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C
Christian Lett
Inspiring
January 4, 2014
Question

Check if After Effects is RAM Previewing

  • January 4, 2014
  • 1 reply
  • 642 views

Is it possible to check, from an effect, if After Effects is in RAM preview mode or not? - i.e. you've hit '0' on your keypad and AE starts playing back, RAM caching frames, etc.

I'm guessing this is not possible, since I've searched the AEGP headers for 'RAM', and also the documentation, and there's nothing to go on.

The one shred of hope that just maybe I might be able to access this bit of info, is that there are a few AE preferences that rely on knowing the status of how something is being rendered, for example the Video Preview prefs Output During: Previews, Interactions, Renders.

I wanted to add an option to prevent certain elements from being rendered during previews, but always render during interactions.

Thanks,

Christian

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

S
Community Expert
shachar carmiCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 4, 2014

well, one way to go would be to use an AEGP plug-in which would intercept

the preview command.

i don't know if there is such a command and if it's guaranteed to

intercept, but you could use command_hook with the "all commands" option,

and see what you catch when you hit 0.

if so, then your effect could communicate with the AEGP to ask for the

state.

if you give up on ram previews and care only for queue renders, then you

could check the queue state during the render call.

C
Christian LettAuthor
Inspiring
January 4, 2014

Sounds a bit complicated! My plugin is an effect plugin and I don't want users to have to install a second AEGP just to achieve this. Thanks for the idea though.

I've already implemented the Render Queue State trick to prevent my plugin from rendering *at all* when it's sent to the queue (yes I know this is weird, but trust me...), but might remove it, as the renderer uses cached frames, making the whole idea moot!

Cheers, C

S
Community Expert
shachar carmiCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 4, 2014

well, you can deploy 100 plug-ins in a single installer. the user needs

never know...

sounds like you're rendering some guides into the scene which don't need to

end up in the final render.

won't a custom composition window UI be more suited?

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