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nabeehb53764300
Participating Frequently
November 18, 2017
Question

After Effects isn't Rendering Certain Frames when I do Time Remapping

  • November 18, 2017
  • 6 replies
  • 8090 views

I'm working on a project which things such as involves use of "toggle hold key frames" on a time remap layer for manual lip sync, manual blinks, etc.

When I preview a scene in which a character is talking, blinking, etc, everything looks fine as it should. However, when I render, certain frames are not being shown in the final render, so it looks weird as if the lip sync is off, or the character is frozen someway somehow.

For example, if I have made the character blink, instead of showing the eyes open and close, the render only shows the frame with the character's eyes closed and doesn't show the open eyes although i can open my comp and clearly see that I have sequenced this correctly.

Additionally, if a character is talking, the after effect render will not render all of the mouths that I'm toggling through during the dialogue.

This is confusing because the preview looks fine, but the render does not. This doesn't appear to be an issue with nesting because I render the comp directly and get the same results.

I've tried everything (clearing cache/purging, increasing media cache, etc).

Is this a time remapping glitch with AE 2017-2018?

This issue is tormenting me. Please Help!

This topic has been closed for replies.

6 replies

I_AM_LOTAN
Known Participant
July 4, 2021

I just encountered this exact same glitch with a mouth pack for a character I made using AE 2021. It renders is fine in the preview but skips it completely when rendering the video out with media encoder. 
I couldn't find a fix anywhere. 
Tried clearing memory and cashe multiple times, even re-drew the desired frame (using a traditional type mouth pack with time remapping and toggle hold frames).

Finally went ahead and used the solution you gave. Moved that frame to the end of the timeline in the pre-comp and went in and manually changed every frame with the "dead frame" to the new one.

thisnis the first character I've made in AE and followed a popular tutorial on YouTube for the mouth. 
I can't imagine I'm the only one having this trouble in 2021.

Anyway, thanks for the work around. Seems to work.

seanmcnally98
Known Participant
April 15, 2022

Still having this issue in 2022.  Haven't found a fix either, not sure why this is happening.  Might have to just manually animate some things frame by frame on my main comp.

Community Expert
November 19, 2017

You can share any file stored in your creative cloud folder. You can use Dropbox or any other file-sharing site. Google Drive... Any location will do.

Community Expert
November 19, 2017

If you would like to upload your project I'll take a look. Seems weird to me. I have not seen this kind of bug.

nabeehb53764300
Participating Frequently
November 19, 2017

Sure, I can do that. Is there a specific place on the Adobe cloud where I can upload the project?

Kevin J. Monahan Jr.
Community Manager
Community Manager
December 19, 2017

Hi NabeehB,

Have you resolved this issue? If so, how did you do it? Please let us know.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
nabeehb53764300
Participating Frequently
November 18, 2017

Here's an example of the setup I have

1.) I have a pre-comp called "eyes" in which there is a "blink" and an open eye layer. Each is 1 frame long and sequenced within my pre-comp

2.) The "eyes" pre-comp resides inside of a composition called "head". I am using a time remap on the eyes pre-comp to extend it the full length of the head comp. I use toggle hold key frames to switch between the open eye layer and the blink layer

3.) When I preview the comp, it looks fine and I see my character close and open her eyes as expected.

4.) However, upon final render, only the blink registers and the character never opens her eyes. What gives?

Community Expert
November 18, 2017

From your screenshot, it looks like the character is supposed to start with eyes closed and then open them at about 1:06, then close them at about 1:10, then open them again at about 1:13. I'm guessing because I can't see the values for the keyframes at those times.

If the eyes never open, even when there is a change from 1 to zero for time remapping then purging all cache and memory should solve the problem. If it does not, make sure the frame rate of all comps and the render matches. If that doesn't fix it try changing the timeline to frames instead of timecode and render an image sequence.

I have not seen any problems with TimeRemapping and rendering in any of the last 3 releases.

nabeehb53764300
Participating Frequently
November 18, 2017

Here are screenshot showing the time at which I toggle and the value that's being set. Based on this, I should have seen the characters eyes open at 0:00:01:06 and the eye should have have remained open from 0:00:01:13 until the end

Community Expert
November 18, 2017

This does not sound like a glitch to me, it sounds like a poor workflow. The usual procedure for doing something like this is to create a layer or a pre-comp with just the mouth positions, for example, each occupying a single frame then add an expression slider and tie that to the frame number. The keyframes for the slider are set to hold keyframes. Another technique is to tie the rotation of a null to time remapping, set the timeline to frames rather than seconds, and then use keyboard shortcuts to step through the rotation. This makes finding the mouth shape very easy. If you really want to stay working in time you can divide the rotation property by thisComp.frameDuration.

Here's a very old tutorial the shows how to set this up and gives some very good pointers.

If you have animated transitions between mouth shapes or blinks then you do not use hold keyframes for the slider but instead, duplicate keyframes between animations to hold the pose. Toggling hold keyframes on and off can be problematic.

Another way to approach the problem is to add an expression to time remapping that uses named markers. I saw one guy do this a long time ago. The expression was a little complicated with a bunch of If statements but it seemed to work fairly well for him and gave a visual representation in the timeline for the "oh" mouth shape. I thought it was a little more work than necessary.

If the preview is perfect and the render is missing frames or has odd movement you probably need to purge everything. Also, when I do this kind of animation I always render an image sequence instead of a movie. It's much easier to fine-tune and fix things in an image sequence. When you get that right rendering a compressed deliverable is very fast.

nabeehb53764300
Participating Frequently
November 18, 2017

please see my latest reply

Mylenium
Legend
November 18, 2017

Without any screenshots of your comp and timeline as well as info on exact render settings, framerates etc. Nobody can tell you much.

Mylenium

nabeehb53764300
Participating Frequently
November 18, 2017

I have added screenshot and descriptions of my setup.