same, you can’t go work on something else while it ram previews the comp, tha’s all it does. I don’t know how you got it to let you work while you render, unless it’s a less publicized new feature I haven’t heard of yet.
-Keith