I DON’T HAVE H.264

[leonardol82532181]

So Im trying to render my 53 second video from after effects, but H.264 is not there. Are there any other alternatives?

[imeilfx]

What version of AE are you using? And how do you try to render:
- by Render Queue
- or by AME Render Queue
If you try to render by Render queue - you will not find h264 there and that is normal- if you use AME for rendering you should have h264 and if you don't - there is something wrong.
So which option do you use?
More on how to render from AE and which option of rendering to chose you will find here: Basics of rendering and exporting in After Effects CC 

[leonardol82532181]

After realizing I couldn’t render through the Render Queue I opted for AME. I went to ‘file’ and then ‘add after effects composition’. After that, I located my composition and clicked on it, but I would only get a message on the bottom of the window saying ‘connected to Dynamic Link server’. However, it would not give me the option ‘Ok’ to actually link the composition to AME, therefore nothing will load. Then, I went back to ‘file’ and chose ‘add source...’ and selected the composition through there. After pressing ’open’ I would get two windows. One was an “Import from after effects composition” window, but nothing was on the actual window to select. And then another window showed “Add items to queue”. The bar would be full for that window but wouldn’t actually load. Both Windows gave the ‘cancel’ option  without loading anything. I noticed AME DOES HAVE H.264, but It doesn’t even load the videos. Any thoughts? And thank you for the link!

[imeilfx]

Ok so first if you have any issues with Dynamic Link before doing any more compicated try to reset AE and AME or even reset your computer.
Then easiest and most officient (in most cases) way of using AME for renderer would be going to (in AE) Composition>Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue ...

that should star AME and add your composition to AME render queue - from there you will be able to chose what container, what codec and with what settings you need your final render to make. There will be much longer list of codecs than from AE render queue

[leonardol82532181]

I’ve tried adding to AME QUEUE from AE but when I click literally nothing happens

[Warren Heaton · Accepted solution]

Adobe Dynamic Link is how After Effects and Media Encoder talk to each other.  It sounds like something went wrong.

Have you tried to restart?  That usually takes care it.

You can also try adding your Composition to the Media Encoder Queue from the Media Encoder side by opening Media Encoder and then choosing File > Add After Effects Composition....

But again, restarting usually takes care of Dynamic Link issues.

[leonardol82532181]

Sorry I am new to this! By restarting do you mean the actual Mac or the application itself? And if it’s the applicatio, how do you actually do that? Do you just close the tab? Or is there a specific way. Again, my apologies I am new to this.

[Warren Heaton]

Yes, the actual Mac.

There's "restart" for the computer and "relaunch" for the application.

[Warren Heaton]

On the off chance that Dynamic Link doesn't get your Comp into Adobe Media Encoder as expected, plan B would be to render a movie file on the After Effects side using Best Settings / Lossless (the file will be big) in the After Effects Render Queue and then add the resulting movie file to Adobe Media Encoder to encode the H264 file.

[Harmonious_cause154A]

I love u 

[imeilfx]

As I've said in my second post - start by reseting (turn of and then on) your OS. After that  try to add to AME render queue - sometyimes you have to wait a bit for AME to start (depends on your OS and project). And to be sure - did AME installed by default when you installed AE or did you do that separately? That is important because dynamic link works only between aplications from the same release.

If nothing will work you can always do what Warren recomended - that mean rendering to lossless from AE and then reencoding to mp4.

[leonardol82532181]

I restarted my computer and everything went like it’s supposed to. Thank you guys so much!

[imeilfx]

I'm glad we could help. If you have any more questions - feel free to ask. And you also should read bit more about exporting from AE and how to do that correctly: Basics of rendering and exporting in After Effects CC

[KarolynOPhotography]

Thank you this was super helpful. It work for me