[Tim Kurkoski]

As of the October 2018 release of After Effects CC (version 16.0), the Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse plug-in is no longer bundled with After Effects.

This is noted (towards the bottom) along with other new features and enhancements, here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/whats-new.html

Color Finesse was first distributed with After Effects 6.5 in 2004. It helped fill a gap in the After Effects toolset, specifically a comprehensive set of color grading tools, including a vectorscope and waveform monitor.

More recently, After Effects has integrated the Lumetri Color effect (November 2015) and the Lumetri Scopes panel (April 2017) from Premiere Pro, which enable color grading and monitoring within the After Effects user interface, without needing to open a separate window.

The Color Finesse plug-in is still available from Synthetic Aperture.
https://www.syntheticaperture.com/

Without the Color Finesse plug-in, projects created with it in earlier versions of After Effects will not render as expected in After Effects 16.0. I recommend that you complete such projects in the earlier version, or switch to using the Lumetri Color effect.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Does the problem occur if you disable the Cache Before Playback option?

[Tim Kurkoski]

You’re welcome.

If you’re coming to NAB, stop by the Adobe booth and we can work out an appropriate gesture of your affection.

[Tim Kurkoski]

I’m guessing you are using macOS.

There is in fact a sequence checkbox in the Import dialog, but macOS likes to hide it. Click the Options button in the lower-left corner of the Import dialog, then disable “Illustrator Sequence”.

[Tim Kurkoski]

In the Render Settings dialog, change the Resolution. It has the same values (Full, Half, Third, Quarter, Custom) as the Composition viewer panel. Or you can set it to Current Settings to use whatever the composition is currently set to.

In AME, you will get the same result by changing the export width and height to the same pixel values. ex., For a 1920×1080 comp, quarter res would be 480×270.

[Tim Kurkoski]

> There is a separate menu for “Render Settings” that usually defaults to Best Quality. This is in the After Effects render queue, I’m not sure if it’s available if exporting through Adobe Media Encoder.

It is available if you use the Queue In AME button in the Render Queue panel.

Queue In AME will override the comp settings with the settings chosen in the Render Settings for that render item, and add that version of the comp to the AME queue. (This is similar to how After Effects does the render internally when it processes the render queue.)

Using the older Add To AME Queue command (Composition or File > Export menus) adds the comp at full resolution and other default settings (no overrides for resolution, effects, proxies, etc.).

[Tim Kurkoski]

Nick, I may or may not need to inspect the footage. Just the .aep may be sufficient.

Does every comp in the project have the problem, or only certain comps? If you reduce the project to the problematic comps, does that shrink the file size?

Dropbox, FTP, or whatever file transfer service you prefer is fine. I can arrange for an FTP on my side, but please email me first and we’ll work out the details privately.

[Tim Kurkoski]

> I’m having a similar issue with one particular project where I’m not able to use my preview function, so I’m basically having to animate by force scrubbing.
> Oddly, I can’t use the “redo” function either. It remains greyed out.
> When I start a new project preview and “redo” work fine. When I import the project I’m having issues with preview and “redo” both stop working. Deleted the project file from the new project and both features started working again.

Nick, would you be willing to share your project with me so I could take a look at it?

Feel free to email me the link if you don’t want to share it publicly. myLastName at myCompanyName dot com.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Fast Blur is the same blur algorithm as Box Blur, with the Iterations parameter set to 3. Absolutely no difference. Same for the Gaussian Blur (Legacy) effect; the only difference between it and Fast Blur was the Repeat Edge Pixels parameter.

The new GPU-accelerated Gaussian Blur uses a different blur algorithm. The same one that Premiere Pro offers under the name “Gaussian Blur”. The rendered results will look different compared to the Gaussian Blur (Legacy) effect.

So although Fast Blur and Gaussian Blur (Legacy) were moved to the obsolete folder, you can still use them but you can get the same results with the Box Blur filter with the Iterations parameter set to 3. We’re investigating ways to make this more obvious, and “faster”.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Does the problem go away if you disable the Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer, and Footage Panels option in Preferences > Display?