Unstable rendering

[0Reality]

Hey everyone!

I don't know if this is normal and.. i'm still learning After Effects

everytime i got to render something

as if it has different effects from the last one or just the same

the rendering time is not the "same".

Yesterday, I rendered a 3.26 minutes video 1080p 60fps

had some particulars and optical flares in it and it took just 1h and 40 minutes

today I'm goin to render another video of 4 minutes with just 1 more optical flares

and after 2h it hasn't rendered even 1/4 of the video

estimated time was about 6h

I really don't get this, what's this about?

If anyone could help me, i would really appreciate it.

I also wanted to ask some advice

on the rendering format, codec

and which one it could be better for a quality/size file

everytime I got to convert the video after the rendering

because the file size is really big.

[Vishu_Aggarwal]

Render Time depends on many factors like opens Applications in the background, Format, Render Settings, drive speed, Third-party Plugin performance,  system Configuration etc.

Let us know your render settings, system configuration and are you rendering using Adobe Media Encoder or After Effects Render Queue.

For little improvement in Render time On the "Caps Lock" if your rendering using After Effects Render Queue. 

[0Reality]

I'm using Render Queue of AE, Render settings is on Best Settings with output on mov format

System configuration is

Ryzen 5 1600

Patriot DDR4 4x2 GB 3000 MHz

GTX 1050ti

2x HDD 1000GB (First one has Ae and cache folder, second one rendering output)

Also when rendering the cpu usage is really low.

What do you think? should I try Media Encoder to see if it's better?

[Martin_Ritter]

I wouldn't bother rendertimes that much. Just get used to it and think of them in advanced.

As said, the rendering depends on a lot of things.

Maybe your RAM and Cache config can handle one lens flare fairy nice, but a 2nd bust them and the computer needs to reload data from hard drive more often, which tooks from CPUs point of view like "forever".

Check out some render managers like BG Renderer or RenderGarden, or RenderBoss to improve render speed. I recommend reading this forum about those add-ons. There are several things to know before get started - mostly hardware related.

About the Codecs:

- if you plan to contine editing your AE video use a high quality codec like DNxHD185X, ProRes 4444, CineForm and prepare yourself for very large files

- if AE is the last node in your pipeline and you just want to upload the video next, H264 is okay, but check the technical specs of the plattform you want to upload (yt and vimeo has different specs and you don't want to get your video converted automatically by them)

[0Reality]

I wouldn't bother rendertime aswell, but i legit can't do other stuff with my computer in the meanwhile.

I will certainly take a look to those add-ons

Usually i'm getting files of 30-40 GB without H264

but with it, i'm still getting files of 10-15 GB and I might be wrong

but I also noticed that it slows down the rendering

[Martin_Ritter]

You should learn to life with it - sorry, no better news at the moment, because your computer is pretty weak for AE, especially RAM. Have a look into your system information when rendering, I guess RAM is at limit. In this case, you can't benefit from render manager, since they need lots of RAM due to parallel render jobs running.

AE rendering or Media Encoder doesn't matter, you render with the AE engine in both cases.

My setting for H264 and internet upload is usually 1080p, 12MBit, VBR. And I always render into PNG Sequence and convert it to H264 afterwards. If the computer hangs or you have to interrupt rendering, you don't loose the whole rendering.

[0Reality]

I guess I will, yea I really need more RAM and I planned to upgrade it soon

I think that is actually useful to not lose the rendering.

But this means you have to re-edit the file for audio if you render in a PNG Sequence and then convert it in H264?

[Martin_Ritter]

I have usually a voice over and soundeffects. I edit both right in AE, since there is not really much to edit and I have a nice plugin for sounds (animation composer from Mr. Horse).

In this scenario, I can export the image as PNG sequence and then reinport it into AE and export everything as H264 (with sound of course) again.

For the 2nd export, I use MediaEncoder and I recommend creating an "export" comp which has only image sequence and main comp (with turned off video) in it.

It prevents from messing things up and even if image content is not visible because of another layer (in this case PNG sequence), AE somehow take it into account, too, and rendering takes longer. It's easier to switch off one layer instead of 50+, you know...

About the RAM: get as much as you can afford and as much, as CPU and Mainboard can handle. I am currently on 64GB, but worked quiet well with 32GB for a couple of years.