Adobe AE render so slow [Beginner's question]

[Đinh2615076350mp]

Hi. So I'm new to this field and have just built a PC with intention that I will learn to edit video in my free time. I suddenly got a request for help to render a video for my friend and decide it's a chance for me test my new system.

My specs: 

Intel Core I7-12700F

RTX 3060

32gb Corsair ram 3200ghz

SSD: Samsung 980 500TB

My friend's project: An 1-hr music video, with only one same background (a random photo) throughout the video, music (ofc), about 3 4 effects that are not supported by GPU accelaration.

Other settings include:

60fps, 1080p, H.264 codec, target bitrate: 15mbps

Render at maximum depth + maximum quality.

My question are:

Is it normal that I see my CPU not fully utilised all the time? In Task Manager, I see that it is 70 80%, sometimes 100% utilised but in other apps like iCUE or Intel Xt Tuning Utility, it's about only 40 50% utilised. GPU is also about 30 40%, sometimes 1 2% in as tracked in Task Manager. The RAM frequently stays at 17 - 23 and did reach it peak at 31.8gb in the end.

The system is not hot at all during the rendering process. Only about 50 - 60 degree Celcius. I can still did other works file during the rendering.

But the most important part is that at first it's shown that the rendering would take about 1.5hr, then gradually became 2, 3 and at its worst, nearly 8hrs and doesn't seem to reduce over the time at all.

I tried setting up as instructed on many places on the internet, such as allocate the RAM (29gb, maximum allowed) to AE and EN, turn on multi-frame rendering and such. Both the input files and output destination were also set to my SSD. 

Is it all normal? Has it always been that long and system-demanding to encode a 1080p, 60fps with only music and a few effects (i.e. snow, sound wave that move along the beats)? 

Thank you all in advance!

[Mylenium]

There's nothing wrong. Well, not beyond the fact that AE is not meant to render hours long videos. Like pretty much any compositing app AE is meant to produce short clips on a shot-by-shot basis. The rest is just how the program works and how some of the processing has to happen. Audio processing is always linear or else things get out of sync and AE isn't even good at it. Similarly, many clip formats have to be encoded linearly in single streams, further limiting speed. And then of course other stuff like file I/O for temp and cache files slowing things down or some effects simply chugging along with two threads. Finally, the render time estimate is just that - an extrapolation of the time used on already rendered frames, which can change the more a render progresses because until you actually render stuff, you don't know how long it takes. You will be able to better judge these things the more experience you have with AE.

Mylenium 

[Đinh2615076350mp]

Hi Mylenium. Thank you for the clarification! 

[Rick Gerard]

Premiere Pro and even Premiere Rush are much better video editing applications than After Effects. As Mylenium said, AE is not intended for editing video. You use After Effects to create shots you cannot create in an editing application. The kinds of shots that should be worked on in AE include animations, compositing, visual effects, motion graphics, and transitions. I edit documentaries, music videos, commercials, and feature films. Most of my AE comps are less than 7 seconds long because the average length of a shot in a modern movie is between 3 and 6 seconds long.  I have created hundreds of comps for a single movie, then I render them and edit them in an NLE like Premiere Pro.

[Đinh2615076350mp]

Hi, Rick. Thank you for the great insight!