Render Economics

Question

I have a timeline (Graphics) with short nested templated animations. Mostly just titles and text animation.

I also have a timeline (Video) with an mp4 affected by KeyLight (among others) and a vignette.

What would be the best way to edit these two together to maximize my render capability? Do I pull the clips from the Graphics timeline into the Video timeline or insert the Video timeline as a nested clip into the Graphics timeline?

Caveats:

The titling graphics clips are pretty much in the same order they need to appear in every exported project.

Some minor editing may be needed to the video (removing pauses and breaths).

Which production process will render faster when the pieces are being put together on a single timeline? Does it matter?

P.S. My render times at present are ok; I'm more curious than anything.

Mylenium · Accepted Answer

It doesn't matter. This is one of those "A render is a render is a render..." things. AE still has to process the same pixels every time. There may be a few tiny exceptions if some of your stuff uses collapsed transformations/ continuous rasterization, but that would require specific info on those bits.

Mylenium

Rick Gerard · Answer

I create shots in After Effects. I don't edit in AE. It's not a video editing app.

Some shots are only graphics or shots with the background removed. That would be your Graphics, but it could even be just keyed-out footage. I edit and do the final color grading in the NLE I use for the final production. Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve. It depends on the project. Any composition that will not render a full-resolution preview faster than 3 or 4 frames per second is pre-rendered using a standard production format like the High Quality preset in the Render Queue/Output module. Many of my comps take several seconds a frame to render, and some take a couple of minutes a frame. I would never consider combining render-intensive comps in a master comp or using Dynamic Link to add them to a Premiere Pro timeline because the risk of a render failure or problem is far too high, and Render Time does not increase in a straight line. If comp A takes 3 seconds a frame to render and Comp B takes 3 seconds to render, and you add A and B to the Main comp, the render time will not be 6 seconds a frame; it will be higher. It could be 8 or 9 seconds a frame. The render may even fail.

If you dynamically link comp A to a Premiere Pro sequence, AE will launch in the background, and the render time for that linked comp will increase because there are fewer resources available to render it. The increase in render time can be dramatic.

The moral of the story is if it's complicated and takes a long time to render, render a high-quality, not an MP4 DI (Digital Intermediate), and do your final editing in an NLE. You'll save time, have fewer broken renders, and end up with a better product in the end. When the client wants 10 frames fixed in a 3-second effects shot that took 6 hours to render, you only have to re-render the ten frames and cut them into the final show. I can't even count the number of times in the last 25 years that I have had to change less than 30 frames to get approval from a client. Pre-render if it's complex, it will save you a lot of time in the long run.

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