After Effects CC 2017; Multiprocessing?

[johnt53984649]

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.

[ekreidler]

I am doing shape-layer based character animation using Duik and am once again going back to CC2014. The RAM preview in CC17 is too brutally slow compared to multi-processor RAM preview. Very frustrating.

[Szalam]

coviyarce_qubit  wrote

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...

Multiprocessing was an old and buggy workaround.

It just spun up a bunch of instances of AE in the background. Now, it was faster for many projects (as long as you didn't have an effect or expression that was incompatible with it and disabled it entirely), but it wasn't actually multithreaded.

In CC 2015, the AE team released a version of AE that was genuinely multithreaded (the renderer and UI are running on separate processing threads). However, this new architecture introduced a lot of bugs too. They spent a while squashing those bugs.

And now the AE team has said they are working on a more modern rendering solution. Some of the stuff in the newest version is actually truly multithreaded, by the way. The Camera Shake Deblur is at least partially multithreaded and the C4D renderer is fully multithreaded.

In addition to using the CPU better, they are also working on utilizing the GPU. Fractal Noise and many other commonly used effects are now GPU accelerated with the promise of more to come. It makes a shocking difference how much faster Fractal Noise is with GPU-acceleration on!

[P.M.B]

The fact is they have yet to do what they said they were going to do.

All they have done is fixed (almost....for some people) the broken & useless result of their initial attempt.

And they've continued to pile bells and whistles on top of broken ground.

I think maybe some users might be fallen into the pit of of low expectations.

Yes the RAM preview is faster and stable (for some).

The audio finally works in real time (for some).

But the drastic differences between hardware and software configs is evidence of their sloppy foundation.

And the fact they continue to build upon that sloppy foundation is evidence of inept management.

Finally the fact that they have stopped talking entirely about the multi-threading & cpu utilization.

Why are changes to the UI being made?  Why are non-critical features like a tinker toy 3D engine

& cloud integrations being worked on while the foundation is still a mess?

Why do I hear users on these forum saying that these critical components are of the upmost importance to the

team & that they are working hard on them but I don't hear that coming from anyone at Adobe?

Why do I hear users here on these forums apologizing & reassuring us about AE but I don't hear it from anyone at Adobe?

In place of their silence you will not get optimism from me.

It's scientifically proven that optimists are somewhat detached from reality.

That or they're looking for a pat on the bum...

A good kick in the bum is what they need.

[P.M.B]

By the way that was a rhetorical post....If you are not a spokesperson for Adobe or "in-the-know" about AEs development then I'm not much interested what you have to say about the bright & hopeful future of After Effects.

[Roei Tzoref]

The fact is they have yet to do what they said they were going to do.

the fact is that this statement is not a fact. there was never a time frame for this feature coming back and actually it was pretty much stated it won't come back in the way that it worked before (see link later in this post). guess you think someone is working on your clock or according to what you want to be developed.

let me tell you what is a fact: the fact is that a lot of the time multiprocessing was buggy, did not work and was not even productive. it was actually a guess work to see if it's better or worse in render time and many users (me included) gave up pretty quickly about using it. it was awful for many users. for a very long time the first thing users would do is make sure "multiprocessing" is DISABLED. the multi-processing renderer was not perfect. it was flawed and since there is a new architecture for the software, the next multi-thread renderer is expected to be the wet dream (as stated in other words later in a link by Adobe). we all have to wait for it.

All they have done is fixed (almost....for some people) the broken & useless result of their initial attempt. And they've continued to pile bells and whistles on top of broken ground.

if you want to see what has been changes in this software for the past 2 years you can see it here: After Effects CC new features | Faster importing options there are many useful features and improvements. hundreds really. performance is very important but it is more than the queue render time.

Why do I hear users here on these forums apologizing & reassuring us about AE but I don't hear it from anyone at Adobe?

I don't think a user should apologize for this or that adobe owes anyone an apology for this issue. as for reassuring you actually did. here is one statement about it that you witnessed first hand:

Re: When will Adobe release information about the new multi-core processing architecture that will b...

here is a public statement about it:

features not available in After Effects CC 2015 | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe

from this statement above, here is  is probably all you are going to get about this issue:

"The Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously feature has been superseded by the new architecture in After Effects CC 2015 (13.5). The new architecture will allow a future version of After Effects to utilize processor threads and RAM more efficiently than the Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously functionality ever could."

