[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “…if you only have one machine, it sounds counter-intuitive at first blush. Can you explain what’s going on when you use it?”

Sure — when you’re outputting an image sequence, there’s an option in the Render Settings to skip existing files. AE’s multi-machine renderer is somewhat naive; the render nodes don’t communicate with a manager or with each other; they look on shared storage for frames that don’t exist yet.

By default, all machines will begin with frame 0. The first one to hit the storage and see that Comp 1_00000.psd doesn’t exist will create that file on the shared storage to “claim” it, and then begin rendering the frame. When the other render nodes see frame 0 already exists, they will skip it and start looking for Comp 1_00001.psd. Each machine (really each instance in a multi-processing/multi-machine setup) continues this look-claim-render-save-look again process until the entire sequence is complete.

So how does this relate to a single-machine working? When you use the Multi-machine render settings and output modules, you’ll get a PSD sequence and “Skip existing frames” is checked by default.

If your render crashes and AE loses track of where it was, you can just add your comp back to the render queue and go; it will start at the beginning and skip everything it’s already rendered until it reaches a frame it hasn’t rendered yet.

There’s no need to use Multi-machine settings; you could manually check “Skip existing files” in the render settings for any image sequence-based output module — but since the settings are all already there straight out of the box, I prefer to use them.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Jordan Montreuil] “As for multi-processing, that was the first thing I turned off. I noticed my problem always occured at frame 60 but I still can’t figure out what layer is causing it. All of my layers have already started so its not something new introduced into the scene. I just don’t know.”

A couple thoughts:

Can you save frame 60 as a file? (Composition > Save frame as > File…)

Try rendering using “Multi-machine Settings” for your Render Settings and any image sequence for your output module (“Multi-machine Sequence” will do). This will allow you to pick up your render where it left off if AE crashes.

You can also try setting the purge option in the secret menu — start around 30 frames and work your way down. Please remember to set this back once you’re finished rendering your project, as it will have a negative impact on rendering speed for projects that do render normally.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

How much RAM do you have in your machine?

If multi-processing is on, try turning it off.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

Try rendering using “Multi-machine Settings” for your Render Settings and any image sequence for your output module (“Multi-machine Sequence” will do). This will allow you to pick up your render where it left off if AE crashes.

If it continues to crash on the same frame every time, you can start troubleshooting.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

In After Effects, this is called Collect Files.

Please note that this will not include fonts or third-party effects, which must be installed and licensed separately.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

I’d want the vector artwork delivered in Adobe Illustrator (.AI), EPS, or PDF.

Just make sure you emphasize the vector part to your illustrator, because all three formats can contain raster data, too.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

Allan, thanks for taking the time to post your results. Much appreciated!

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Brian Charles] “I have a 10k rpm in my MacPro and its great, but it doesn’t do anything to speed renders. “

For most folks, this is true, most of the time.

However, some renders can be disk-bound, especially when using very large frame sizes or image sequences. If your CPUs are not maxed out during a render, and you still have free RAM, then your render is probably disk-bound.

Rendering to a drive other than the one your footage is stored on can also improve performance in some cases.

If your CPU is maxed out, more disk speed won’t help.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

If you shoot in NTSC and display in PAL, your frame rates will be different, so your 30 fps video will appear to stutter.

If you cannot shoot natively in PAL, you might consider a 24p workflow, where the final output is sped up about 4% to match the PAL frame rate. You could try a sample clip to see if speed change will impact your footage too much.

You could also look into a software-based standards converter. If you’re using FCP, I’d recommend Nattress Standards Conversion.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[david hueso] “I have to deliver work In Ntsc 4:3 without black bars above and below … 16:9.. “

Is anamorphic 16:9 delivery an option? Here, a 16:9 comp is squished horizontally and then re-expanded on playout. This will be up to your broadcaster, so make sure you have specs from them.

Also, you need to consider the different frame rates; you were working in 24 fps (perhaps truly 23.976), and you need to deliver 29.97 for NTSC. Do you intend to add a pull-down, resample your work in AE, or do a standards conversion?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events