Rendering with a script issue

[Elad5FF7]

Hey, 

I'm trying to send multiple compositions to the Render Queue with this line of code:

var comps = app.project.selection
app.project.renderQueue.items.add(comps[0])
app.project.renderQueue.render()

But when the render starts the progress bar and all of After Effecs interface is getting stuck. 

Is there a way to fix this issue? 

Note that I have to render through the script to automate certain elements between renders. 

Hope there is a solution.

Thanks, 

Elad.

[Mylenium]

Certainly nothing to do with the script if it gets stuck on the actual render, but since your code doesn't set any specific output options and only uses whatever is the default render setting and output module you may have an issue there. Impossible to say. Your info is simply way too unspecific.

Mylenium

[Elad5FF7]

This behavior happens also when I do specify the output module and the output to values.

Is it something related to the way AE starts rendering from a script file ? 

[Mylenium]

AE doesn't care whether options are set via a script or the UI. This is not the problem. You may simply set incompatible options. If your script is more complex, you need to post the full code or else nobody can even guess what may be going on.

Mylenium

[Elad5FF7]

It happens both with the three lines above I wrote, and also when it sits in my bigger script, So the behaviour is the same. 

Similar to the behaviour @Paul Tuersley wrote about below. 

So yes it acts differently when I render directly from the UI or executing a render from a script.

[Paul Tuersley]

Is this on Windows? I have some render automation scripts and there's been a long standing bug on AE Windows where the UI freezes while doing a scripted render. It still renders fine and the UI comes back to life after the render but it is annoying. Unfortunately there are various scripting bugs that though reported, have remain unfixed for years.

You could always try reporting it here:

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects

[Elad5FF7]

Yes, Paul, I'm on windows and I'm experiencing exactly what you said. 

Too bad that it works this way.

I have a project with 10 composition I need to render, and after they finished a script is changing text elements for localization purposes and render the same 10 compositions to a different folder, so overall for each project I render about 150 files, I can do this process and use aerender.exe but than I have to load the project for each composition and it increases my overall render time so I thought to try it from the render queue where I don't need to load the project for every change. 

Any ideas? 

[Paul Tuersley]

But it still works doesn't it? You just don't get the UI feedback that it is actually working? Not ideal obviously but beyond Adobe fixing it, or you switching to Mac, I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions. If you do find something, please report back because I'd like to know too!

[Elad5FF7]

The UI gets stuck but the render continues in the background, when it finishes the UI comes back, so it is not an elegant way of doing automation for multiple compositions with changes over time. 

If the render for the composition takes 15minutes the UI will be stuck for 15min until the render will be done. 

When I importing the compositions by hand to the render queue it doesn't get stuck, but then the process is not automatic.

[Paul Tuersley]

You're absolutely right. It's not at all elegant. It sucks but that's the trade off. It will still render fine but with zero feedback.

Another option is to use After Effects CC 2014. This bug was introduced on Windows in CC 2015 and has been present in every version since, including the latest release.

The steps to reproduce on Windows AE are super simple:

1. Create a new comp, put it in the render queue and set the output path.

2. Run a script that just contains the following line "app.project.renderQueue.render();"

When you have something as fundamentally broken as this there's simply no workaround beyond doing it some other way. For example you could set up a script up to make the changes then save a copy of the project. Then just manually import all the projects into one and manually hit Render.

Or have the script keep importing multiple copies of the project and make the changes to each import folder (or duplicate comps but if you have precomps this is more convoluted) before you manually click to render all, but this is more of a pain in reworking the script.

[Paul Tuersley]

I went searching and found this report of the issue on the bug report forum:

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/34795705-after-effects-app...

I'd encourage anyone that would like to see this annoying bug fixed to add your vote. Every little helps!