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defaultx95nh76godbs
Participant
March 3, 2022
Question

After Effects running extremely slowly - can a composition be made less computationally intensive?

  • March 3, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 970 views

Hi
I am currently making an explainer video (around 1.5minutes long).

It's only around half way through at the moment (and at a pretty rough stage), however, After Effects is now running too slowly to practically work on it any longer. Both RAM preview and even just moving objects on the screen takes an extremely long time.

 

My computer is a relatively old and I am guessing this is possibly largly contributing to the problem, however, I am wondering if a large part of the problem is also the way the animation is made? And whether the same animation could be made in a way that is less intense on the computer?

(As I would preferably not purchase a new one just yet)

 

However, am also uncertain if the computer is the sole problem, as  I borrowed a virtually brand new base model 14-inch Macbook Pro 2021 to work on this file also.

Apple M1 Pro chip, 8-core CPU with 6 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores

14-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 200GB/s memory bandwidth

16GB unified memory, 512GB storage (almost completely empty)

 

This coped with the file much better, though started to slow down alot by the time I got it to the stage attached in this post.

 

I have attached the After Effects file and an export of the file.

 

Details:

 

My computer:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
Processor: 2.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2 GB,
Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

Storage: 500GB SSD (149GB available)

Operating System: macOS BigSur version 11.5.1

 

It is also usually connected to an external monitor, but the problem occurs regardless of whether it is connected or not.

 

After Effects 2022 (version 22.1.1)

 

The After Effects file: 

6.97mb

It has 254 layers, of which 60 are not in use at the moment / being kept not visible.

It's mainly just simple position and opacity changes being keyframed, though motion blur is being used on around 35 layers for a short segment.

 

So far, I am guessing the main problem is the numerous layers, as every shape is on a seperate layer.

Mainly the 64 rounded corner squares that appear early on, and the roughly 40 thin black rectangles that appear towards the end, as they will all need to move and change colour in slightly different ways.

 

Can the above shapes be grouped into a smaller number of layers whilst still being animated differently? 

(e.g., using just one shape layer with numerous shapes within)

Can these shapes  currently there also be grouped without having to remake/re-animate them?

 

Would this make it less intense for the computer to process / help resolve the problem?

Or are there any other suggestions that may help resolve this problem?

Would anyone recommended a minimum computer spec to deal with this file without becoming too slow to practically work on?

 

Thanks for any information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Warren Heaton
Community Expert
Warren HeatonCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 4, 2022

After Effects is only as powerful as the computer we run it on.

Equiloud on Vimeo makes an AE test project available that can be downloaded and run and the results can be compared to what's been posted in the comments or to what i've listed below.

 

Here's the link: https://vimeo.com/118053656

 

The results I've listed are all prior to Multi-Frame Rendering being available.

 

 

 

 

Render TimeComputer. Processor, RAM, Graphics

 

2 min. 48 sec., AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-Core Processor 2.9 GHz, 256GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX3090 24GB

 

3 min. 17 sec., 2019 Mac Pro, 3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W, 192 GB 2933 MHz DDR4, AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB

 

4 min. 8 sec., Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch 2021) M1 Max, 32BG RAM

 

5 min. 11 sec. (Metal), Apple M1 Mac Mini (2020), Apple M1, 16GB, Apple M1 Built in

 

5 min. 55 sec., Mac Pro (Late 2013), 2.7 GHz 12-Core Intel Xeon E5, 64 GB 1866 MHz DDR3, AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB

 

6 min. 15 sec., HP Omen 15-inch laptop, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz,  2.59 GHz, 16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 with Max-Q Design 8 GB GDDR6

 

6 min. 34 sec., Mac Pro (Late 2013), 3 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon E5, 64 GB 1866 MHz DDR3, AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB

 

7 min. 35 sec., Mac Pro (Late 2013)     3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5, 64 GB 1866 MHz DDR3, AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB

 

10 min. 9 sec. (Metal), Apple Developer Mac Mini (2020), Apple A12Z Bionic, 16GB, Apple A12Z Built In

 

18 min. 38 sec., 27-inch iMac (2010), 2.8 HGz Quad-Core i5, 12GB RAM, HD 5670512MB

 

22 min. 10 sec., MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2015), 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3     Intel HD Graphics 6000 1536 MB

 

32 min. 48 sec., MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2016), 1.2 GHz Intel Core m5, 8 GB 1867 MHz LPDDR3, Intel HD Graphics 515 1536 MB

D
defaultx95nh76godbsAuthor
Participant
March 4, 2022

Thanks for the response.

 

I understand After Effects is heavy on computer processing power.

However, I have not used After Effects much and I am uncertain the file I made has been made a way that makes it harder to process than it could be if done in a different way?

Or if having so many shape layers would be a typical way of making something similar to what I have made?

Could the numerous shapes be grouped into a few shape layers, and would this affect the RAM preview much or at all?

 

My Macbook rendered the file in 9min 40seconds

Though, I am uncertain what the relationship is between the the render time and RAM preview performance is?

Other than that they may be generally linked. Is it a mostly linear relationship?

Will a computer that can render in half the time be twice as fast at loading RAM preview..?

 

Thanks

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