It's scientifically proven that optimists are somewhat detached from reality.

sounds like something you would read in a waiting room magazine. this statement is probably as accurate as saying Pessimistic people are prone to die much sooner. there you go: The Science of Happiness: Why complaining is literally killing you

By the way that was a rhetorical post....If you are not a spokesperson for Adobe or "in-the-know" about AEs development then I'm not much interested what you have to say about the bright & hopeful future of After Effects.

apparently you wrongfully think this thread is about what you are interested to hear. this is a community thread and everyone gets to have an opinion whether you want to hear it or not. clearly if I was a spokesman you would know about it, as for the other thing - maybe I am in-the-know and maybe not. you can be sure that anything concrete will come only from the team.

all this to say in the end - I want multi-threading too and asap of course, I just don't think butts need to be kicked or fired for this to happen.

I have been working extensively almost everyday in Ae for the past 13 years from anything to anything, teaching extensively in past 4 years all the  versions in the CC subscription and knowing all about the differences because I need to - so I can compare pros and cons and in my experience and users around me - it is better, more stable, than ever. not perfect of course and I have my share of complaints rest assured. again, with the exception of rendering through multiprocessing which is for me and probably many others - not a big deal, although utilizing more CPU power would be great and you can see Ae is going in that direction - actually Cinema4D renderer is the first multi-threaded CPU feature I have seen in this software and this is new, also more effects are using GPU. things are looking up

[mateofive]

I don't want to sound rude, but you start to sound like if you were in some kind of damage control attitude. I don't want to start an argument, but hey! when you say: " with the exception of rendering through multiprocessing which is for me and probably many others - not a big deal[....]"

Well, I can understand and accept your opinion about that,  until you start talking that probably for many others is not a big deal too... I cant agree nor accept that. Why you seem to be the only only trying to convince others that everything is alright when this multiprocessing issue has been in the limbo for almost 3 years?

For me rendering is paramount, and I think that for waaaaay many others too, as this issue is always present in the forums, minimizing it is not the solution. and believe me, when you're working 4k files 32bit float, you need all the cores you have, not just for rendering I may also add. Fusion8 for instance uses all your processors, it even can use other machine processors while you work in a node, and Im not speaking about rendering, Im talking about an interactive workflow... Im tired of adobe patching after effects, and people minimizing the multiprocessor issue.

Not big deal huh?

Carlos Juan rolls his eyes in disbelief

[Roei Tzoref]

Why you seem to be the only only trying to convince others that everything is alright when this multiprocessing issue has been in the limbo for almost 3 years?

let me be clear about that - I am not trying to convince anybody about anything. I don't have a horse in this race, I am just speaking my mind. you can find other threads where I have my share of complaining. I am not the only one that is not too worried about multiprocessing feature coming back (as opposed to real multi-threading - more on that later in my post), I am only the only one talking about it here which turns out to be not such a great idea since this turns out to be a heated emotional discussion instead of a factorial debate.

" with the exception of rendering through multiprocessing which is for me and probably many others - not a big deal[....]"

let me be clear about that too - I meant this feature of multiprocessing the way it was implemented since it was first released CS4 up until CC2014 is not a big deal for me and many others that found it buggy, unreliable and inefficient. this is not the same thing as saying multi-threading is not a big deal. real multi-threading is a very big deal and the most important thing we need in AE (right after working properly in a single thread with the new architecture of course). this is why this whole re-architecture in CC2015 came about it the first place - to make it multi-threaded so it can use recent processing technology.

For me rendering is paramount, and I think that for waaaaay many others too, as this issue is always present in the forums, minimizing it is not the solution.

