Rotobrush slows down, then stops after trying to render simple short clips in Standard Def AND 1080p

[Letty2019]

I can't take this anymore.

The last few weeks, rotobrush decides not to work.

On 1080p and also 720p....

Just one simple outline of a mans face. Simple stuff. Smooth lines.

Same thing always happens.  It starts doing about 3 frames per second, chugs along fine, then gets slower, then eventually hangs, after about 10 seconds of timeline.

1) I cleared out the media disc caches.

2) I have 32 gb of ram,  gtx1050ti, ryzen 7  a decent set up, especially for Standard Def!!!

It's on cuda, installed the latest driver and still slow!!!

Only thing I've done was make the usual updates. 

I'm losing it.

any ideas????

I selected 2.0 and quality STANDARD  and it reacts the same if I pick BEST.

1.0 is  nightmare, never use it.   I used to use 2.0 and BEST, and it would outline and render in a snap.

Some new Adobe bug out there making people upgrade their GPU's  again?? I don't want to throw money at this problem.  My gpu and ram should work fine for this.

AHHHHHHH!!!!!

[tehshawn]

I've had the same problem for over a month now. I've downgraded versions, done full uninstall and reinstall, changed cache folders, and even did a full clean wipe on my computer. Specs attached. 

[Letty2019]

I read dozens of blogs, and there is so much info, it's almost impossible to self diagnose this issue.

BUT.....

I thought of a simple, and when I say simple, it's so simple I'm embarrassed to write it here, but I hope this helps....

Say you have a 10 or a 15 second clip (or much more) and your rotoscope "2.0 Best" rendering works fine for the first 5 seconds, then it starts to get slower and slower and then at 10 seconds, it's a crawl, then eventually it stops.....  (roto will die when trying mask something that has a complicated busy background)

Simple Solution:

Take your clip (remove rotoscope effect first) and simply slice it up into sections.  On your timeline just click where you want a break, like the 5 second mark, then:  Cntrol + Shift + D  that will make a slice and put the rest on another layer... then do it again for the next 5 seconds.... etc...etc.... until your clip is all broken up.

Now, you can rotoscope each section.  It's better because if you have an adjustment, it's just in one section, so it won't take a hour to fix it and re render the whole thing.

If still having problems, delete the rotoscoping, and also clear your cache out, then slice and dice, then add the rotoscope to each clip individually.

Only downside, you have to make a new rotoscope for each section (no big deal, at least it works now) Make the first section your master, and copy and paste the roto settings to each section.

This works well when you have a complicated roto and are using 2.0 Best.   

Hope this helps, it did me.

Letty

How to fix the first frame of each of your new sections....

You know when you rotoscope, the very first frame stinks, and frame 2 and on is great....

OK, now that your timeline is in bunch of sections, you don't want to deal with that 'bad frame at the start of each layer, so do this:

Say you are on layer 2, just pull the timeline to the left so one new frame appears and start your rotoscope on that frame, then when done, just tuck that frame back to the right to remove it. Or you can just leave it caz the layer above will block it from being seen, depends on how you made the order to all your new sliced up layers.

Of course that works on all the new layers, except your very first layer if you don't have the extra frames there...  but all frames after will be clean and pretty and you won't be tempted to buy a $1500 new gpu when your gpu works just fine.

[tehshawn]

I've tried this and AE, in all its wisdom, is still trying to propagate the other layers. It doesn't matter if I adjust the work area or turn off the layers, it barrels forward into completely lock-up.

[Letty2019]

Hi, I added this to my checklist above.

Remove the rotoscope effect from your clip first.  Then slice it up and apply the rotoscope to each clip individually.

When I did it, I also cleared out my cache just incase anything in there was affecting the new renders.

[Frank Vitale]

Yeah I think you would actualy have to output the clips and the reimport them... Roto brush has cost me so much time and money, it's killing me on my current project... what should have taken a few days has taken all summer, it's maddening. It's good for like 10 frames max then it's a 10 min wait, per brush stroke... makes it litteraly impossible. This tool really needs to be rethought. It should render each frame in the background and save the solution so it doesnt have to reprocess every single action taken moving forward... what a mess. 

[Jordan Clay]

Rotoscoping is part of my main income workflow its absoloutley needed. I had the same symptoms. Rolled AE version back to 8.1..... This was my only fix. I tried workarounds. I tried driver updates everything. Now my roto works with 130+ frames no stuck issue like this. Believe me roll bakc to 8.1

[tehshawn]

Do you mean 18.1? Version 8 came out in 2007.

[Jordan Clay]

yeah sorry

[Jordan Clay · Accepted solution]

test out 18.1 and let me know if it works for you too...solved all of my roto problems

[Letty2019]

The rotobrush 2.0 does works really well with simple masks, like a face, with a semi solid background... but when I do a mask of, say the same face, with a bookshelf full of books in the background, the roto is only good for about 5 seconds, after that it slows down so much, and around 10 secs it comes to a hault.  Breaking it up into segments is the only way around it.

