[Todd Kopriva]

> launched AE (with browser) worked just fine?!??!?!?!

You have a system with barely enough VRAM. Sometimes, your browser pushes the total amount used over the edge, triggering the problem; sometimes not.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

For now (for the next several days), your best bet is to wait until you’ve got After Effects open to then start your web browser.

We have a fix coming in the After Effects CC (12.1) update, which should be out very soon, that should mitigate this problem by detecting when there’s not enough VRAM available and prevent the ray-traced 3D renderer from trying to start if so.

This fix didn’t get into the very focused 12.0.1 patch because that patch does one thing and one thing only: get past a crash on Mavericks.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

Be sure to not be running any other applications that might be using the GPU when you start After Effects. This may be a problem of the applications competing for resources (specifically VRAM) and dealing poorly with the conflict. Note that web browsers use the GPU.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

Be sure to report bugs here:
https://adobe.ly/ReportBug

… and be sure to fill in as much information as possible in the crash reporter dialog box that appears when a crash happens. Include your e-mail address. Right now, go to the Help menu in After Effects and enable the crash reporter.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

Try restarting the computer. Does it work then?

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

[Todd Kopriva]

The Shatter effect was written in the 1990s to simulate a full 3D environment. It is not fast.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

You interpret footage by telling After Effects what frame rate the footage was captured at. So, interpret 18fps footage as 18fps.

Don’t mis-interpret the footage and then time-stretch the layer to try to compensate.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

Don’t use the H.264 codec in a QuickTime container, and don’t export H.264 files directly from After Effects. Neither of those things will give good results.

Send your composition to Adobe Media Encoder and use an encoding preset in Adobe Media Encoder to create an H.264 file.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

IMPORTANT notes:

Be sure that you are signed in and have activated the software—i.e., ensure that you are not running After Effects in free trial mode. The update will not work if you are running the application in trial mode.

This update is only available as a manual download (not through the Creative Cloud automatic update mechanism) to prevent users on versions of Mac OS X other than v10.9 (Mavericks) from installing it unnecessarily.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

Christopher Green has some handy scripts for attaching mask vertices to things:
https://www.crgreen.com/aescripts/

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