Disabling Multiframe Rendering in After Effects solved nearly ALL of my Dynamic Linking issues
I'm posting this in the hopes that there are others who can go back to a some-what familiar workflow and also to announce that, at least in my use case, the flagship feature of AE 22--Multi-Frame Rendering--has been the cause of my Dynamic Linking issues and quirks for nearly a year. Disabling Multi-Frame Rendering in After Effects solved nearly ALL of my Dynamic Linking issues.
Windows 10-Pro
Intel i9-9900K, 8-core (3.6GHz)
RTX 2080 Black Edition (8GB GDDR6)
64GB RAM (3200 Mhz)
I am a relatively early-adopter when new software updates come out. I trust Adobe does its due diligence and would not release professional software to its subscriber base without extensive testing. Sure, some bugs are part of life, but things that can be found, patched, and fixed. I downloaded AE 22 when it was released in October 2021.
The workflow I have established (that worked very well from 2017 on) was to use a lot of Dynamic Linking from After Effects into Premiere. (It not hyperbole to say that the Dynamic Link feature is nearly the sole reason why I continue to use the Adobe suite.) Almost immediately after upgrading to AE and PP 22, although I saw speed improvements inside After Effects, I had nothing but negative effects to my workflow as a whole.
Some of the significant issues that were new as of upgrading to AE 22 and PP 22 (and still experience to this day (October 2022) when MFR is enabled) were/are:
- When AE & PP are open simultaneously, every time I save the AE project, every Dynamic Link in PP breaks and needs to be re-linked manually.
- When AE & PP are open simultaneously, every time I close the AE project, every Dynamic Link in PP breaks and needs to be re-linked manually.
- AE freezes/crashes when rendering or saving if PP is also open.
- PP freezes/crashes when trying to render timelines with Dynamic Links (unless AE is closed).
- Media Encoder freezes when Encoding PP timelines with Dynamic Links.
- AE & PP cannot both be open simultaneously or the computer will eventually lock up (usually when one is rendering a timeline).
I went on forums for a while to see what I was doing wrong, and found there were others having similar issues. And I saw comment after comment that MFR was absolutely not the cause of the issues. "MFR is the core feature of this release--that can't possibly be the source of bugs" I read over and over. Eventually, the issues became so frustrating and unsolvable that I had to change my entire workflow to a much less efficient workflow. No more dynamic linking meant I had to render every AE comp out of After Effects individually, import into Premiere individually, then go back into After Effects for every micro or macro-edit. And as stated above, I could not have AE and PP open simultaneously, so in projects that had dozens and dozens of AE renders, this was excruciating. This led to very angry clients as well as a boss who could not understand why all my projects were now taking 2-3 times as long as they used to.
About two weeks ago (September '22)--nearly a FULL YEAR after MFR was released as a feature--I was at my wit's end, and decided to disable Multi Frame Rendering in After Effects. Voila! AE & PP worked as they did prior to the update to Version 22. Although the rendering speed inside of After Effects was a bit slower, my overall workflow can now speed up significantly. Disabling MFR solved the following issues:
- AE & PP can now be open at the same time without affecting performance.
- Dynamic Links in PP do not break whenever AE is saved or closed
- PP timelines with Dynamic links do not freeze or crash when rendering (applies to AE, PP, and ME)
- More complex AE Comps imported into PP as Dynamic Links are able to be rendered in PP
How is this possible? Why were these concerns not taken seriously when the MFR feature was released? Are others still experiencing significant Dynamic Linking issues since upgrading to AE & PP 22? Has anyone else found a solution to my issues above that doesn't involve disabling multi-frame rendering*?
* I did experiment with changing the "% CPU reserved for other applications" value. I tried all sorts of combinations, but saw no difference in the issues I detailed above.