I know this lack of functionality that many users have grown used too is a big deal for many users. I did not mean for it to appear like I am taking this lack of functionality lightly. but as I said, multiprocessing render was buggy and useless for many users. I know many users are upset about it not coming back it but maybe the idea of implemented real soon is unrealistic. why would you think that in CC17 multi-threading will come back when no sign about it has come from the team since 2015? the most important issue first was and should have been - making the software work properly for all users and this was a big struggle as you can see users constantly complaining about it in the forum any by the teams response you can see where their attention is addressed. next up is performance - real internal multi-threading and this is the big deal for me that makes the old multi-processing very small deal (feel like we have used the term "big deal" too much here)

[P.M.B]

Roei Tzoref wrote:

let me tell you what is a fact: the fact is that a lot of the time multiprocessing was buggy, did not work and was not even productive. it was actually a guess work to see if it's better or worse in render time and many users (me included) gave up pretty quickly about using it. it was awful for many users.

Did you try resetting your preferences?

[Roei Tzoref]

Did you try resetting your preferences?

[smeidinger]

They definitely should be fired. They released a product that crippled or at least caused countless hours of installing, uninstalling broken software, and re installing CS6. Pretty sad. Someone should be fired or more than 1 person maybe.

[Rick Gerard]

If you are running a business or even just doing production as a hobby and you install a new version of any software without a plan in place for a quick revert to a known and trusted system then it's you that deserves to be fired. There is no way that Adobe is responsible for you not having a backup plan. Every OS and every application has the potential to completely fail on some configuration of some system that was working well moments before the update. I once had a MS Word update completely take down a very expensive and very powerful factory-built and widely distributed machine. Took me about 10 minutes to swap out the boot drive for the backup and be up and running again.

I'm not saying that Adobe didn't make a mistake when they released a new version of AE that had a huge number of bugs on a lot of different systems, but I applaud their efforts to try and make AE run faster. They just have a long way to go.

I always have a current mirrored master boot disk (two copies actually) in a safe for every system I own. When I ran a company with a bunch of employees every one of their systems was also backed up. If I install the latest build of any app and the system crashes I can either boot to the disk image and be back and be running again in about 2 minutes or restore the boot drive to any of my systems in under an hour.

By the way, it's not Multi-Processing, it was and always was Render Multiple frames simultaneously and it was severely limited to only working with a few effects and a few rendering formats. Most, if not all temporal effects and most video formats would kill RMFS processing and cause incredible delays or outright failure. AE was always a start at the bottom layer in a comp, look at all the pixels, see what has been modified in that layer, then look at the next layer and repeat until you get to the top application. A standard video frame is not very big so there is not very much information in that frame that needs to be processed and therefore RAM and CPU usage may not, and probably will not be at 100%. All of that is supposed to be changing so that more than one layer and more than one effect can be processed at one time. That is a huge job, and what I have seen so far looks very promicing.

[oz3d]

Lets cut the semantics, rendering multiple frames simulatenously through automatic instances is a form of multi-processing and while flawed, it is not severely limited; that is an absolute fallacy Rick.

I've handled composites 4K-6K half float + with dozens of effects including temporal fx and for the most part it works fine. Issues that do arise and cause failure, expressions for example, can be temporarily baked in or footage output singularly, thus avoiding the issue while still leveraging the massive speed gain from having all cores highly active at any given time. Unless you're doing low resolution work, quick tests or working with simpler composites, one also shouldn't be compositing with compressed video files, that inherently slows things in addition to compromising quality.

Unless you're dealing with simple comps or have a low core computer, the fact is that AE 2014 remains signficantly faster in processing most animations in preview or final rendering. I'm running 2 xeons totalling 24 cores and even the standard consumer intel chips are now up to 12 cores; many cores which aren't being sufficiently leveraged in 2017. Yes, what they're doing is promising and I'm well aware how complicated a problem this is in programming, but 40 months later many users are still principally relagated to 2014 and this is an incredible failure of product management.

I realize you're ACP and inclined to defend the team, but please do not diminish the significance here and the need for this to be the team's #1 priority above all else.

