Inspiring

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After Effects CC 2017; Multiprocessing?

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
November 2, 2016
21 replies
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I haven't updated to CC 2017 yet, but it sounds as if they've made significant performance improvements to the render engine since CC 2015. Considering this, has anybody tried it yet? Is it still less efficient than CC 2014's "Render Multiple Frame Simultaneously" option? In terms of rendering muli-layer compositions with many different transformation and distortion effects, is it wiser to stay on CC 2014 where I still have access to multiprocessing or should I invest the time to try out CC 2017? Let me know how it works for you.

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Correct answer Mylenium

Is it still less efficient than CC 2014's "Render Multiple Frame Simultaneously" option?

Yes, it is. It still only chews through the layers directly involved in rendering the current frame of the active comp, though it seems to do so more relaibly and a tad faster than the CC 2015 stuff.

Mylenium

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A

Anonymous

Am I missing something? You guys know you can export a comp to Adobe Encoder, right? There you get excellent multi-threading (depending on the codec). Granted, if you have an alpha channel, you're screwed - but most of my comps don't. Seldom is a video file with alpha the final destination anyway. For example, if you are using the file in Premiere, then simply import the comp directly from AE. I think using the [File]->[Export]->[Add to Adobe Media Encoder Render Queue] is now Adobe's recommended best practice for encoding AE comps, so I wouldn't expect them to return to the old workflow and add multi-threading back to the AE Render Queue.

Szalam

Community Expert

The encoding itself may be multithreaded, but the rendering of effects, etc. in AE is not. So, if you have a really heavy Particular scene (or something), that won't be multithreaded.

That is to say, making rendered frames into the final file is fairly speedy, but rendering the effects themselves are still slow.

O

oz3d

Participant

I want to stress, multiprocessing should be the AE's team absolute #1 priority, everything else is secondary. I understand the reasons it was removed from 2015, but regardless it was still inexcusable to do so in a production level software and until it's re-instituted, AE 2015 & now 2017 remain for the most part useless.

The single most important time intensive task in compositing & motion graphics is the preview processing & playback of an animation. The fact I can hit insert on my keyboard in AE 2014 to preview multiple frames simultaneously leveraging all cores and see a half second (on a seven year old 12 core system) or full second (newer 24 core system) of processed footage almost instantly is vital.

It's nice that AE's core can now leverage multi-threading and the GPU, but as compositing software there would seem to be inherent limitations to fully utilizing the ever increasing core counts of modern systems unless multiple frames can be processed simultaneously. Even if say AE 2017 can process a frame 4 times faster than AE 2014 on the same system, previewing the animation would remains 3 times slower on that 7 year old workstation for example and that's just not acceptable.

johnt53984649Author

Inspiring

I wholeheartedly agree.

johnt53984649Author

Inspiring

That's interesting. I suppose I just have to wonder what "soon" actually means. When I have 10-layer compositions with animated distortion effects, I can't imagine which version of After Effects it'll take to render that faster with a GPU than with multiprocessing on a quad-core CPU.

Roei Tzoref

Legend

When I have 10-layer compositions with animated distortion effects, I can't imagine which version of After Effects it'll take to render that faster with a GPU than with multiprocessing on a quad-core CPU.

I think this one is easy. GPU acceleration is only for a few effects so far and they don't include distortion effects. here are the winners:

Gaussian Blur
Lumetri Color
Sharpen
Brightness and Contrast
Find Edges
Glow
Hue/Saturation
Invert
Tint

a reminder - you do need to have a supported GPU and also to set the option under project settings -> Video Rendering and Effects -> Mercury GPU Acceleration,

Roei Tzoref

Legend

found this Adobe representative response in CreativeCOW. I think this information is useful:

from David McGavran, Director of engineering, in regard to multiprocessing not here for CC2017.

We are overly concerned with our customers. After Effects really didn't add much for sparkly this time. We didn't add back MP because that was a non ideal way to speed up After Effects in the long term. We have spent the last years making After Effects truly multi threaded and are now taking advantage of the GPU. It isn't yet as fast as comps that worked well with MP but it will overtake overall performance soon. Majority of the time in the last 2 - 3 years was based on re-architecture/performance and stability.

