AE 2018 multi processing

[pixteur]

Looking to see if the latest AE 2018 has any form of usable multi processing back in it? We have some new machines and its insane how slow renders are compared to older rigs running 2014 with multi processing.

Has anyone seen performance improvements on modern multicore multi GPU rigs? I don't like when AE only uses 6% of my CPU and only one out of 4 GPU's.

[Dave_LaRonde]

In a word, no.  No multiprocessing.  I'm also relieved to read that you haven't yet pulled the trigger on the upgrade.

As seems to be the case with the last 3-4 AE versions,  there is an abundance of bugs in this initial release of the new version.  If you're a fan of software that works almost reliably instead a fan of sparkly, attention-getting new features, I think you would be wise to wait until  the second major bug fix.  Wait until just the first major bug fix if you're willing to roll the dice.

At the moment, there have been at least two posts in this forum by Adobe saying, "Folks, we found another bug.  Here's a link to the patch."  Certain wags refer to a CC subscription as the Adobe Unpaid Beta Tester Program.  They don't call it that for nothin', y'know.

[P.M.B]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Dave+LaRonde  wrote

At the moment, there have been at least two posts in this forum by Adobe saying, "Folks, we found another bug.  Here's a link to the patch."

They've released two patches?  Where?

[Szalam]

I don't know what Dave is referring to by the patches either.

So far, the only big issue I've seen with this recent release on the forums (and for myself) is pasting Mocha Shape Data will cause a crash. (Actually, just having the data on the clipboard will cause the crash.)

I haven't run into any issues with CC 2018 myself yet. This release (and last release really) are rather focused on adding in things that long-time AE users (like Dave and myself) have been asking for for years. Granted, Adobe marketing doesn't know how to publicize these features, but they're huge! For example, you can now control path points with nulls or control nulls with path points or move a null around a path. This expression access to paths has been a major feature request for over a decade and it's finally here!

Another big thing that came in CC 2017 was the ability for effects that reference other layers to reference the masks and effects on the layer and not just the layer's source. That means, for example, if you're driving the Displacment Map effect with a layer containing Fractal Noise, you don't have to precompose the Fractal Noise layer like you used to have to do in the past. This is HUGE for folks in both visual effects (more node-like) and motion graphics (less precomping)!

But besides those two features, there are a whole slew of other enhancements and features that the AE team has added that aren't "sparkly, attention-getting features", but are genuine workflow boosters.

I'm serious about this: I would not want to go back to CC 2014 while I'm working.

Now...as to rendering...

Granted, some projects render faster in CC 2014, but I also have some projects that simply cannot use the multiprocessing option. Any project with MIR (or several other plugins), shading in Particular, any GPU plugin (such as Element), or even sometimes the wiggle expression would just fail with multiprocessing! I'm working on one right now that uses the wiggle expression on several parameters and it flickers like CRAZY in CC 2014 with multiprocessing on (I assume it's because the various instances of the wiggle expression are using different seeds in the different instances of AE, but I haven't had time to troubleshoot), so it's actually slower in 2014 vs. newer versions since it has to render with multiprocessing turned off.

That's not to say that I am not hoping for the long-promised replacement for multiprocessing. I really, really, really want to see my dual-Xeon monster get put to work when using AE again. I would just rather it have fewer bugs than the old method did. I too, as you do, have been looking for each new version to see if they've given us multicore rendering. And I too have been saddened each time. I'm happy with the stuff they are adding and the direction they are going, but I really want it to render faster too!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Pixteur,

Looking to see if the latest AE 2018 has any form of usable multi processing back in it?

Check out RenderGarden, coming soon: RenderGarden | by Mekajiki

Has anyone seen performance improvements on modern multicore multi GPU rigs?

After Effects doesn't use the GPU very much, sorry.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Pat481]

If a third party is able to add in multiprocessing with their limited budget and resources while Adobe is failing too, something is catastrophically wrong with the company. If you work in management of any level in the After Effects team and you don't have alarm bells and sirens going off right now there is a serious disconnect between you and your customers.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Pat,

I'm in management, but in support, so I'm just offering potential solutions that may assist you (FYI, RenderGarden only works with Macs only and is so new, I don't have much info).