[datamammal]

This is smack-my-head astonishing. Multiprocessing in 2014 works fine. It rarely fails. Sometimes, yes, but it's rare that MP is the culprit. And when even your PHONE has 2 or 4 cores, MP is "not a big deal"? For anyone that does real production work, it is a very big deal. Let me repeat that in all caps so maybe, just maybe, Adobe can hear this: For anyone doing work in the real world, MULTIPROCESSING IS A VERY BIG DEAL. Please Adobe: stop making your dev team look like idiots, and let them produce functional professional software again.

[Roei Tzoref]

Multiprocessing in 2014 works fine. It rarely fails.

maybe true by your experience but this is far from accurate. I don't have time to show your the numerous threads with problems with multiprocessing but anyone can find those by simply googling.

let me share what I know if this still is a discussion: some things don't work with multiprocessing. some effects and expressions shut it down. some plugins would shut it down. you could get inconsistent results with multiprocessing (shading with Particular for example would flicker, color space issues and more) and this is without counting in crashes and freezes that are reported throughout it's use in the forums in CC2014 and all the way back to when it was first released in CS4.

Ae was never real multi-processing, it's was a kind of workaround. Ae still rendered one frame on a time, but it just opens more and more instances of the renderer by using Dynamic Link to communicate with the sub-processes of the whole software. so when you get dynamic link trouble (and we know about those right?) - this causes all sorts of bugs and problems. point is this is not real multi-threading that actually exists from CC2015 but unfortunately does not have an impact on the render times. it's not like CC2014 was fine and dandy and now CC2015+ is crap. multiprocessing setup required doing all sorts of trial and error to get it right - this is a naive and unproductive way to work because the software should do these things internally. it was not user-friendly and many users are not that technical that they can calculate how much RAM goes where and they shouldn't be doing it anyway. I don't know for how long you have been using Ae but time has been wasted in the forums on the futile question or: what are the best settings for multiprocessing? which of course does not have a concrete answer.

Please Adobe: stop making your dev team look like idiots, and let them produce functional professional software again.

Ae was always internal single threaded - it's the way the software was built and only in CC2015 there was a change to multi-thread the software internally (separate the U.I from the renderer). this means digging in a software's code that was 20 years old so you can imagine the complexity. you can bet the whole purpose of this change was to make Ae more efficient and make it multi-threaded for real and if you pay attention to the way this is headed by looking in articles and the team responses, you know that's what's coming. the first instant reward was interactive performance for the first time - you could change effects and adjust key-frames while you are previewing (THIS IS A BIG DEAL). calling the dev team idiots and using all kinds of offensive metaphors only weakens the right argument that multi-threading should be top priority and I agree that performance is the top most important thing above anything else (and this includes more than multi-threading).

MULTIPROCESSING IS A VERY BIG DEAL

real multi-threading is of course a very big deal. bringing back the way the old multi-processing worked - not so much. maybe some users would want to settle from crumbs just for it to work, others are probably willing to wait a little longer to get the real deal - real multi-threading.

For anyone that does real production work

I am making +10k projections, VR, stereoscopic, feature film stuff with projects going to the 300+ MB in size out of project complexity. if the posting forum users is any measure of statistics, then you could assume many many users in Ae are hobbyists doing fun stuff and would just want it to work with some cool features and would never come close to using the old multi-processing feature being not user friendly or easy to setup. who knows, I am not in marketing (or any other functioning paying capacity for Adobe). anyways, let's try to summarize some facts:

• multiprocessing was buggy, a workaround for using more CPU that was never real multi-threading in AE.
• multiprocessing still works many times and if setup properly and no special problems, can produce much faster results in CC2014 than later releases
• many users need this feature the way it was it and IT IS A BIG DEAL for them. for many others, this feature the way it was is not missed and would prefer real multi-threading.
• the team said this feature probably won't come back the way it was.
• Ae gives better faster performance than ever (u.i responsiveness, instant playback, handling of expression and more) and as of CC2015, for the first time Ae is internal multi-threading to set the ground work for a much better performance
• Ae is using more GPU power than ever
• Ae uses multi-threading GPU for Cinema4D renderer and it actually works.
• everybody wants better performance, probably everybody wants real multi-threading. not everybody were happy about old multiprocessing feature.

