I cannot play a sequence of raw files in AE

Report · May 30, 2019

Hi All,

Full disclosure I am an absolute noob to AE. I've been creating timelapses for several years using Lightroom, LRTimelapse and Premiere Pro but I want to change my workflow around and use AE to render the raw sequences themselves. I've already watched several tutorials on how to import the sequence - and it seems very easy and everyone seems to say the same thing, which is...

Import file > select the first raw file of the sequence of images in the folder (for reference these are .NEF files shot from a D750) and make sure "Camera Raw Sequence" is clicked > Click "OK" on the raw editor because I've already edited all the images in Lightroom/LRTimelapse > change composition settings to 4096 x 2304 > drag the .NEF file in the project window down to the create composition button.

From here, if I try to hit play, or space bar either nothing happens or I get the "After Effects error: Cached Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback".

I searched for this error online and was led to a number of solutions to free up memory, etc in order to improve performance. I've done them with no luck. As far as my machine is concerned it's nothing crazy fast, but I have 16GB of RAM and a half decent video card. I would find it hard to believe that I would be at a dead stop. It seems like the more likely situation is that AE is literally trying to play a sequence with just 1 image, which makes sense to me - but I've followed each of these tutorials exactly as they're laid out, so I don't know what else to do.

I'm dead in the water here - so hoping this is just a simple and stupid thing that I don't know as I'm a noob.

Thanks in advance

Report · May 30, 2019

Ok so:
1. If you are working with images/photos from lightroom those probably are from DSLR or something similar with large megapixel sensor? Is that correct? Probably something like 24 or more megapixels photos.

- if that is the case - here is your issue - photos are to large to be usefully played in AE on your workstation

If you give AE photo that is 24megapixels - it will use and count those 24mp for each frame even if you make your composition smaller and scale down yopur photos to fit them - that can and will be heavly labor intensive for your CPU. If you need your composition in 4K I would recomend to shrink down your photos to that resolution (or close to that) outside of AE, maby changed format to something else than .nef and then import to AE those files and try to work with them.

Report · May 31, 2019

Yes, they're large files for sure. I usually do create a jpg or tif and then output into a large video file within LRTimelapse and then edit that in Premiere Pro - but I want to edit via the raw files for quality and I know that several people do it this way.

I guess I'm just trying to figure if this is a hardware not being good enough issue or if its still some settings that I've got going on that are making this way more difficult than it should. I mean I get that I'm attempting to make a video out of raw photos, but I know that people do this. Do you need a $10,000 computer for this type of processing? Just seems weird that it's THIS slow for me.

Report · May 31, 2019

What you can do is create a proxy file to work with this kind of media. This is a workflow I use a lot of times when the footage is over 4K size. Select the sequence file in your Project Panel and go to File > Create Proxy > Movie. This will create a new comp that is added to the render queue. Settings will be set to draft (half resolution and size) but you can change it to adapt to your needs. Click render to create the proxy file. When you have a proxy file associated to a footage, you will se a checkbox on the left side of your clip (see attached image) and you can activate or deactivate as you need. This way, as the file is an "lighter alternative file" you can playback your comps without problems.

Report · May 31, 2019

Hey thanks for the potential solution. Bare with me - like I said I am 100% new to AE.

First of all - I was able to figure out that the original issue was a problem with the way that I was importing the file. I think the names of my raw files were way too long, because I batch changed the name and now I actually have a movie in front of me that I can play, and click and drag through, etc.

Unfortunately, now it is so impossibly slow that I can't do anything. Slow as in I hit play and wait 10 seconds, and the clip moves the tiniest bit, wait 10 more seconds and it moves the tiniest bit again.

So your suggestion definitely still seems just as valid as it did before and I like the idea of creating the proxy, it makes sense. But I'm either not doing something right or it's not working. I did the steps you suggested, created the proxy, but it didn't seem to make any difference whatsoever. (File, Create Proxy, Movie). I did it off of the sequence, I now see a second composition (Comp 2), but same degree of slowness. I also don't see any checkbox to the left like you indicated in your photo.

Report · May 31, 2019

Novelectro wrote

.....I am 100% new to AE.
.....I hit play and wait 10 seconds, and the clip moves the tiniest bit, wait 10 more seconds and it moves the tiniest bit again.

Since you're so new, here's a shocker -- don't hit play! You see, AE can't play anything. It PREVIEWS. It doesn't work like a video editing application. It renders out a comp's contents to memory and cache, and THEN it'll play whatever it can, as fast as it can. But not faster than the comp's frame rate.

So try two things: 1) hit the zero key on the numeric keypad, wait, and see what happens. 2) look at the views and previews section of AE Help. There are a lot of strategies for speeding up previews, and you'll need 'em -- AE sometimes has a tough time previewing in real time.