J

JeffreySBrown

Participating Frequently

I know a reply here will only serve to create yet another polemic from Roei about how wrong we users are about everything, but I do have to correct a blatant misrepresentation:
"calling the dev team idiots"

I never did that. I claimed Adobe management was making a (no doubt hard working professional) team LOOK like idiots. Big difference.

J

JeffreySBrown

Participating Frequently

This is smack-my-head astonishing. Multiprocessing in 2014 works fine. It rarely fails. Sometimes, yes, but it's rare that MP is the culprit. And when even your PHONE has 2 or 4 cores, MP is "not a big deal"? For anyone that does real production work, it is a very big deal. Let me repeat that in all caps so maybe, just maybe, Adobe can hear this: For anyone doing work in the real world, MULTIPROCESSING IS A VERY BIG DEAL. Please Adobe: stop making your dev team look like idiots, and let them produce functional professional software again.

Roei Tzoref

Legend

Multiprocessing in 2014 works fine. It rarely fails.

maybe true by your experience but this is far from accurate. I don't have time to show your the numerous threads with problems with multiprocessing but anyone can find those by simply googling.

let me share what I know if this still is a discussion: some things don't work with multiprocessing. some effects and expressions shut it down. some plugins would shut it down. you could get inconsistent results with multiprocessing (shading with Particular for example would flicker, color space issues and more) and this is without counting in crashes and freezes that are reported throughout it's use in the forums in CC2014 and all the way back to when it was first released in CS4.

Ae was never real multi-processing, it's was a kind of workaround. Ae still rendered one frame on a time, but it just opens more and more instances of the renderer by using Dynamic Link to communicate with the sub-processes of the whole software. so when you get dynamic link trouble (and we know about those right?) - this causes all sorts of bugs and problems. point is this is not real multi-threading that actually exists from CC2015 but unfortunately does not have an impact on the render times. it's not like CC2014 was fine and dandy and now CC2015+ is crap. multiprocessing setup required doing all sorts of trial and error to get it right - this is a naive and unproductive way to work because the software should do these things internally. it was not user-friendly and many users are not that technical that they can calculate how much RAM goes where and they shouldn't be doing it anyway. I don't know for how long you have been using Ae but time has been wasted in the forums on the futile question or: what are the best settings for multiprocessing? which of course does not have a concrete answer.

Please Adobe: stop making your dev team look like idiots, and let them produce functional professional software again.

Ae was always internal single threaded - it's the way the software was built and only in CC2015 there was a change to multi-thread the software internally (separate the U.I from the renderer). this means digging in a software's code that was 20 years old so you can imagine the complexity. you can bet the whole purpose of this change was to make Ae more efficient and make it multi-threaded for real and if you pay attention to the way this is headed by looking in articles and the team responses, you know that's what's coming. the first instant reward was interactive performance for the first time - you could change effects and adjust key-frames while you are previewing (THIS IS A BIG DEAL). calling the dev team idiots and using all kinds of offensive metaphors only weakens the right argument that multi-threading should be top priority and I agree that performance is the top most important thing above anything else (and this includes more than multi-threading).

MULTIPROCESSING IS A VERY BIG DEAL

real multi-threading is of course a very big deal. bringing back the way the old multi-processing worked - not so much. maybe some users would want to settle from crumbs just for it to work, others are probably willing to wait a little longer to get the real deal - real multi-threading.

For anyone that does real production work

I am making +10k projections, VR, stereoscopic, feature film stuff with projects going to the 300+ MB in size out of project complexity. if the posting forum users is any measure of statistics, then you could assume many many users in Ae are hobbyists doing fun stuff and would just want it to work with some cool features and would never come close to using the old multi-processing feature being not user friendly or easy to setup. who knows, I am not in marketing (or any other functioning paying capacity for Adobe). anyways, let's try to summarize some facts:

multiprocessing was buggy, a workaround for using more CPU that was never real multi-threading in AE.
multiprocessing still works many times and if setup properly and no special problems, can produce much faster results in CC2014 than later releases
many users need this feature the way it was it and IT IS A BIG DEAL for them. for many others, this feature the way it was is not missed and would prefer real multi-threading.
the team said this feature probably won't come back the way it was.
Ae gives better faster performance than ever (u.i responsiveness, instant playback, handling of expression and more) and as of CC2015, for the first time Ae is internal multi-threading to set the ground work for a much better performance
Ae is using more GPU power than ever
Ae uses multi-threading GPU for Cinema4D renderer and it actually works.
everybody wants better performance, probably everybody wants real multi-threading. not everybody were happy about old multiprocessing feature.

