After Effects CS4 Performance (BRUTAL)

Despite the comments on this board (from Adobe themselves) claiming improved After Effects CS4 performance over its predecessor, my experience is the exact opposite. This version seems half baked to me.
AE CS4 isn't just SLOW, and by slow I really mean dreadfully unusable, It's unstable as well. Even running the same template files that came with CS3 and 4, there's a huge difference in render time, ram previews etc. When you can't even rotate a simple cube without crashing, there's some real problems, and this is just the beginning. The previous version had no show stopping issues, it performed like a trooper. This latest however, I can't see how I could use it day to day for anything..
There is no other software on this machine other than, CS4, Firefox, and Lightwave 9.5, which by the way, handles textured objects with hundreds of thousands of polys, not 6. I first get an error message that reads as followed;
After effect error: crash occurred while invoking effect plug-in "Live Photoshop 3D"
followed by, After Effects can't continue: sorry, After Effects has crashed. See... blah blah blah..
By the way this occurs with or without OpenGl enabled.
Systems specs
8GB Ram
Q6600
Hard Drive space 4TB, install drive, 156 GB free
Vista Business 64
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS (driver 178.13)
This is the same machine that ran CS3 very well, so there shouldn't be anything wrong with this rig..

Fausto,
I have no problem importing or animating your PSD - no crashes, at least. The resolution is very high. I got better results by cutting the resolution of your PSD in half, which may or may not be an option for you. I improved responsiveness a little by setting the PS 3D layer to "Use Photoshop Transform" in AE.
But ultimately, the responsiveness of the 3D layer in AE is impossible to work with, except with Live Update disabled. It seems like a RAM issue to me. What size are the texture layers on each side of the cube? If they're all 3000x2000-ish like your document, and you're working at full res, consider that AE has to hold all six images in RAM, plus manipulate them in 3D.
My own sense is that the whole 3D layer thing simply isn't ready for that kind of resolution in AE yet. And probably wont be until true 64bit code allows the storage of all those textures in RAM more easily.
As a side note, don't know if it's my location or your server, but your 74Mb image took me almost 2 hours to download.

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After Effects CS4 Exporting Question

I am creating several After Effects CS4 compositions that will be used in a Premier Pro CS4 project. Right now I am importing the AE compositions into Premiere with out exporting them first. It is real convenient to be able to click into PP and see the current changes take effect. My question is this, once I am done tweaking a composition should I be exporting it in another format or I is it ok to use the AE file as is? Am I suffering any quality loss by not going to quicktime or one of the other choices?
And in PP you hit enter to render. Is the AE equivalant hitting the space bar and playing the timeline? I see the green line above any changes but I didn't know if there is another step to maximize the quality of the finished product.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Cole

R-Cole wrote:
Am I suffering any quality loss by not going to quicktime or one of the other choices?
If you suffered any quality loss, you'd know your settings are wrong. Most commonly people make a mess of field order, which of course you can neatly avoid by using DynamicLink such as you already do. The rest is more or less a matter of personal preference and how much performance is consumed by live rendering the AE compositions vs. how much juice your machine has. You wouldn't use that workflow on very complex projects where rendering a single frame can take up to several minutes, but for straight titles and color corrections it's okay.
R-Cole wrote:
Is the AE equivalant hitting the space bar and playing the timeline?
The green line refers to frames stored in RAM, the blue ones to the disk cache, should you use it. Read the help files on how to generate RAM previews to populate both caches. After you have RAM-previewed each segement of the timeline and use the disk cache, it may be possible to get realtime spacebar playback, but there is no guarantee for that. After all, AE is primarily foicused on compositing, not RT editing. There's one caveat, however. The disk cache will only be used, if AE thinks it could not render the frames quick enough, so in your simple scenario it may never be used. And of course specific chnages will invalidate caches, so you's have to re-render. It really depends.
Mylenium

Adobe After Effects CS4 Crashes During Startup

Hey I have a major problem i think.. after I installed AAE CS4 I picked the trial to see how it was b4 i bought it. Once everything was installed and complete I restarted my computer but when I went to open the program it pulled the grey aae startup box. It had 4% complete and said Initializing Media Core then it just stops and minutes later crashes with not progress. It continually does it with no improvement. Anybody that can help me?

