[Tim Kurkoski]

Duca, troubleshoot the QuickTime component files. Otherwise, please see my earlier set of questions posed to Chandra.

You should give specific detail about the problem you are experiencing, rather than a “me too”, so the community can help diagnose your problem rather than making assumptions. I also recommend starting a new thread with those details, rather than adding to this closed, two-month old thread.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Apple explains how to change the F# key behavior here:
https://support.apple.com/kb/ht3399

Without changing that setting, you need to use the Function (fn) key plus the F# key. The “Use System Shortcuts” option in the After Effects preference doesn’t override these keys, only non-Function controlled keyboard shortcuts (ex., CMD+M or CMD+H).

On a full-sized (with keypad), English Apple keyboard, the Function (fn) key is in the block above the arrow keys. On the Apple wireless keyboard, the Function key is in the lower-left, the same as on MacBook Pro keyboards.

If you are not using an Apple or Mac-centric keyboard, try using the Insert key, which maps to the same position as the Function key on the full-sized keyboard.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Justin, your observations are (mostly) correct. AME does not have access to the Render Settings available in the After Effects Render Queue. AME will render comps as they appear in the Composition viewer (but without color management applied, if enabled).

The fundamental difference here is that AME is getting frames from After Effects via the Dynamic Link protocol. Dynamic Link does not allow the client application (AME, in this case) access to the comp-level controls that affect how the frames are rendered. What you see in the comp viewer is what you get.

There is one exception here: you CAN control Guide Layers from AME. Right-click on the After Effects comp in AME’s Queue panel and choose Source Settings. You’ll get a control that allows you to define whether or not Guide Layers are rendered.

This is a problem we have put some thought into, and as the Guide Layers control shows we have put some initial effort into how it would work. But it’s not as simple as replicating the entire Render Settings dialog in AME. Some controls, such as time span, already exist in other places in AME. Please submit a feature request that details what controls are most important to you.
https://www.adobe.com/go/wish

[Tim Kurkoski]

Chandra, I will be happy to be your friend. If you’re ever in Seattle, stop by the office and I’ll show you around.

I’m glad the solution worked for you. I feel a little sheepish having asked that laundry list of questions when the solution was relatively simple. In my defense, your problem presented itself differently than we’ve seen before, so I wanted to cover all of the relevant details.

We believe the reason why After Effects CC is being affected by additional QuickTime components is because of its Video Preview functionality (preview your comp to an external monitor via AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox, etc.). This feature relies on a very old QuickTime subsystem that Apple no longer supports. QT32 Server seems to be failing in this video preview code when the QuickTime components are loaded. But this doesn’t happen consistently; often it loads without issue. The confusing part for us is that in all cases where we see this problem, After Effects CS6 works fine on the same computer, yet the code involved _has not changed_ between versions.

We’re currently in the process of solving this by removing the old, unsupported QuickTime video preview code and replacing it with Mercury Transmit components from Premiere Pro. This will also have some ancillary benefits, which I won’t detail here. Suffice to say we’re very happy with our progress so far and if all goes well it will be released later this year.

Let us know if you encounter any further problems. Sorry about the hiccup.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Hi Chandra,

I’m sorry you’re having trouble with After Effects CC.

There are some specific questions I would like you to answer so I can understand the problem better.

– How many hard drives and/or partitions are you running? How big are they, and how much free space do you have on each?
– What specific version of After Effects are you running? Go to After Effects > About. The number will be something like 12.x.x.xx.
– What specific version of Premiere Pro are you running? Go to Premiere Pro > About. The number will be something like 7.x.x.xx.
– What specific version of Adobe Media Encoder are you running? Go to Adobe Media Encoder> About. The number will be something like 7.x.x.xx.
– Open Activity Monitor. Close all Adobe applications, wait a minute, then launch only After Effects CC. While it launches, look for two specific additional processes to appear: Adobe QT32 Server and dynamiclinkmanager. Do they start? Do they stay running?
– Please grab and post a screenshot of Activity Monitor at this point.
– Can you render an After Effects comp via AME, to any format or codec?
– Can you render any comp or Premiere sequence from AME to a QuickTime file, with any of the available codecs?
– In Premiere Pro, do you get the full list of QuickTime codecs that you are expecting? Please post a screenshot.
– In AME, do you get the full list of QuickTime codecs that you are expecting? Please post a screenshot.
– Please grab and post a screenshot of your /Library/QuickTime folder.

