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RobertEdgar
Participant
July 14, 2019
Answered

After Effects content-aware fill layer generation aborted

  • July 14, 2019
  • 6 replies
  • 29795 views

After Effects warning: All target frames are completely opaque (no holes to fill). The Content-Aware Fill layer generation for Comp (Atrium_8_36_am) has been aborted.

Has anyone received this error, or know how to avoid it?

The Atrium_8_36_am is the name of my source file.

This error came up on a large file, after a night of After Effects Content-Aware process in "analyzing" mode. The analyzing process went through to 100%, then produced the error message, and started again at 0".

This is with a 5.6 360-degree video file that is about eight minutes long, so it is a big file.

I believe I had all the settings correct.

I'm using an iMac Pro with a Terabyte of storage, so it didn't run out of space.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer David Arbor

    The error is telling you that there are no holes to fill. Do you have a mask on your video that's set to Subtract? You can create holes in your layer to fill a few different ways, including masks, track mattes, or other effects that would knock out pixels, but you need to see transparent pixels in order for CAF to do its magic. You can show the Transparency Grid in your Comp panel to confirm that everything is set up correctly. If you do have a mask, make sure the mode is set to "Subtract," not "None."

    Also, do you really need to be removing something from an eight minute file? Your fill layers will be absolutely massive, and it's generally best practice to only do roto work on the frames that will be in the final shot, plus some necessary handles.

    6 replies

    L
    LifernInside
    Participant
    November 7, 2022

    In my case, the issue was caused by the Neat Reduce Noise effect on the layer. It got solved when I disabled the effect.

    M
    maarrkk
    Participant
    July 30, 2020

    none of these options helped my issue.  but when i un-eyed / hid the other layers in the workspace, then it started to work....!!!!

      T
      TangiblePlanet
      Participating Frequently
      November 28, 2020

      This solved my problem thank you!

        M
        maboy
        Participant
        June 9, 2020

        check that the work area in the timeline is in the area of your layer. It needs to recognize the footage in that specific time, if you move the work area it wont work

        P
        pamousekopf
        Participant
        April 20, 2020

        I had to solo my layer to get this to work before clicking "generate fill layer" to avoid the error message.  Make sure the matte shows through to transparent.  The results were still bad though, and I'll have to resort to a different method anyway.  Using 16.1.2, maybe this has been addressed in future updates.

          M
          motionedit
          Participant
          November 15, 2019

          I ran into the same error, but for a different reason. The footage was automatically being interpreted at Trillions of Colors+ (Straight) even though it didn't actually have an alpha channel. I set it to ignore alpha in interpret footage and it solved the problem.

          D
          David ArborCorrect answer
          Inspiring
          July 16, 2019

          The error is telling you that there are no holes to fill. Do you have a mask on your video that's set to Subtract? You can create holes in your layer to fill a few different ways, including masks, track mattes, or other effects that would knock out pixels, but you need to see transparent pixels in order for CAF to do its magic. You can show the Transparency Grid in your Comp panel to confirm that everything is set up correctly. If you do have a mask, make sure the mode is set to "Subtract," not "None."

          Also, do you really need to be removing something from an eight minute file? Your fill layers will be absolutely massive, and it's generally best practice to only do roto work on the frames that will be in the final shot, plus some necessary handles.

            R
            RobertEdgarAuthor
            Participant
            July 17, 2019

            Thanks, David.

            It turns out I had deleted the "Fill" files, so AE couldn't find them.

            User error, AE operated properly.

            I tried removing the content from the whole file as it was shot with a 360 camera mounted below a drone, and I needed the bottom of the drone removed from the entire "flight". I did get AE to properly remove it, although I finally just cropped that part of the image out.

            As I noted, AE did work properly. Thanks for your help.

              D
              David Arbor
              Inspiring
              July 17, 2019

              Gotcha, glad you got it figured out. There's an option that's not on by default, but in the flyout (hamburger) menu of the CAF panel you can change your settings and have your fills managed automatically. I like this option on because deleting fills from my timeline then saving my project (or maybe it's deleting them from the Project panel then saving) will prompt a message that AE will delete the fills and remove them from your disk. This is great because those fill layers can take up soooo much space, especially if you do end up working on longer clips and can't crop things out.

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