I did all of the above:
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-   1. Go go Control Panel -> System-> Advance System settings
     2. Click Advanced tab, Performance -> Setting
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- Run as administrator
Nothing worked. I still get the crash at start-up with the message
<960> <AppDirs> <5> Required Dir=
C:\ProgramFiles\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS4\Support Files\Required.
and after that sorry, AE can'r continue..
Help me please, I have the 30 days trial and I desperately need to learn how this program works for a project. After that I want to buy it.
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Adobe After Effects CS4 Third Party Content only installed on one of two computers

Hello,
I installed Adobe Creative Suite CS4 MC on two systems. One system lists "Adobe After Effects CS4 Third Party Content" in Add/Remove Programs. This left me a bit baffled as to what this content is and why it only installed on one machine (i.e., assuming I did not erroneously selected or deselected it during the default install). I thought it would be reasonable to install the missing content on the second machine but I cannot find an installer listing "Adobe After Effects CS4 Third Party Content" in the CS4 default or custom installer.
Could someone please tell me what this content is used for and how I can install it on the second machine?
Thank you...

> It should by no means be shown separately in the install database
That's not true for one case.
If you install After Effects in trial mode, the third party content won't be installed. But it leaves the third party content installer on your machine so that when you add a serial number the plug-ins can be added. This causes a new installer to run, so it will be registered (and need to be uninstalled) separately from the main installer.
Frederick- Verify that both machines have the third party plug-ins that Mylenium listed. If it's not on the second machine you probably have it in trial mode and need to serialize. (If not, try uninstalling and reinstalling After Effects from the Master Collection package.)

"Unable to create font" error when starting After Effects CS4 (Windows Vista)

Hi all
I have read a hundred posts about the "unable to create font" message that appears when running After Effects in both CS4 and CS5 versions.
On MAC, it seems that installing the Verdana fonts family is enough.
On my PC running Windows Vista, i tried unsuccessfully :
- uninstalled and reinstalled After Effects
- installed all the fonts of the Adobe Font Folio v11
- looked for the "AdobeFnt.lst" to delete it, found no such file in my whole hard drive
- changed my system language to English (USA)
Other CS4 softwares work.
What can i do?

See this page for some additional information about this error.
> I forgot to mention that i also installed the 9.0.2 update. Didn't work either!
You should also install the After Effects CS4 (9.0.3) update.

How to install riot gear and evolution in after effects cs4

Please tell how to install them in adobe after effects cs4.
Please i am waiting for the solution.

> Please tell any site from which i can learn editing and some vfx creating from after effects cs4.
Start here to learn After Effects.

Adobe After Effects CS4 Crashes After Reinstall

Hello Adobe Community,
I come to you asking for help, my After Effects CS4 stopped working after reinstalling Leopard, I already reinstalled my Suite and Runned the Clean Up Script and still not working, first I launch the App and shows me the following error: "After Effects has encountered an error: [/Chinchillada/pro/ext/adobe/MediaCore/MedialLayer/VideoFilterHost/Make/Mac/../../Src/AEP luginVideoFilterModule.cpp-107]" then I click continue and then it shows me another error: "After Effects can't continue: An Output contract violation has ocurred!" then it shows another error: "After Effects warning: Failed to initialize mediacore" then it shows this "After Effects warning: Media Core is not correctly initialized" then it launches and freezes and shows that the app quitted unexpectedly, I'm sure that the app is dead but I already reinstalled with no success.
Im Running:
Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.7
Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz
1 GB Ram
After Effects worked and runned perfectly Please Help!
Mike

Hi Mike,
Sorry you are experiencing problems with After Effects.
I have a couple of questions....
- did you install from a download, or a CD? if from a download, please download again, as their may have been issues
- did you update it to v 9.02?
- did you have a previous beta version on your computer?
- you said you reinstalled Leopard - did you do a clean install? (ie reformatting your harddrive and starting clean)
I have experienced issues on the mac with a variety of different applications is I do a 're-install" vs a clean install.
Finally, are you aware that the minimum RAM requirements for AE CS4 is2GB
So since you only have 1GB, it could be a RAM issue.
If you decided you want to try reinstalling before doing the more difficult task (reformatting Mac OS X with a clean install), I would run the cleanup script first, redownload, install, and then update.
Here's the link: <http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs4clean.html>
good luck,
elaine

After Effects cs4 does not recognise my legal product key

I changed my hard disk without deactivate After Effects cs4
Trying to install it again several times received the message "some components did no installed correctly" and prompt me to run in a trial basis
I made all the updates and still have the same problem
Any Help ???