[P.M.B]

Winners are selected by Adobe community forum administrators according to the following criteria:

• Activity during the quarter (points earned and number of posts)
• Quality of answers
• Positive community participation and encouragement of others

[Roei Tzoref]

Gutter why would you need two users anyway (in relation to posting and deleting the comment and posting again)? is the other user you have more positive that you don't want to damage your reputation?

guess from a cynical perspective, you could assume that all the time invested in my posts is for being called a winner here. tell you what - you want to see me complaining? Re: BLUE interface could be changed ? - ahh the blue interface... I was on the outs with Ae and used CC 13 for 2 years up until CC2015 (that required 5 bug updates to be stable). now I don't care yellow blue pink... I have grown used to it.

and here is my post deleted after I was losing my temper over a rude user that commented

Re: Text is disappearing after a certain number of digits is reached?

here is my rejected post:

later mod apologized because given the context my reaction was appropriate and he offered me to post it again and he won't delete it. but I found that Szalam handled this much more gracefully so my comment was not longer needed anyway. so as you see, I am not so positive all the time. and I got no hopes for being an adobe winner any time soon. guess I will just have to live without it for the time being and hopefully life would be worthwhile.

we are all users here. we all want a functional software for whatever need there is. we all wish the team was 500 people instead of about 50. as far as I know there is no other software at this magnitude on earth that has such a close connection between developers and users and such a supportive community. I don't know what happens in the fusion, nuke, C4D, Maya forums but my guess is the users don't asks for firing or kicking the team in the butt and calling them idiots and then expect to get straight answers.

[P.M.B]

Roei Tzoref wrote:

Gutter why would you need two users anyway (in relation to posting and deleting the comment and posting again)? is the other user you have more positive that you don't want to damage your reputation?

It's not my account it's a group account for Adobe Stock that they prefer not to be used for anything but.

Sometimes I forget to sign out and go "oh shit" & quickly delete it and repost as....me?

Anyway to the point. It just doesn't make sense that you would take so much time to

assure everyone how much better things have gotten since the "overhaul".

Most professionals I've talked to still use 2014 in production, why is that?

If it wasn't working very well for many before the overhaul, as you claim, and it

isn't working very well for many now, then has anything really changed other than which people it is and isn't working for?

I mean you are praising them because they've integrated a 3D engine that works.

Think about that.  You are praising them because they wrote something that works.

Nevermind that it isn't very useful.  Nevermind that they might have spent that time more wisely.

It just isn't broken.

Can expectations really get any lower than that?  Can the bar go any lower?

It all just has to make one wonder what reasons a person could have to devote so much time trying to quell people's

frustration & anger?

I mean for the complainers like me the motivation is understandable, anger & frustration is a great motivator.

What are some other great motivators?

Of course me being a cynic I find it very unlikely that you do it out of some benevolence.

So, the most obvious explanation usually the being the correct explanation makes me think it's in hopes

of becoming one of the people who's helpfulness and demeanor win them certain benefits from Adobe.

Because, to your credit, you are the most helpful person around here and if anyone deserves the reward it's you.

So your absolutely enraging optimism 7 positivity I can only imagine is to maybe have all your invested time pay off.

Time is money after all.

Anyway....if you want to make a pissed off person even more pissed off just them that their pissed-offness is unjustified

and that their experience is invalid.  Do you really think it makes a person for whom AE is not working well feel better to

be told it works fine for you?  You say it doesn't help to call the dev team idiot but what you're not realizing is that to the person who is angry and frustrated it DOES help.  It's way of releasing their frustration.  That's the thing....even if your arguments made any sense.

Oh and BTW it's weird that D-bag thing with Szalam as he's another one who's optimism about Adobe drives me up the wall. I can't even imagine him complaining

or being cynical.

[Roei Tzoref]

It just doesn't make sense that you would take so much time to

assure everyone how much better things have gotten since the "overhaul".

I really cant stress this enough - I am not trying to assure anyone anything but merely expressing opinion and trying to state facts that's all. I could be wrong in many things and I am many times that's for sure.

You are praising them because they wrote something that works.

