EXR Cryptomattes Unusable

[Adrien5EE8]

Why are cryptomattes still so slow/unsuable in AfterEffects 2023? It's been 8 years since they're implementation. We have to use them on a daily basis for post-production work. We have to use Nuke and Fusion to extract the obj id's and then import them back into AfterEffects which is a really ineffective workflow.

Unless I missed something, I can't see any update on the topic since 2018. Could members of the community please bump this to show Adobe this is priority feature to fix.

Thanks

[Adrien5EE8]

Why are cryptomattes still so slow/unsuable in AfterEffects 2023? It's been 8 years since they're implementation. We have to use them on a daily basis for post-production work. We have to use Nuke and Fusion to extract the obj id's and then import them back into AfterEffects which is a really ineffective workflow.

Unless I missed something, I can't see any update on the topic since 2018. Could members of the community please bump this to show Adobe this is priority feature to fix.

Thanks

[Twentybenson]

I agree with everyone here, almost every project that isn't simple I have to bake down my cryptomattes to png sequences to improve render times and viewport usability. It's frustrating if the mattes need to change or if the shot get's rendered again. Not at all an enjoyable experience.

[defaultr4fluhed7ewu]

Adobe, please work on making Cryptomattes faster.  In a recent project, it took 12 hours to render a :30 spot using cryptomattes.  With the cryptomattes flattened to ProRes movies, it took 20 minutes.  That's a significant difference and points to major inefficiencies with how cryptomattes are implemented.  This holds true for both up to date PCs and Macs.

[Multipasser]

It is insane! It is sooo clear adobe has no clue how production pipelines work. Insane they didnt get this near realtime like other programs do. Frustrates me daily.

[Cognitive Concepts]

I can attest to the frustration that cryptomattes implementation in After Effects has caused on multiple high end commercial projects throughout the years. It cripples iteration time and brings even the most powerful of computers to a crawl. Please help us Adobe team! 

[jarold213]

Also having huge issues with cryptomatte speeds!  Did the extra work to flatten all my cryptomattes and it went from 12 hour render to 1 hour.  Please fix!

[AlexVanDyne]

Dear adobe. This is literally something that needs to be fixed. Make this multi -threaded/GPU powered or something because it's literally impossible to work on 4k cryptomattes without it yaking like 1 min per frame to load. And i have a 20,000 machine with cutting edge hardware. Its rediculous and its time ti fix it. 

[jasonj55077727]

Same.  Output EXR's with Crypto from Unreal Engine the other day and they are unusable in AE.  Had to do my comping in Nuke.  Not cool. 

[Adrien5EE8]

Would be nice to get a response from Adobe staff even if it's to say it can't be done.

[defaultr4fluhed7ewu]

Definitely agree!  A response of any kind would be welcome.  Fixing this one issue would make a tremendous difference in 3D compositing productivity.

[Sven5FD0]

Hi all, I work in a 3D Pipeline, have to use the cryptomattes every day and It is a pain . Please Adobe, fix the enormous preview and rendertimes. Tahnks

[Sven5FD0]

I often get this error message, AE 23.6.0 & 23.6.2

[Paul Uu]

Could you post a simple project and footage that demonstrates the slow performance issue?

Thx!

[Adrien5EE8]

@Paul Uu Litteraly take any EXR cryptomate. Bring it in AE, single out a matte for one of the object and try to render that. Compare that to doing the same in Nuke or Fusion.

[Adrien5EE8]

Here's an example, mind you this is a very simple/low sized cryptomatte. The one we use normally are usually much larger. And once you add 5 more mattes and adjustement layers with effects etc.. it slows down to the point where it's just not usable.

[Paul Uu]

Hmm, I can do the same with an EXR cryptomatte I have and do not encounter any such rendering slowdown — which is why I asked for a project/footage that demostrates the issue.

Could you give me details on your patform, system configuration and version of AE? Are the EXRs you're working with stored on your local drive or are they on a network drive of some sort.

And even one sample EXR that reproduces the slowdown would be very helpful. We really do want to understand how this is occurring.

Thx!

[Paul Uu]

One other thing, we have made some improvments to how AE reads EXR files that have just gone into our most current 24.3 Beta release.

These changes will be most impactful performance-wise if you are reading EXRs from a network volume.

I would definitely like to hear if you observe any performance improvments in your Cryptomatte workflow with these changes.

[Adrien5EE8]

@Paul Uu Tried After Effects 24.3 Beta. Did a test, see attached. Unfortunately if anything, it looks like Crypto's are even slower.

[defaultr4fluhed7ewu]

In my experience the EXR slowdowns are not network volume related.  I have copied EXRs over to a local drive with the same results.  Our typical workflow is to export AOVs from Cinema 4D/Redshift as EXRs.  It's these multi-channel EXRs, when using Cryptomattes, which are extremely slow, especially in any composition that is over 30s in duration.  Pre-rendering the cryptomattes as individual ProRes mattes dramatically decreases the render time.  An individual layer when using cryptomattes does not seem unusually slow, the problem seems to happen in compositions with multiple layers and when rendering.  (Previews seem to be OK for me.)

[defaultr4fluhed7ewu]

Forgot to mention, these issues happen on both Windows and Mac.  But I am mostly using this configuration:

After Effects 24.1 (but has been an issue for many prior versions)

OS:  MacOS 14.3

Processor/GPU:  Apple M1 Max
Memory: 64GB

[Valera23819685k4vj]

Paul, you know it, you a just gaslighting us on purpose. You are talking like we are all psychos who are complaining about. it, like we are all here for no reason. Why can't you just say that you don't want to improve it, and your investors don't want to do it, as you need to rework the core, and they just want to add a nonsense AI slope thing for amateurs? 

[Adrien5EE8]

After effects 24.1 (But issue has been going since implementation of cryptomattes.)

Operating System: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 22621)

Processor: AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5955WX 16-Cores (32 CPUs), ~4.0GHz

Memory: 131072MB RAM

Display: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

EXR's are stored on network drive.

CryptoMatte Example: https://bit.ly/3vYFKaP

[Multipasser]

What are you testing? Just use any c4D Cryptomatte to select objects or materials. Use it 3x in a comp as a matte and you will see the max preview rate you get is 1 frame/sec.. if you are in 4k it's much worse. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes to preview 5seconds of comping. It is insane and unusable! We all have this problem.  If you prerender the mattes to prores it flies! but that is NOT the way we should work. Prerendering or making proxies takes time.

[Simon_0815]

I think the EXR compression matters. Did you try DWAB?

But yeah, Abobe: EXR and Masks should work!!!