P.M.B

Legend

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marxon3

Participant

When 2015 came out Adobe said the following:

'When we asked you, our customers, a year ago what you’d like us to focus on in After Effects, the response was enthusiastic and nearly unanimous: You wanted us to focus on making After Effects respond more quickly and smoothly as you carried out your creative work. We listened.'

So here we are 2 years later and After Effects 2017 is even slower than it was in 2014.

Great listening Adobe :-/

Roei Tzoref

Legend

So here we are 2 years later and After Effects 2017 is even slower than it was in 2014.

I understand why users can be frustrated about this but know this: to many users, it is faster. I am on Windows 7 and in my workstation and other workstations I work on, with every version the performance is better. not just playback, also scrubbing a composite. every slowdown case should be examined and if you feel there is slowdown share your findings show a comparison what are we talking about? render times? playback? what Os? how exactly is this slow? saying Adobe CC2017 is slower than 2014 as a fact it's simply not true.

M

mateofive

Participating Frequently

Really? not true??? well read this:

"I made a big effort to buy a worksration this year, in 3d rendering it excels, in after effects it sucks. To put things in perspective, 1 render using after effects 2015.3 default render manager, total time 55mins... computer using only ONE CORE.

Same render, using bg renderer pro: 10minutes!!!, Using multiple instances to get all the cores working!

This is unacceptable for a software ranked as #1, Adobe make this right, This is one of the most talked issues! Optimize your software for better processor use! As it is, is broken!"

I said that before in this same very post. Rendering SUCKS, SUCKS big time compared with what you had before and SUCKS even more when you have to buy a script to force after effects use all the cores in a render. This kind of optimization should be done by adobe, not third parties.

In my humble point of view... things are reversed... saying that CC2017 IS NOT SLOWER its simply not true. By the way... same render was as slow in 2017 as it was in 2015.3

liquids45401151

Participant

it's very sad to hear about this kind direction taken to develop a software that is the leader in his sector .... if there was a real competitor maybe we were going to see some real changes?

I was expecting a "FULL" rewrite of the core system of after effects (not in the last year let's say in the last 4-5 years) but it'seems that is more easy to add stuff on stuff, keeping a very old architecture ad concept.

Lucky you that a lot of guys are doing good jobs with nice script (at least here there was a good job on upgrading the scipt core)

I can't see some real upgrades on these last release... even on speed,...

I hope that the big feature for next release is not going to be the "full support for macbookpro oled bar". but something more reliable for who's using this software from a long time and is investing money on it.

johnt53984649Author

Inspiring

Thanks, I'll look into those. I don't have QuickTime on my Windows 10 PC, but I'll look into it. All I remember is that, back when I first started using After Effects, MXF OP1A was the only codec I could find that met my needs (1080p at 59.94 fps). I'm not sure if those can yet, but I'll take a look. Thanks!

Roei Tzoref

Legend

I don't have QuickTime on my Windows 10 PC,

you actually don't need QuickTime. as of 2015.3, Ae is supporting native importing and exporting of QT Animation and native importing of QT PNG: After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1) Bug-Fix Update Is Now Available | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe. in CC 2017 you can also export and import DNxHD/DNxHR: What’s New and Changed in After Effects CC | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe

BTW I also use windows and I do keep QT install but I install just the essential components. it is to my understanding that only the player can cause safety issues

M

mateofive

Participating Frequently

I just hate the way adobe is handling the multiprocessors issue I was hopping that the 2017 would bring back or at least improve the multiprocessing rendering, and here we are... No love!!! I had to buy a plugging to use all my machine processors with after effects, they took multiprocessing and said they would make it better... When? In 2020???

This really sucks! I felt so frustrated with all this, that I started learning fusion 8.

B

bentsib1974

Inspiring

what plugin did you get to utilize the multiprocessors? Mac or PC? I'm on a mac. Literally started using CC a week ago and upgraded to 2017 thinking it would fix some of the glitches from 2015 but it's sooo much slower. I checked the processor usage and it was negligible. I'm on a MacPro with 64 gigs of ram and it's still slow as dirt.