What is a common workflow when working with pre made templates (For a virgin newb)

[metroruss]

Hello all,

I jumped in with both feet and got CC and acquired many pre-made AE templates. Now comes the figuring out part for me. It will be a learning curve that I hope will be easy on me.

My PC is a bit older but is like a 50 year old boat motor that keeps on spinning along. I just upgraded from 7 to 10 and have tried my best to optimize for AE with what budget I have. If you could share your opinion of what I could upgrade when I get a few hundred bucks to use on the PC that would be appreciated very much!

i5-quad core 3450

32gb ram

Geforce GTX 660 2gb ram

120gb SSD dedicated to AE disc cache memory

The problem I am facing right now is the workflow that one would use when working with fairly straightforward templates. (It was difficult and took a while to figure it out but now it seems workable and repeatable) Screenshot JPG attached.

Can you link me to a tutorial on how to work with these type of templates? 

My main issue right now is how long it is taking for the green ram line to fill up the data. Is there a specific process/workflow that one does when starting up one of these templates? 

Any help will be awesome,

Thanks,

Metroruss

[Warren Heaton]

Loading a Preview into RAM (that is, filling up the green ram line) is mainly tied to processor speed (currently, fewer and faster cores for AE).

If you use Shift + Numberpad 0 instead of Spacebar, the Preview will skip frames.  While the motion will not be as smooth, it will playback sooner than if you preview every frame.  This assumes your Preview panel is still set to the default settings.  Depending on how you're working, you can customize how AE builds your Preview.

I often lower the Comp Resolution (View > Resolution > Full, Half, Third, Quarter) for faster Previews, although, you've trading image quality for faster previews of the motion.