Sorry, I don't make decisions about features. Product management has indicated that though enhancing performance is a top priority, render multiple frames simultaneously multiprocessing is not returning to the application in its former state.

I suggest you make your requests known to the product team here.

Thanks,
Kevin

[JeffreySBrown]

Hi Kevin,

Could you please elaborate on your statement (below), because I'm not really sure what you or "management" is trying to say. Thanks!
re:

"Product management has indicated that though enhancing performance is a top priority, render multiple frames simultaneously multiprocessing is not returning to the application in its former state."

[P.M.B]

JeffreySBrown  wrote

I'm not clear what they're trying to say.

They (product management) are "trying" to not say anything.  They're being intentionally ambiguous.  It's a highly political statement that leaves all of their options open.  They're not saying that it isn't coming back but they're also not saying that it is in either its previous form or even any form.

It's basically a press release meant to reassure you of any worries & absolve themselves of any commitment to what their future plans are.

It's a flowery way of saying "Maybe, maybe not. Don't worry about it".

[Szalam]

It looks pretty clear to me and it matches what both Todd Kopriva used to say before he left and what Victoria Nece has been saying since then: Multiprocessing is not returning in its former form. That is to say, the old way of doing it is not coming back.

I've mentioned before that I understand why this is, but I really wish they would give us the modern, less-buggy replacement soon! Moving things to the GPU is certainly helping some things get faster, but I'd like the whole thing to get faster (and stable [stability not being a hallmark of GPU rendering...]).

And, in the meantime, I'm glad they're giving us some other big features that we've been asking for for years. I know they haven't forgotten rendering - I bring it up to the AE team whenever I see them (NAB, Adobe MAX, etc.)

[danielc51265396]

Fix this — already!

Moderator Warning: Do not use profanity, it is against the community guidelines. Thanks.

[benjamins95179069]

"Product management has indicated that though enhancing performance is a top priority, render multiple frames simultaneously multiprocessing is not returning to the application in its former state."

This is RIDICULOUS. I have 3 CC subscriptions which are going up $3 a month in April? Why? I use After Effects 2014 and cannot get beyond it because renders got ridiculously slower. I am furious at Adobe. The minute we became financially tethered to your company I knew the focus on meeting customer needs would decline and it has. Bottom line: you took out the memory and multi-processing settings which were customizable and DIY, and you claimed the software was written to do it automatically and more efficiently. You failed. Badly. You owe it the original basis of your company's success, graphic arts companies, to make software that works. RenderGarden is not a perfect solution. Years ago there was a company called Nucleo which sped up renders by utilizing multiple processors for After Effects. You added the multi-processing and put them out of business. Then you took it away. WE ARE NOT HAPPY.

[fnordware]

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that RenderGarden is out!

https://www.mekajiki.com/rendergarden/

[Matt Silverman]

RenderGarden is the answer to everyone's problem! Speed up AE renders 2-3x on the same box. And network render multiple computers together into a farm. Super easy and works like a charm!

Check it out at Mekajiki !

To give you a little background of why we made RenderGarden... My Studio Swordfish uses Pixar's Tractor for network rendering in After Effects, Maya, C4d, Houdini, Nuke, Handbrake, Font Syncing, etc. We went with Tractor after trying other queue's and found it to be amazingly powerful and bullet-proof, as you would expect Pixar to build for their internal productions. But it had its challenges... it was not simple to setup. We needed to hire an outside IT company to set up an NFS network, and my TD spent weeks if not months writing custom python to get everything running seamlessly. I spent over $50k in hardware/software/development to get my farm to where it is today. And I love it. But earlier this year we had a project come in which required a few of my artists to work off-site at a client's office on 6k comps while our tractor farm was slammed with other projects. Our client gave them each two Macs, so we started to think about how we could leverage the tools we made for our Tractor farm and create a mini-farm down there. Initially we created a sneaker-net solution to segment the comp to the four macs, then proceeded to think up ideas to automate this process. We didn't need a full-blown farm, just a little garden– hence the name RenderGarden. We added the Gardener tool to watch for seeds on the network, and started installing Gardener on other client machines in the office to render in the background. One of the unexpected by-products of RenderGarden was the fact that you could plant more than one seed on the same computer, which brought back the render multiple frames simultaneously feature Adobe killed in 2015. We found 2-3x speed increase on each render node, and have never seen a decrease in render speed as others here found with the old AE feature (might be how we segment chunks of your timeline and not frames). We also do not have issues with GPU, expressions, particles, etc., since we're basically using the same submit scripts we use for Tractor over the past four years. So that's the background of why we made RenderGarden.