I did not. there is much work to be done. I want it to be done I am a paying costumer like you and I want my software to be all that it can be. I just gave the C4D Renderer as an example to where a renderer uses multiple CPU and works as a sign for things to come. maybe that was not a good example to the point I was trying to make.

becoming one of th people who's helpfulness and demeanor win them certain benefits from Adobe.

So your absolutely enraging optimism 7 positivity I can only imagine is to maybe have all your invested time pay off. Time is money after all.

gain what? a shiny badge near my name? a CC subscription? I invest way too much time here. I could be making this money in a day or two and buy the damn thing and spare myself from this experience that has negative aspects too like getting users more upset (and my girlfriend too in the process because I spend way too much time here) and this was not my intention.

the reason I am doing this is firstly that I want to learn. what I know I try to teach so I can know better. secondly I do this for the community - for every user posting and the majority who are not even registered but can google the information and find the answer without us even knowing that we managed to help them. this is because I owe this community a lot because for years that was me. getting answers and not even saying thanks but taking this for granted. now that I have a chance to give back this is what I am doing. I want to know when I am wrong too. lastly, I find pleasure in knowing all the hidden corners of this software - guess that constitutes a geek. and I also enjoy (most of the time) engaging other users. and it's fun to answer the correct answer - it's like a game. it's especially fun when a veteran says - "NO, not possible" or gives some elaborate explanation when the user just want a simple answer, and you actually find a way around that (and it works vice versa of course). we all sometime forget there's always much to learn and other ways to teach.

Oh and BTW it's weird that D-bag thing with Szalam as he's another one who's optimism about Adobe drives me up the wall. I can't even imagine him complaining

or being cynical.

no no you misunderstood... he's an angel . the person who was cynical was doing that towards him and I was also in this thread so I commented. Szalam optimism is crazy but I find that inspiring.

You say it doesn't help to call the dev team idiot but what you're not realizing is that to the person who is angry and frustrated it DOES help.  It's way of releasing their frustration. 

apologies for JeffreySBrown , he was not calling them idiots, but saying the management makes them look like that. nobody likes managements we can all agree about that. I agree totally that frustrations should not be suppressed. I just thought to talk about facts and maybe see if I am wrong. I did not expected a heated debate. I am not saying everybody here is wrong. I am looking for the facts. sorry to anyone who feels that I am telling you what to feel or what to think. I was only expressing my thoughts and trying to stick to the facts I am aware of. if someone is saying "hey multiprocessing is still not back and it's CC2017!", I responded to with "it wasn't all it's cracked up to be, no one said it would come so soon and even said it probably won't come back the way it was, but yes - multi-threading internally is much needed and should be top priority" guess I could have written that instead all of my Mumbo jumbo and save at least some keyboard strokes for everybody?

thanks for taking the time in responding. I feel I have wrongfully set the focus outside the core issue far enough. this issue is important and the complaints are understood.

[Szalam]

For the record, I really, really, really want AE to make use of multiple cores during rendering again. My new machine at work has 48 cores. It is frustrating as all get out when AE doesn't use all of that horsepower.

That being said, I don't want multiprocessing back. That was not a multithreaded renderer. It just spun up a bunch of instances of AE for each core it was going to use and, as has been pointed out, that process had quite a few bugs with it. Bugs aside, certain expressions or effects weren't compatible with multiprocessing anyway so if you used any of those anywhere in your project it would disable that feature and you were back to one core again.

I like the new AE in that it's actually multithreaded. Interacting and working with AE is much faster. It's only rendering that's slower. (Although, the most recent version being able to play back footage in real time without caching and the GPU acceleration of some effects is making it faster at some rendering certain stuff.)

It may be fairly simple to work in the latest version of AE to benefit from the interactivity speed and then drop the project back to CC 2014 to render with multiprocessing (assuming your project would benefit from it), but that doesn't help if you want to do a preview render in the middle of your work!

And that is why I am really hoping the AE team brings us a proper, real, multithreaded renderer sooner rather than later.

[Szalam]

Gutter-Fish wrote:

Most professionals I've talked to still use 2014 in production, why is that?

