After Effects CC 2017; Multiprocessing?

[realistic_body0D4E]

I haven't updated to CC 2017 yet, but it sounds as if they've made significant performance improvements to the render engine since CC 2015.  Considering this, has anybody tried it yet?  Is it still less efficient than CC 2014's "Render Multiple Frame Simultaneously" option?  In terms of rendering muli-layer compositions with many different transformation and distortion effects, is it wiser to stay on CC 2014 where I still have access to multiprocessing or should I invest the time to try out CC 2017?  Let me know how it works for you.

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

Is it still less efficient than CC 2014's "Render Multiple Frame Simultaneously" option?

Yes, it is. It still only chews through the layers directly involved in rendering the current frame of the active comp, though it seems to do so more relaibly and a tad faster than the CC 2015 stuff.

Mylenium

[realistic_body0D4E]

Thanks for the response.  I sure hope that they find out how to incorporate mutiprocessing soon.  I don't want to stay on CC 2014 forever.

I also hope they bring back the MXF OP1A AVC-Intra codecs in a newer version.  I don't understand why they got rid of those.

[P.M.B]

I'm sticking with 2014 as well.  Just tried out the new C4D engine and it's slower than the raytrace in 2014.  Yup, the old raytrace engine in 2014 is faster than the new C4D engine.   It's so frustrating that the ball has been dropped soooo badly with AE but yet I'm forced to continue my financial relationship with Adobe.   I would very much like to express my dissatisfaction by ending my relationship with them but I need it for work.  Their products have become bloated piles of shit.

[Dave_LaRonde]

Gutter-Fish wrote:

I would very much like to express my dissatisfaction by ending my relationship with them but I need it for work. Their products have become bloated piles of ****.

Well, there really isn't much of an incentive for Adobe to do a lot more than that.

Now mind you, I have no doubt the AE Team wants to do its best for the users.  The folks there are painfully aware of the software's shortcomings. and I really think they'd like to make it right.  I think the fault lies with those who tell the leader(s) of the AE Team what they should work on.

Top management sees this: the rental money keeps coming in.  If they keep signing people up, more rental money keeps coming in.  So the top management tells the team to keep developing new gee-whiz features, and correcting the fundamental problems continues only at a snail's pace. 

Why?  Because it's easier for the Adobe Marketing Weasels to talk up new features than it is to say, "It works!".... which is an admission of previous guilt, y;'know.  Can't do that, now can we?

So Adobe gets new users hooked.  The older users like you are already hooked.  The rental dough rolls in, in ever-increasing amounts.  And AE's basic problem-fixing moves at glacial speeds.

Tell me where there is incentive to fix the basics.  Would they do it out of altruism?  Probably on the part of the AE Team, but certainly not on the parts of those who give the team its marching orders.

[mateofive]

I totally agree with you. I want to add: Adobe is abusing of their position as the facto software suite for content creation. Motion graphics is everywhere! And you only have a small team of developers assigned to the most used app to create motion graphics? seriously? .... Seriously???

I made a big effort to buy a worksration this year, in 3d rendering it excels, in after effects it sucks. To put things in perspective, 1 render using after effects 2015.3 default render manager, total time 55mins... computer using only ONE CORE.

Same render, using bg renderer pro: 10minutes!!!, Using multiple instances to get all the cores working!

This is unacceptable for a software ranked as #1, Adobe make this right, This is one of the most talked issues! Optimize your software for better processor use! As it is, is broken!

[P.M.B]

There is no incentive as far as I can see Dave.  Money is the only thing that seems to get their attention so unless there was a way to inflict monetary damages?....  If I had the type of skills necessary to build something like AE  & were part of the AE team I would be actively trying to provoke a mutiny.  There's a real opportunity in Adobe's errors for some team of dedicated people to fill a market demand.  Or maybe sombody could convince Adobe to sell After Effects to a company that cares

[realistic_body0D4E]

This is painfully true and is what I expected.  It's just such a shame.  I guess there really is no solution to it, though.  CC 2014 for life.

[Roei Tzoref]

I also hope they bring back the MXF OP1A AVC-Intra codecs in a newer version.  I don't understand why they got rid of those.

would you settle for the new native DNxHD and DNxHR exporter? much better than the complex external Avid Codec. instead of an mxf container you get a quicktime container. both are SMPTE standard containers so isn't that the same thing for you in terms of quality and functionality?

[zak_ray]

Does this mean clock speed is still the most important factor when choosing a CPU for AE? (not core count?)

[mateofive]

Yes! Sadly I found out the hard ($$$) way, my dual xeon with 56 logical processors is slower than a 5960x which it replaced.

Comparing the 5960 to the dual (xeon 2683v3)  working with 4k exr files you can feel how sluggish after effects is, handling same files in the xeon but using fusion 8 opened my eyes up to this.

[mateofive]

I just hate the way adobe is handling the multiprocessors issue I was hopping that the 2017 would bring back or at least improve the multiprocessing rendering, and here we are... No love!!! I had to buy a plugging to use all my machine processors with after effects, they took multiprocessing and said they would make it better... When? In 2020???

This really sucks! I felt so frustrated with all this, that I started learning fusion 8.

[bentsib1974]

what plugin did you get to utilize the multiprocessors? Mac or PC? I'm on a mac. Literally started using CC a week ago and upgraded to 2017 thinking it would fix some of the glitches from 2015 but it's sooo much slower. I checked the processor usage and it was negligible. I'm on a MacPro with 64 gigs of ram and it's still slow as dirt.