Contact Adobe Customer Support.

Problem installing trial version of After Effects CS4

Hi,
I'm trying to install the trial version of After Effects CS4 on Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1 32-bit Operating System, Processor 2.4GHz, RAM 4GB.
At the initializing stage it gets to 90% on the 'Checking System Profile...' dialog box, something flashes and then it freezes.
I've downloaded it a second time in case of corruption.
I've rebooted several times and retried it with no other applications running.
I've run updates on any existing adobe products I have.
Any ideas? I've never had problems installing adobe products before.
Thanks.

Not your fault, known issue.
a) Download the Microsoft Installer Cleanup Utility and install it
b) Download the CS4 Cleanup Utility from Adobe's support pages
c) Run the CS4 Cleanup, electing to remove all debris from your failed install
d) Manually uninstall all instances of Adobe AIR products (Acrobat.com, Adobe Media Palyer) using Add or Remove Programs
e) Launch the Microsoft Installer Cleanup and look for instances of Adobe Installer 2.0. Have them removed. Optionally, have it remove other Adobe stuff that may have been left over from CS4.
f) Try to install CS4
Note: The cleanup utilities will not remove anything physically, only clean out the installer, so they pose no danger to your system. You will only lose the ability to uninstall those programs from Add or Remove Programs.
Mylenium

After Effects CS4 tips

People have asked for a document that includes all of the After Effects CS4 tips of the day. OK. Here it is.

Bob,
Please ask this question on the main After Effects forum:
http://forums.adobe.com/community/aftereffects_general_discussion
Hijacking a thread is confusing for other users, and it keeps you from getting an answer, because it means that almost no one will see your question.
If you start a thread in the main forum with your question as the subject line, people will actually see it.

After effects cs4

I had this message trying to open Adobe After Effects CS4:
Adobe After Effects CS4 is not installed or its insatallation is damaged. Please reinstall or repair.
What should i do....

You've got the wrong forum, try asking in the After Effects forum

Adobe After Effects CS4 won't install.

Ok, so I got Adobe After Effects CS4, because my computer is only 32-bit. I clicked on Set Up to install it and the little grey box that says 'Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer' appears. I select Yes, the box disappears, but then nothing happens. What's worng? Can I do anything to fix it?

We cannot know. We need exact system info. As a start, you might consider turning off UAC completely and running as admin...
Mylenium

After effects cs4 won't install with the Adobe Creative Suite 4

yesterday I bought Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, i let it download through out the night and the next day i installed it and noticed that it came every single application except after effects cs4. there is no folder or icon for it, but everything else works. im in the process of uninstalling it and re-installing it, but i doubt it will help. i downloaded the after effects cs4 trail months ago, then deleted it. i don't think that's the problem though.I called adobe and was on hold for literally two hours, and when i was able to talk to someone they were not really able to help much.
im on a macbook, version 10.5.8
2.4 GHz intel core 2 duo
2 gb 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
EDIT: i installed it again, looked at the install options more closely and realesed that it does come with it, it just wont let me install it or check it to be installed, because it says its already installed. i checked all over my hard drive for it and its not there. i really need some help.
any help would be appreciated, thanks.
also if I waited and got after effects cs5 do you think it would actually work, and would i be able to get the student discount again?

