|
Adobe
After Effects Reference:
Render Solutions - Crashing in After effects - production tips
by "Nightmare Kinetics"
Hey there After Effects users,
If your like me you've more than once run into intensive sequences that either crash alot or belt out weird error messages that you cant make heads or tails of...
Even when you
:Google the error - alot of times it really doesn't tell what you
need to know to to make things work. So in the interest of good
faith I thought I would post my render solutions that have helped
me finish the task and complete the file so I can move forward on
it.
Settings:
This area really seems to be more elusive than straight forward
in advice given.
So after research and trial, these are the settings I can recommend at the moment
Settings are accessed per edit-->preferences
Make sure to set them and then quit AFX to save the settings
Restart
General
What's important here is that you can save some resource by lowering
your levels of undo.
I believe default is 30 plus, though a minimal amount should help save on resources.
I recommend 20.
Previews:
Although there is an advantage to OpenGL, "Adaptive Resolution" can help also save on resources especially if your graphics card is not the latest / greatest. So I prefer to leave it unchecked.
If you check it and your card doesn't support it - you will crash.
Though it resets itself on restart
Try both ways and see what is best for your setup
Output:
Very important to specify "overflow volumes" if you have them.
If may make the difference between a file finishing and not at all.
Memory & Cache:
This section always tripped me up. These are settings that were recommended in the field.
Yours might slightly vary though a good place to start with if concerned.
Notice also that "Enable disk cache" is checked.
There's plenty written in AFx books that will inform and confuse you, so for simple sake - try these on for size.
Secret:
The "secret" menu- which cant be accessed in preferences by default
To access:
Hold shift key and go to Edit-->preferences->General
Access the top "drop down menu"
You will see this new preference menu appear called "Secret".
Set to these settings and close
If you start noticing problems you don't like go back and set the
menu back to 0
Though what this does is while rendering cleans out frames form RAM so it can process new frames.
It may take longer, though it will help your render get through
RAM intense moments to finish.
Render solutions - additionals:
1- Restart - don't be afraid to constantly
quit AFX and restart - (though also save your file!! first)
After working for awhile, I'll save, quit AFX , restart and go right to "render".
This is so you have a clean cache and are getting full results from AFX.
2-
Purge caches -
OK, sometimes even though its supposed to work real well = it doesn't.
I still may crash shortly after. Instead Save--Quit--Restart...
I've had better results
3 - A sound file may be the issue!
.aif and wav's work pretty well, mp3's are generally crap and can cause your render to crash
Workaround? - convert you troubled sound files into .aif files first then replace them over the mp3's
4 - Precompose large tifs or jpgs.
This crops the image to the work window rather than processing everything
around the edges
If the image is still causing crash, either reduce the resolution (600 dpi can be too intense on your render engine) of it or Render out "just" that segment by itself and replace back in the timeline
5 - Close any open jpg/ tif windows - (monitor windows)
6 - Once you hit "render" turn on your caps key
This saves processing from showing the frames as they render.
Also I believe it speeds it up slightly
7 - Pre-rendering can make a difference!!
Really FX or color corrected heavy scenes out as a uncompressed Quicktime file, then reimport into master timeline (This takes the place of simply allowing everything to be a nested pre-comp)
What I've found is the really heavy sections may be causing the
crash due to the fact that memory just runs out when the timeline
gets to them. So rather than letting the entire piece render and
choke on the heavy piece, have it rendered out before hand.
This Way of thinking will save you alot of time in the long run. Sure you have big rendered files now in your "footage" folder - but so what? - HD space is cheap, and DVD's are cheap.
Rather than making "everything" work in a full run - render those troubled sections first!!
REF: While working on a HD sequence that ran 5 minutes I noticed it would often get half way and crash
Ultimately, the work around was to render the sequence "without" the color corrections (magic bullet - at the time) and then Render a 2nd run using the rendered clip and the color correction settings on top.
The tradeoff
= 2 renders and 1 big extra uncompressed file
8 - Codec crash:
Often overlooked, though its possible that the imported video file
may contain a codec that your computer doesn't have installed. In
which case it probably either wont render or will render as a file
that doesn't play.
Solution: Google the codec and install or use another program to convert the file for you
9 - Quicktime file problems
The footage your importing even though is quicktime may have a security setting applied to it that keeps you from using it in AFX (hence many "Apple Trailers" ) for 1
10 - Quicktime error crashes!
See my article on Problems
with versions of Quicktime and un-installing
If your wondering? - yes, AFX needs Quicktime to function!!
Hardware - where does it end :
The fear of not keeping with the Jones's
OK, Many times when crashing, then first thing that pops on my mind
is maybe my hardware is not enough, maybe my ram is not enough....shoudl
I upgrade to dual core, quad core, 8 core.....AHHH
Well you've
read enough that you really need a beefy system to do professional
AFx work, though chasing every new release and technically is not
really the solution and can get expensive, especially if you are
upgrading hardware every year. First check recommendations form
Adobe and buy a system that meets the requirements.
OK, then its
best served well to stay current with the latest releases of AFX.
1 for new features, 2 for advances in there programming of AFX.
Though many times you just have to be attuned to the workarounds to get you files to render
That's what these below will do for you,
HD
HD in simple terms are huge files period.
If your working on 1280x720 HD files are bigger, if your working
on 1920x1080 HD they are 4 times what standard SD is .
So get ready for slower renders and processing to take longer.
Note:
You may crash more often
You may have plugins that really struggle to complete there frames.
Use methods
mentions to help make your renders work, or maybe you just need
to invest alot more into hardware to accommodate the needs of these
large files!!
Crashing
on open?
So upon starting you receive a error message?
1- First note what the error message is?
2- Does it call out a specific .dll or plugin?
3- if so do a search on your computer and remove that offending
file.
4- Does it error with an Apple message?
then you most likely have a problem with Quicktime
5-Did you recently install a new Quicktime version or un-install?
There's your answer.
After Effects wont run without Quicktime !!!
HD codec issue??
If your client supplies files and they have trouble playing or opening
you will need them to send the codec that they used or it wont play
in Quicktime, media player or After Effects.)
For instance recently we shot all HD using the Panasonic
digital camera (HVX200) Upon loading the files back home
on my PC they displayed as either an all black
screen or all white. This was a sure sign of not having a
proper codec to translate. Upon researching I discovered that the
camera saves the files in a DVCPROHD codec.
Now of course I looked everywhere for some kind of free solution
to get these dang things to play in Quicktime but no luck. MY saving
grace?
The raylight decoder (note: you only need the decoder, and not the
full package)
http://www.dvfilm.com/raylight/
so I purchased it online a and walla - we were up and running!
Special note: if you are on a MAC -
macs seem to come with the codec you need out of the box, so this
is primarily a PC/Windows issue.
This
Info page brought to you by the nice folks at Nightmare
Kinetics!
|