[mateofive]

This: BG Renderer Pro - aescripts + aeplugins - aescripts.com

Pc, but works on mac. I don't think it works with ae 2017, I can confirm it works with 2015.3 though.

[juzerk48722770]

Hi, What is the name of the plugin that you used for multi processing?

[realistic_body0D4E]

Thanks, I'll look into those.  I don't have QuickTime on my Windows 10 PC, but I'll look into it.  All I remember is that, back when I first started using After Effects, MXF OP1A was the only codec I could find that met my needs (1080p at 59.94 fps).  I'm not sure if those can yet, but I'll take a look.  Thanks!

[Roei Tzoref]

I don't have QuickTime on my Windows 10 PC,

you actually don't need QuickTime. as of 2015.3, Ae is supporting native importing and exporting of QT Animation and native importing of QT PNG: After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8.1) Bug-Fix Update Is Now Available | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe. in CC 2017 you can also export and import DNxHD/DNxHR: What’s New and Changed in After Effects CC | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe

BTW I also use windows and I do keep QT install but I install just the essential components. it is to my understanding that only the player can cause safety issues

[liquids45401151]

it's very sad to hear about this kind direction taken to develop a software that is the leader in his sector .... if there was a real competitor maybe we were going to see some real changes?

I was expecting a "FULL" rewrite of the core system of after effects (not in the last year let's say in the last 4-5 years) but it'seems that is more easy to add stuff on stuff, keeping a very old architecture ad concept.

Lucky you that a lot of guys are doing good jobs with nice script (at least here there was a good job on upgrading the scipt core)

I can't see some real upgrades on these last release... even on speed,...

I hope that the big feature for next release is not going to be the "full support for macbookpro oled bar". but something more reliable for who's using this software from a long time and is investing money  on it.

[marxon3]

When 2015 came out Adobe said the following:

'When we asked you, our customers, a year ago what you’d like us to focus on in After Effects, the response was enthusiastic and nearly unanimous: You wanted us to focus on making After Effects respond more quickly and smoothly as you carried out your creative work. We listened.'

So here we are 2 years later and After Effects 2017 is even slower than it was in 2014.

Great listening Adobe 😕

[Roei Tzoref]

So here we are 2 years later and After Effects 2017 is even slower than it was in 2014.

I understand why users can be frustrated about this but know this: to many users, it is faster. I am on Windows 7 and in my workstation and other workstations I work on, with every version the performance is better. not just playback, also scrubbing a composite. every slowdown case should be examined and if you feel there is slowdown share your findings show a comparison what are we talking about? render times? playback? what Os? how exactly is this slow? saying Adobe CC2017 is slower than 2014 as a fact it's simply not true.

[mateofive]

Really? not true??? well read this:

"I made a big effort to buy a worksration this year, in 3d rendering it excels, in after effects it sucks. To put things in perspective, 1 render using after effects 2015.3 default render manager, total time 55mins... computer using only ONE CORE.

Same render, using bg renderer pro: 10minutes!!!, Using multiple instances to get all the cores working!

This is unacceptable for a software ranked as #1, Adobe make this right, This is one of the most talked issues! Optimize your software for better processor use! As it is, is broken!"

I said that before in this same very post. Rendering SUCKS, SUCKS big time compared with what you had before and SUCKS even more when you have to buy a script to force after effects use all the cores in a render. This kind of optimization should be done by adobe, not third parties.

In my humble point of view... things are reversed... saying that CC2017 IS NOT SLOWER its simply not true. By the way... same render was as slow in 2017 as it was in 2015.3

[Roei Tzoref]

yes there is no multiprocessing in CC2017 still and in that regard it is slower. there are many things at play here and this wish I think is the top most requested feature. hopefully this will happen soon. overall performance is much better in CC2017 that was the point I was trying to make. not everybody uses multi-core setup and this software has much to offer in other aspects but I am with you on that multi-thread issue. Ae should use more CPU (and GPU for that matter) and I know this issue is the top most important thing for the Ae team.

[_qm]

Gentlemen, here we are: May-11-2017, how it's going on AE development team? still "caring" for "fast-things" ? or they notice that users want multiprocessing ??? imagine my surprise when today i bought the full suit, and found out that the "latest" version was just pour compared to the  "older" and "buggy" version we had in 2014...

[Rick Gerard]

The MP of old was actually render multiple frames simultaneously and it only worked with a few workflows. I do not see any reason to resurrect that often touted as a time saver technology. True multi threaded processing using all processor cores you assign to AE wold be a great addition but for graphics processing a truly CPU independent solution is going to give us faster results in less time and be a lot less finicky. Then we just have to wait for all of the 3rd party developers to update their plug-ins to take advantage of the CPU. The biggest challenge with CPU rendering is that different manufacturers and even different cards by the same manufacturer do things differently and you can easily end up with a significantly different look for the same frame rendered on two different systems.

The challenges are many but I am generally happy with the direction that Adobe seems to be taking. I hope it gets here soon. In the mean time, with the latest release, I'm getting more done in less time than I did a year ago and way more done than I did two years ago so there is definite improvement. I just wish it was going faster and I pray that the development team is more careful about releasing builds that have bugs that effect such a large part of the user base.

[Roei Tzoref]

I pray that the development team is more careful about releasing builds that have bugs that effect such a large part of the user base.

Hear, hear!