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Participant
March 26, 2019
Question

Preview doesnt show my composition

  • March 26, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 269 views

Hi!

I have a very annoying problem with After Effects right now. Whenever I would open the program and open my project it would instead of showing my composition show me nothing but gray after about 30 seconds. Can somebody help me?

I attached an image to show you what I mean.

How it should be

How it should not be.

I am very thankful for any support.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    OussK
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    March 27, 2019

    I don't know the reason for that, but what i know that AE some time required a few time to load the project specially on heavy project where you have lot of composition and effects, i notice this in different PC, most time the GPU accelerator speed up this a lot but it look like you already activate the GPU accelerator.

    SxmpleAuthor
    Participant
    March 27, 2019

    I didn't know about this feature. Would you mind explaining me how to check if I am using it or not? I am not too experienced with the interface outside of timeline and effects. Thank you for you help

    Community Expert
    March 27, 2019

    It's hard to say because I can't see the modified properties of the layer that should be visible in the second screenshot. I also don't know what is happening with the POV Comp, the only layer under the CTI. The frame in the screenshot is an unselected layer and it could be way out of position. If pressing Shift + / does not center up the comp and fit it in the Composition Panel and you don't see the transform handles on the POV Comp layer when it is selected then I would start by looking at GPU acceleration and the display preferences. This looks more like user error than anything else to me.

    I can tell you that it looks like you are trying to edit a screen capture gameplay video in AE because your comps are very long. The POV Pre-comp is 11 seconds long in the Project Panel but only about five and a half seconds in the Final comp and you are zoomed way in on the timeline so the final comp is probably several minutes long. That's a pretty inefficient workflow. If all you are doing is time remapping and adding a few short layers I would do most of the editing in Premiere Pro.

    SxmpleAuthor
    Participant
    March 27, 2019

    Hi! I am sorry but you may have misinterpreted what I meant by "instead of showing my composition show me nothing but gray". I meant that the preview window would practically not exsist for After Effects once a little time goes by. It litarally shows nothing but gray for each frame in the entire video once it goes gray. I can only start seeing the preview after restarting AE.

    Also I would love to move over to Premiere but I simply can not afford both and since I do a lot of CGI for fun and have many AE plug-ins it sadly is not an option for me. I have tried the free trial though and have found a lot of fun in this program. I might get it once I can work more ( I am 16 ).