[Todd Kopriva]

Yes, get an SSD for your disk cache.

Having a hard disk for your footage and another for output files is a good idea.

No, you do not need another GPU for After Effects. What you have is plenty.

See this page for information about hardware for After Effects: https://adobe.ly/pRYOuk

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

Don’t worry, Brian. This post was intended to start a conversation, not to be the single source of data for a decision.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

Nothing yet. It’s residue of a work in progress.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

It’s what we expected, though a few folks are surprised by the magnitude of the imbalance in the responses—nigh unanimous as opposed to merely a clear majority.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

Also add your voice if you disagree, of course.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

Precompose the brush strokes layer(s) and set the lower frame rate for the new nested composition.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

See After Effects Help:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/basics-rendering-exporting.html#collect_files_in_one_location

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/footage-items.html#remove_items_from_a_project

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

I agree that the first probably started with the Invert effect.

For the second, I’d start with the Colorama effect.
https://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a9d3c597-7b66a.html

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

The Dark Energy plug-ins are worth a look for this kind of thing:
https://darkenergyforaftereffects.com

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Todd Kopriva]

If those other programs need the RAM, then the operating system is going to take it from After Effects and give it to those other programs.

In general, you should have a separate computer (like a cheap laptop) for things like email, web browsing, music, et cetera. Then you won’t have problems with these peripheral programs taking resources away from your main working applications on your worksatation.

That said, check your Memory & Multiprocessing preference settings in After Effects and make sure that your RAM distribution is such that other applications are being allocated an adequate amount of RAM.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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