Rendering and exporting multiple compositions

[francise78163288]

Hi,

I have made 12 compositions on After Effects. Each is about 40 seconds long. Each contains a lot of parts, writing, pictures, animations. It is for a lyric video.

I want to merge all the compositions into one and bounce/export the whole thing.

What is the best way to do this?

A step-by-step guide would be helpful if anyone has a link or could walk me through it.

I've already tried to add one composition to the render queue, rendered and exported it as a test, and it came out playing out of time and laggy.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Rick Gerard]

With comps that are that long I would render them all using the default Lossless preset in the Output Module then import the rendered files into Premiere Pro and do your final edit and sound mix there. 

The other option is to create a new comp that is long enough for all of your comps, drag the existing comps in one at a time, sequence the layers creating transitions if needed, then add the main master comp to the Adobe Media Encoder and render the final.

The advantage of the first method is that you are a lot less likely to have rendering problems and the lossless files will contain all of the original comp pixel information. Lossless files are not intended for playback or posting to the web on YouTube or any other streaming service, but they are intended for use as digital intermediates and production masters in a professional video production workflow. 

The disadvantage to the second method is that the Adobe Media Encoder does not render as fast as Premiere Pro, it does not utilize all of the rendering power that the Render Cue/output module workflow does, it is more susceptible to crashing or hanging up, and if the render fails, you end up with nothing. A failed render in the Render Cue can be picked up where it left off almost every time and you won't have to re-render the entire project again.

Personally, I never render anything longer than a few seconds in the Media Encoder. Most of my comps are six seconds or less and I almost always do the final edit and color grading in Premiere Pro. The only exception is when I do a very simple motion graphics (explainer video) project that I know will render at the rate of several frames a second, and there is nothing more than a very simple audio track that has already been finalized.