speed up the preview of composition

Learning how to work efficiently is the most effective way to speed up AE work. Set your Composition Panel resolution to Auto, run the comp panel at 50% magnification factor whenever possible, test your animations with effects and motion blur turned off, limit the number of full resolution previews and most importantly, use AE to create shots you can't create in Premiere Pro or your favorite NLE, Do Not try and Edit sequences or videos in AE. It is the wrong tool for the job.

My normal workflow for an animation heavy project like an explainer video or animated presentation is to break the script down into sentences or at most, short paragraphs that cover only one idea. Each of those become a comp. The first step I call a pencil test and only the motion is added to the shot. That can be done with 25% magnification factor and renders quickly. When the motion is good I'll move to what I call ink and paint. I'm borrowing terms from traditional cell animators. This is where the effects and the rest of the composite is added. Most of the time 90% of that work is done without ever running a preview. The final step is to check a few hero frames where the most important action happens at full resolution then send that comp to the AME or Renderer to render. I have never looked at the entire shot as a preview because with a little experience you will know what it is going to look like and will not have to waste your time ram previewing several sections of the project over and over. While that comp is rendering I move on to the next shot. When all of the shots are rendered I edit the final piece in Premiere Pro, add any sound effects I need to, polish the audio track and send the final off to render. An NLE is the only place you are going to be able to preview more than a few seconds of any film in real time. It is really the only place you can efficiently fine tune a sequence.

Folks that learn to work that way, pencil test for motion, then ink and paint, then render the shot and then edit can turn out five or six times more finished product that someone stuck in the Ram Preview cycle that is so easy to get stuck in. Folks that try and edit films in AE take eight to ten times longer to complete the same project as someone that is properly using AE to create shots and short sequences that you can't create in a NLE.

That's how to speed up previews.