Won't preview animations

[samuelb40192644]

This is my first After Effects project. It's basically a bunch of graphics (text and images) that I want to appear in various locations on the screen with animations. Sort of like those drawing animations that visualize a speech. But no drawing involved, just graphics appearing. When I started the project, it worked fine. Even the dynamic link with Premiere Pro was working and updating as I made changes. Then it seemed to hit a wall and the previews took longer and longer to work. Now, only the first 3 animations work and the whole project is incredibly slow and glitchy (I don't see the animations even trying to work). Also the dynamic link isn't working anymore. I looked through other posts that talked about machine specs and preview settings, so those are below. The project has 36 layers, each one with a graphic and animation. And my MBP has 240 gb available (though when I started this project it only had 40 gb available and I did a bunch of clean up, with no change on this project). Thanks for any help!!!

[Rick Gerard]

How long is the comp? What is the frame rate? What is the frame (comp) size? What kind of images are you using? Are the images at or near 100% scale sometime in the timeline? What is the Composition Panel Magnification Factor? Is the Comp Resolution set to Auto?

Generally, when using Dynamic Link, if the shot you are replacing is longer than just a few seconds or the animation is complex and could take a long time to render the best approach is to undo the Dynamic Link in Premiere Pro immediately after the AE comp is created, do the work on the comp, render to a visually lossless production format, and then drop your rendered effects shot above the original shot in the Premiere Pro sequence. Complex AE projects take longer to render in Premiere Pro than they do in the Render Cue and they can slow things way down. The average comp in my workflow is seven seconds or less because I do not edit in AE, I use it to create shots that I cannot create in an NLE, then I edit in the NLE.

Preparing graphics for video is a critical step. There are a lot of things that newbies and amateurs do wrong. I would spend some time studying that process.

Until we see a timeline with the modified properties of your comp revealed it is going to be really difficult pinpoint the preview problem. Your system is just slightly above the minimum system requirements and may even fall short when it comes to screen resolution so you can't expect too much from it, but with properly managed projects and efficient workflows you should be able to be productive.

[vikashk503]

Hi,

The issue highlighted seems to be related to performance. After Effects unlike premiere pro utilizes Ram and Processor for most of its functioning.

While your system seems fine for basic editing and usage, when it comes to working on complex projects with more layers, contents, graphics, videos, animations, it may lag behind during rendering and editing and you may experience sluggish performance. Also, you do not have a dedicate graphic card to share the burden  but a generic GPU which being honest with you has minimum impact in performance.

Here is the official KB article for minimum requirements for After Effects. You may see what you have is the minimum one which can only do basic work and small rendering but to do more, you need to have recommend configuration :

After Effects System Requirements

Here are certain steps you may try to find out :

1. Try a new project with few layers and contents and see if issue still persists.

2. Try changing renderer to GPU from Project settings window.

3. Try cleaning cache

4. Try launching latest auto save project and see what can be done.

I hope it helps.

[samuelb40192644]

Thanks for the reply. I made a new composition, added more layers, then some transitions and I did notice that as I added transitions, performance slowed down. The original comp had 36 layers. The new one has 18. I put 4 transitions in and thought I noticed a difference. When I got to about 8 transitions, I definitely noticed. Is it possible to add some layers with transitions and then render that much, add more layers and render and keep going?

Also a second question came up. I had assumed that transitions would happen at the beginning of the layer, but that appears to be wrong. Many of the transitions defaulted to about 15 second into the layer. Is there a way to control that? That will help my troubleshooting as I had assumed that the transition showing up that far in was part of the lagging. That and also because it wouldn't actually transition, it would just appear.

Thanks again.

[Rick Gerard]

What kind of transitions are you using? It sounds like you are editing in After Effects. That is almost always a really bad idea. Without seeing a timeline that includes the modified properties of the layers that are giving you problems it is almost impossible to diagnose the problem. For a full diagnosis, we need a detailed description of the workflow, the source footage specifications, a flow chart that is fully expanded to show effects if you have a bunch of nested comps, and the modified properties of layers that are causing problems.

[samuelb40192644]

I have one background layer that is a picture (3815 x 3324). For my new composition that I'm using to troubleshoot, I have 18 layers each one is either a png (17kb - 711kb) or text that was created in AE. For this comp, the only transition I'm using is "Dissolve - Ripple" and I have it on almost all the layers. Not sure what else to say. I just want one large background picture with text and smaller pictures to appear at specific times on top of it, ideally each with a transition to make it appear. Then I was going to put all this into Premiere Pro to match the appearance of the graphics with the voice over. The whole thing will be 2 minutes.

Update: I discovered that part of the problem is that I wasn't understanding the timing of the animations and some of the animations were set in the layer at a time before the layer was set to appear. Now that I adjusted those, things are better. But it still gets slower and slower with the preview once I get passed 5 or 6 layers each with an animation. It ends up rendering just fine. It's just the previewing that slows really quickly. Is there anyway to set up a couple layers with animations and have it process that much before adding more? Or anyway to help it preview more efficiently. Below is my timeline with the layers opened up and also the effects panel. The effect shown below is the same one on almost all the layers.

I'll be camping till Sunday, so away from WiFi and can respond after that. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!!

[Rick Gerard]

Step 1: Check your background image. If it is not at 100% scale at some point in the timeline then open it up in Photoshop and resize it so that it does. Every pixel you reposition in the comp needs to be recalculated for every frame. If the background image is static then crop it and size it to match the comp size.

Step 2: Make sure the layers are trimmed. If they are not visible, set in and out points.

The Dissolve Ripple Animation Preset is not a very quick transition to render and if the animations are stacked on top of each other the time required to render the frames goes up exponentially.

If all else fails, break the comp up into 10-second sections and then render them and cut them together in an NLE.

I have not seen your design but two minutes of the same background with smaller pictures fading in and out at different times may not be the most effective way to visually tell your story. Sometimes a little more creativity can speed up the entire production process.

[Dave_LaRonde]

There is a lot we don't know about this project:

• The dimensions of the comp
• The frame rate
• The expressions being used, which can add a lot of needless evaluation time
• The previewing techniques you're using, and there are very many
• Most importantly, what you're expected to DELIVER, in precise detail; e.g. a 3815 x 3324 image can slow down previews in a 1920x1080 comp