Here’s what I think from what you’ve told us so far: it appears that DynamicLinkManager is failing to act as the communication bridge between After Effects and QT32 Server. It’s possible that QT32 Server may be failing entirely (which is a problem we’ve seen with After Effects CC, hence the blog post you referenced in your OP). The list of codecs you are seeing are the ones that After Effects/Premiere Pro/AME can render natively, without the assistance of QT32 Server.

If DynamicLinkManager is having problems, that may also explain why the link between After Effects and Premiere Pro is jittery.

So I need your help to fill in the gaps, with the questions above. In other words I want to know:
– What exact versions of the applications are you using?
– Are DynamicLinkManager and QT32 Server loading and staying resident while After Effects is running?
– Are those processes functional? (Rendering a comp via AME, and rendering any QuickTime file will tell us this.)
– What QuickTime components do you have on your system? (Some codecs have caused other problems.)

If you want to try a little bit of troubleshooting, go to your /Library/QuickTime folder and pull out ALL of the component files. Put them on the desktop, re-launch AE and try again. You obviously won’t get ProRes or any of the other component-dependent codecs, but you should get Animation and H.64 and PNG, and all of the others.

If that helps, then something in your component set is upsetting After Effects CC. Put them back one-by-one and test after every one (re-launch After Effects each time). Mind that there could be more than one culprit, so keep testing one-by-one even if you isolate the problem.

If that doesn’t help, maybe your answers to my questions will point us in the right direction.

-=Tim Kurkoski
-=After Effects Quality Engineering

[Tim Kurkoski]

The After Effects CC (12.2) update was released yesterday. This problem with Photoshop layers does not happen there. Let us know how it works for you when you’ve tried with the updated version.

https://adobe.ly/AE_CC_12dot2_details

[Tim Kurkoski]

This is a bug. I was able to reproduce the problem on my computer. Sorry about the hiccup. The good news is that this bug doesn’t happen in the update for After Effects that we’re releasing later this week.

This is an accidental side effect of a change we made in After Effects 12.1 for the Copy with Property Links feature. Property links (expressions) require unique layer names, so to make sure the links work smoothly AE 12.1 will automatically increment any non-unique layer name. This bug occurs because the automatic name-incrementing code is incorrectly being called when a Photoshop file is imported as a comp.

We got feedback from many users that forcing all layers to have unique names caused logistical problems, so in the next update to After Effects we have reverted the automatic name-incrementing to work the way it used to: layer names are incremented only when an expression is created (including pasting property links) which references a non-unique layer name.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Kurt – What option did you choose for Layers With Unsupported Features in the XFL settings dialog? If you chose Ignore, your .AI layers would not appear in the XFL. See the Help document that Todd linked to for an explanation.

You don’t need to delete your other layers (nulls, cameras, etc.). Just keep in mind that they don’t translate directly to Flash. AE attempts to maintain visual fidelity when exporting to XFL; that is, the appearance of your comp should be the same in Flash as it is in AE. The structure and/or number of layers may be very different, but it should look the same.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Hi John,

I tried recreating your scenario but didn’t have any problems with the XFL in Flash.

Any chance you had the Unsupported Features setting in the XFL export dialog set to Ignore?

If you post an .AI and/or .AEP I’d be happy to take another look at it.

-=Tim Kurkoski
-=Adobe After Effects QE

[Tim Kurkoski]

Hi Harry. I’ve responded to your post in the tutorial comments thread.