Dynamic Link Workflow Inquiry

Report · May 25, 2024

Hello everyone!

I'm posting here to ask for advice on my workflow, because I just want to ensure I'm editing as efficiently as possible. This may take some explaining, so thank you in advance for taking the time to read through it all!

So I primarily use the adobe suite to make video essays for Youtube on media analysis. Examples of my work can be found at Nick Lyskawa on Youtube if that would be helpful for anyone willing to help. I have been making these videos as such: recording the script, chopping it up to take out any errors, and then putting a black video over audio track that I want to comprise a scene. I then replace that black video and audio with an After Effect Dynamic Link and essentially create all of the video's visuals in there, because my editing style is one that utilizes the 3D camera in AE quite extensively and that's the program I learned first. Then I go back to premiere once I'm done editing the motion graphics and add in sound effects and music.

The issue I have with this set up is rendering times. I frequently get massive rendering times that have times said would take 12+ hours to render just one sequence. I was wondering a few things as a result:

1) Is this 3D intensive motion graphic style achievable in Premiere on its own? Should I even be using After Effects?

2) Is there a better way to be using the dynamic link? I've heard and read from other posts that most people don't typically have dynamic link scenes as long as mine in a single project timeline.

3) In general, what are some troubleshooting practices for dynamic link render times, and long premiere render times in general?

This is easily where I run into the most issues with my current workflow, and it makes exporting videos sometimes a days long process of brutal trial and error. Any advice is completely apprecitead, and I've attached a screenshot of my most current project's timeline as its rendering. It's going incredibly slow, maybe one frame every 20-30 seconds, but at least it's moving (i've had plenty of cases where it just freezes and I ahve to cancel the render) For specs, I have 32 gb of ram, and AMD Ryzen 7 57000x 8-core Processor, and a NVIDIA GForce RTX 3070 graphics card.

I'm not a complete master of the adobe suite by any means, so I apologize for any confusion in my explanation! Thank you again!

Report · May 25, 2024

Hi Steven,

I had a quick look at your YouTube videos but couldn't see any examples of your 3D intensive motion graphic style. If you can post a link, I can better assess whether this is achievable in Premiere.

When I'm working on projects with a similar workflow—first cutting audio, then very detailed graphics, then back to Premiere for sound effects and music—I use the following process:

Edit audio in Premiere: Start by editing your audio tracks in Premiere Pro.
Dynamic link Premiere Pro sequence in After Effects: This allows any audio changes in Premiere to ripple through to After Effects.
Export using the Render Queue as an image sequence: Once finished in After Effects, export the project as an image sequence (PNG, PSD, TIF, or DPX).
Import the image sequence into Premiere: Add the image sequence to your Premiere timeline.
Update graphics in After Effects as needed: If any changes are needed to your graphics, update them in After Effects and render only the frames that have changed. These will automatically update in the image sequence in Premiere.
Final mixing and music in Premiere: Complete the final sound mixing and add music in Premiere.

I find that this workflow helps cut down on a lot of render time on the Premiere side of things.

Your render times sound incredibly long. While this isn't unusual for complex projects, it would be helpful to see exactly what you're rendering to provide more specific advice on reducing render times. Your computer specs, while decent, might struggle with highly complex scenes, but rendering one frame every 20-30 seconds suggests very intensive 3D work with detailed effects, lighting, shadows, and motion blur.

If you can provide more details or a specific example, I’d be happy to give more tailored advice.

Thanks,
Paul

Report · May 25, 2024

I don't see how you are getting any advantage out of your black video clips to AE. I would speed up two ways, and please tweak to your needs. But just create your AE scenes and then you can drop a comp into your project from AE and just have the one way dynamic link. That would be how I would do it. I didn't catch if you want the audio in AE to design to... but that would be easy enough to just export your audio track and put it into AE.

To really speed up. You can render out to say a ProRes file in AE, and import that clip into your timeline. You won't have the back and forth if you need that, but that will speed up your exporting from PP. Make sure your export out of AE is the same format at your preview files in your PP sequence - unless you need an alpha channel for your AE file.

Further, look into Smart Rendering, here's a very good article from @Kevin-Monahan

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/faq-what-is-smart-rendering/td-p/10648488

As an old-school editor, when I learned smart rendering i was very happy, as the export out of PP is really quick.

🙂

Report · May 26, 2024

Thank you so much for the advice! The black video technique must be just a bad habit I developed when I was really first learning what the dynamic link even was. I'll make sure to read up on the article and experiment with the suggested workflow, I appreciate the help!

Report · May 26, 2024

You're welcome.

BTW: I was assuming you have in your sequence settings, the Previews set to ProRes, which is now the default in PP. Thus if you export out of AE, you would export to the same style ProRes file (Proxy, LT, HQ, etc). For your final export you can use ProRes again, (it's visually lossless) and then make deliverables like h.264/.265 files from the ProRes. The downside of ProRes is the files are generally bigger. However editing with ProRes files is a joy compared to h.264 which can easily bog down even a very good machine.