[Tom Barker DOP]

Awesome, Thank you!

I will check out your product asap.

[SGK_Digital_Ltd]

Hi Matt, sounds great, do you have any tutorials or online instructions for RenderGarden? All I can find so far is the demo installer & some marketing info.

Thanks

Simon

[Matt Silverman]

Hi Simon! We have a bunch of tutorials here... quickstart should get you up and running: https://www.mekajiki.com/rendergarden/tutorials/

If you have any questions or issues, submit a support ticket on our site and our engineer Brendan will get back to you asap.

Enjoy!

-Matt

[Rick Gerard]

I have been using Render Garden since it came out and it is a great time saver. Maybe someday Adobe will integrate it into AE. The only thing you have to watch out for is making sure that you leave enough resources to keep working. An efficient AE artist is always working on the next shot and never sits around waiting for a render.

[Pat481]

This is a sign that Adobe has some catastrophic internal problems. If the issue is so technically simple to solve that a third party with much higher risk and less skin in the game can just come along and solve it,  some serious bureaucracy or incompetence issues must be at play at Adobe Hq, they don't understand their own product or their customer. I would hate to be an Adobe investor. It's like being a blackberry investor in 2008.

[Matt Silverman]

Actually, Adobe's stock is doing great. I wish I kept mine after ditching it 10 years ago. IMO, this is part of the problem. They put energy into things they think will make wall street happy instead of what makes hardcore users happy. In the meantime, we're here to fill in the gaps with products like RenderGarden. We also have been posting free plug-ins and scripts like UnMult on mekajiki.com, and will be adding some more soon.

[Pat481]

Blackberry's stock was doing great in 2008 too It actually wasn't until 2011 that it really burnt to the ground. They focused too much on legacy and maintaining what they had, instead of making the best possible products for professionals. And when they woke up to their mistake it was too late to act. Framing this as just a 'hardcore user' problem only addresses half of it imo, the UX of all popular CC apps is aggressively obscure and dated for a pro app in 2018. Watching design school kids trying to learn to use this stuff when they are used to user-centered design in the other apps they use really highlights that issue. They seem to pick up things like figma and newer Adobe apps like Xd and Felix with little effort, they certainly don't need to spend a week watching youtube video tutorials in order to use the interface. Us designers don't realise how badly designed these apps are because learning how to use this impenetrable ui is like a badge of honour, like a skill we have picked up.

You guys killed it with this plugin btw, great stuff.

[P.M.B]

Blackberry made one thing.  Adobe is omnipresent.

They could, for the sake of argument, let After Effects rot & die and their stock would be just fine.

BTW...your comment about how "the fix is so technically simple that a third party could do it"...is sort of...

[Pat481]

That is true, they do have marketing cloud and all the pdf stuff too. It's CC that I think is in trouble.

[Matt Silverman]

Adobe is a monstor big company. Unfortunately AE is a tiny fraction of their business. Small nimble companies like SideEffects show how amazingly agile development can be if there is no bureaucracy.

[C_Waldorf]

Thank you for the Tip!

I think ADOBE ist lazy to integrate this!

They are to lazy to integrate GPU Cuda Rendering!

They are to lazy to make a multi CPU Rendering!

ADOBE want only our Money!

Look for DaVinci Resolve, 4x new Titan V, 100% mohre Rendering Power

Look at Flame, a new HP, much more power!

Look at ADOBE, nothing, over a lot od years!

And avery yerar on the IBC or NAB they talk and talk and talk.

The persons from ADOBE are in looks like oil in your hand.