Because it takes a long time to get something into a production workflow. This isn't new to the CC release, by the way. Even before groundbreaking (and workflow-breaking) new core issues, people were using older versions when new versions were out. When you have tight deadlines, you use what you know works. You put the new people working on less important projects on the new software to see if there are issues and then slowly bring the new version into full production. I use CC 2017 exclusively in my freelance studio now, but I work a few versions behind at my full time job because I don't have the time to hassle with a version change in the middle of our production timeline.

But, yes, to your point, CC 2015 was a huge issue. I totally understand why a lot of companies haven't moved beyond CC 2014. I wouldn't have used CC 2015 when it first came out at my full-time job either (and didn't). People are waiting for the all-clear on the new core. I think CC 2017 is the point where a lot more people can start easing it into their facilities. It's stable, your GPU isn't useless in it, and interaction with it is snappier than ever. Plus, some of the latest useful add-ons (like Flow) are starting to drop compatibility for CC 2014 and earlier.

[Szalam]

Gutter-Fish wrote:

Oh and BTW it's weird that D-bag thing with Szalam as he's another one who's optimism about Adobe drives me up the wall. I can't even imagine him complaining or being cynical.

Please re-read what he said. I wasn't the d-bag in that story.

Also, I complain a lot! Usually in bug reports and feature requests, but I do it in public as well. I grumped a lot about the bug-riddled initial release of CC 2015, I grumped about the CC app defaulting to remove older versions, I still grump about how tiny the AE team is, and lots of other things.

Roei Tzoref wrote:

I don't know what happens in the fusion, nuke, C4D, Maya forums

There is no official C4D forum. So...

It wasn't until last year that people from MAXON started really participating a lot in social media, forums, etc. MAXON being a German company had a very different idea of how customer interaction should be. (And I'm not being racist toward Germans, that's how MAXON people described MAXON's lack of public interaction.) They have finally decided to interact more and the response has been very positive. (It doesn't hurt that the latest release was stellar when compared to the last couple of previous versions.)

Speaking of Cinema 4D, they recently integrated a new core into their software. One that they promise will enable them to provide better performance in future versions. They snuck it into R16, but didn't tell anyone. Kept working at it through R17 and almost nobody noticed it was in there. Then, in R18, they finally started tying parts of the software into the new core to take advantage of it.

This is similar to After Effects except the whole "nobody noticed" part of things. MAXON managed to keep C4D behaving exactly as it used to during the process of working on their new core. It would have been nice for AE to do it the same way, but the code and how the software works is very, very different.

[datamammal]

I know a reply here will only serve to create yet another polemic from Roei about how wrong we users are about everything, but I do have to correct a blatant misrepresentation:
"calling the dev team idiots"

I never did that. I claimed Adobe management was making a (no doubt hard working professional) team LOOK like idiots. Big difference.

[Roei Tzoref]

found this Adobe representative response in CreativeCOW. I think this information is useful:

from David McGavran, Director of engineering, in regard to multiprocessing not here for CC2017.

We are overly concerned with our customers. After Effects really didn't add much for sparkly this time. We didn't add back MP because that was a non ideal way to speed up After Effects in the long term. We have spent the last years making After Effects truly multi threaded and are now taking advantage of the GPU. It isn't yet as fast as comps that worked well with MP but it will overtake overall performance soon. Majority of the time in the last 2 - 3 years was based on re-architecture/performance and stability.

[johnt53984649]

That's interesting.  I suppose I just have to wonder what "soon" actually means.  When I have 10-layer compositions with animated distortion effects, I can't imagine which version of After Effects it'll take to render that faster with a GPU than with multiprocessing on a quad-core CPU.

[Roei Tzoref]

When I have 10-layer compositions with animated distortion effects, I can't imagine which version of After Effects it'll take to render that faster with a GPU than with multiprocessing on a quad-core CPU.

I think this one is easy. GPU acceleration is only for a few effects so far and they don't include distortion effects. here are the winners:

• Gaussian Blur
• Lumetri Color
• Sharpen
• Brightness and Contrast
• Find Edges
• Glow
• Hue/Saturation
• Invert
• Tint

a reminder - you do need to have a supported GPU and also to set the option under project settings -> Video Rendering and Effects -> Mercury GPU Acceleration,