You said prior:  Now my roto works with 130+ frames no stuck issue like this. Believe me roll bakc to 18.1

130 frames is a pinch over 5 seconds....   So version 18.1 is only giving you about 5 seconds, similar to what I'm getting now in the current version of  AE.

I hope somebody at adobe can fix this. Doing the layer slice and applying roto to individual segments of the layer works, but it's much more time consuming.

FIX THIS ADOBE! 

Thank you,

Letty

[tehshawn]

Yep, this absolutely worked. I knew I wasn't crazy and roto worked fine before! I'm currently running it on a clip that's 12 minutes long on Best Quality and it hasn't slowed down even partially. 

Come on Adobe. 

[Letty2019]

Jordan you are sooooooooooo right!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!

I didn't want to use older versions, but after having more problems, I came back here and then installed ver 18.1

And now my rotobrush WORKS GREAT and PROPAGATES LIKE MAGIC!!!!!!!

I'm assuming now that Adobe makes their updates and forces people to buy newer gpu's.  

I'm stuck in 18.1 now and the only thing I'm worried about is if some new fun updates come out, I won't be able to use them because I'm no longer updating.

So is this a gpu issue?  Adobe is forcing people to buy newer gpu's in order to utilize the latest updates?  Maybe Adobe is getting a % from Nvidia.  Not fair to us regular gpu people that can't afford $1400 for a new overpriced gpu.

At least I'm back to work now.  Can't thank you enough for the 18.1 tip !!!!!!!

Have a great day,

Letty

[Jordan Clay]

Glad it helped! I took about a week trying to install different drivers for everything. GPU, CPU, clean installed everything. Once I went to 18.1 everything worked normally. I have a 5700 my GPU is pretty modern and I have seen this issue with AMD and Nvidia cards both. I think Adobe broke something and hopefully they can fix it soon. Whatever they did past 18.1 destroyed rotobrush. But I'm glad you can work now.

[Jordan Clay · Accepted solution]

Guys if anyone is having this problem please tell them to go to ver 18.1. The Adobe shills are on here telling everyone to do these crazy workarounds, and blaming you or your computer. Your computer is fine. No, the requirements haven't changed from an update they're still using the same engine from 1998. They broke roto and they need to know so they can fix it. Or Adobe will pretend like nothing happened and blame you for not doing a 3 hour workaround for your projects. 

[imgaryshap74]

Finding this thread saved me.  18.1 totally worked.  18.4 was a disaster.  thank you!

[defaultsndql5uxrkdz]

omg finally! 18.1 is the only solution that worked and ive tried everything. and im on an m1 macbookpro. but why would na update make a tool non-usable?

[Jordan Clay]

Usually when an engine used is very old like this one, they update code that effects other parts of the code, because they aren't building it new from the ground up everything is a workaround. Think of it like a car. They upgraded the engine of the car. However the tires cannot take the new power the car makes. So they patch the tires up on an update but the new height of the tires rub against the car breaking the fender. So they update the fender to be bigger, but now the fender is blocking the belts from moving. This is constantly happening Everytime they update and if they fix something something else breaks. They just are very very very very very slow at fixing things. 

[Frank Vitale]

Do you mean 18.1 version of After Effects? or just Roto? and if just Roto... how do you do that?

 Frank

[Jordan Clay · Accepted solution]

You have to install after effects ver 18.1. you can do it by clicking on the creative cloud. Clicking on the three dots next to the open button and then other versions. Look for version 18.1 and install that. Don't worry it won't wipe any of your setting or projects. Then roto will magically work again. 

[Frank Vitale]

Fantastic, Thanks Jordan!

[Letty2019]

delete A/E and re install A/E 18.1 .   I think adobe is grooming consumers to buy high end GPU's forcing us blue collar gpu users to stay in the trenches using v18.1    My GTX1050ti work just fine in v. 18.1 but anything higher it won'd function properly.  Thus,  adobe leaning on 100,000s of newcard buyers to buy higher up gpus.  No mention of any of these proplems in any adobe manual, so its' easy to speculate it's a high end gpu product push.

[wilsonlarge1]

Thank you for posting this issue @Letty2019 . I've been fighting this all month. Wasted more time then I care to admit by dumping progress and resstarting because I thought I had messed with something inadvertantly to make it act so slow and moody. Thanks @Jordan Clay  for the solution. I couldn't find v 18.1 for some reason. So I tried v 17.7.0 which I could find and it works like it used to. Super smooth and fast. Sanity is slowly returning👍 

[Jordan Clay]

Yeah, i refuse to update off of v18.1 for this reason. Tried every update after this and it destroys rotoscope. Plenty of people saying the same exact thing happening to them, I have posted this everywhere and they refuse to even acknowledge anything is wrong. Ive even replied directly to the developers and they ignore me. Hopefully they will fix it

[Letty2019]

I'm starting to think Adobe is in bed with Nvidia and they are slowly weeding out older GPUs to work with After Effects, forcing people to buy newer and more $$$ GPUs. Surely Adobe must know about the problem, why else are they not fixing it?