We cannot know. We need exact system info. As a start, you might consider turning off UAC completely and running as admin...
Mylenium

*** Adobe Creative Suite 4 Now Shipping! After Effects CS4 New Features ***

Adobe have officially announced the upcoming Creative Suite 4 group of products, including
After Effects CS4,
CS4 Production Premium bundle, and
CS4 Master Collection.
After Effects CS4 Top New Features
b Live Adobe Photoshop 3D layers import
Import Adobe® Photoshop® 3D layers into Adobe After Effects® CS4, move them, animate cameras around them, adjust lighting, and composite them with other elements.
b Searchable timelines and projects and easier nested comp navigation
Locate any element in a comp or project with the new QuickSearch. Quickly navigate between nested comps with the new Mini-Flowchart.
b Compositions exported as layered projects
Export compositions as layered, XFL format projects that can be opened and edited in Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional software. Many After Effects assets such as text and Adobe Illustrator® artwork are preserved as vectors.
b Integrated workflow for mobile device authoring
Select devices in Adobe Device Central and automatically set up an After Effects project that targets those devices, with settings that match the targeted devices and the Render Queue setup to output to the proper codecs and resolutions.
b Numerous interface and workflow tweaks
Work more efficiently with dozens of user-requested changes, including the new Auto Resolution setting that only renders visible pixels when zooming in and out of a comp view, streamlined memory and multicore processing preferences, and more.
b Dynamic Link between Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Soundbooth
Using Adobe Creative Suite® 4 Production Premium software, now link Adobe Premiere® Pro sequences to an After Effects composition and After Effects comps to Adobe Soundbooth® with Adobe Dynamic Link.
b Independent keyframing of x, y, z values, plus 3D compositing improvements
Composite in 3D space more easily: Keyframe x, y, and z position values separately, and use the new unified camera, which makes the After Effects camera tool work more like those in 3D modeling applications.
b Cartoon effect
Instantly give live footage the look of cell animation. Stylize video by reducing the color palette of a clip and by emphasizing edges.
b Mocha for Adobe After Effects from Imagineer Systems
Use this powerful 2.5D planar tracking application from Imagineer Systems to track the motion of elements even in challenging shots where elements move offscreen or where there is motion blur or excessive grain.
b XMP metadata for asset intelligence
Now retain asset metadata while you work in After Effects. Add new project-, comp-, and layer-level metadata to streamline project tracking, and automate asset auditing and many other tasks.
Also note that
Adobe OnLocation, included in the CS4 Master Collection, Production Premium bundle, and with Premiere Pro, now runs natively in Mac OS X as well as Windows.
Adobe is offering some discounted upgrade incentive pricing for a limited time and/or pre-ordering. Some initial U.S. prices are as follows:
i Product___________________CS3 to CS4 Upgrade_______CS4 Full Purchase
After Effects CS3____________$299__________________$999
Production Premium CS3_______$599__________________$1699
Master Collection CS3_________$899__________________$2499
Please visit
www.adobe.com for accurate pricing, eligibility for upgrades and pre-orders in your region.
Click here to be notified when CS4 products are available for purchase and trial.

There's a list of the big new features in the
"New features in After Effects CS4" section of After Effects CS4 Help on the Web, and you can read about every little change to the UI in the
"User interface changes from After Effects CS3 to After Effects CS4" section.
But I thought that all of you who have posted requests to this wishlist might like to get specific responses to some of the items on this list.
First of all, though, I'd like to point out an innovative set of features that I think addresses a request that many of you have made... just not exactly as you asked for it. All of us have wanted a better way to see into and navigate among nested compositions (precompositions). The Composition Mini-Flowchart and Composition Navigator make moving around in a complex project much, much faster and easier. Telling you to see the
"Opening and navigating nested compositions" section isn't going to do this feature set justice. You'll only appreciate how slick this is when you get your hands on it.
Oh, and we reversed the behavior of double-clicking versus Option-double-clicking a precomposition layer: Now double-clicking opens the source composition in the Composition panel, not the precomposition layer in the Layer panel.
Now, on to the specific responses...
David Wigforss:
> I completely agree that the graph editor needs work....
> Position values need to be seperated into 3 distinct values that can
> be adjusted independant of each other.
Done.
See
"Separate dimensions of Position to animate components individually".
Mark Weiss:
> would like to see XDCam EX import capabilities.
Done.
See
"Supported import formats".
AndyClarke:
> all effects in 32 bit or float
Not quite all. But more are, including all of the 3D Channel effects, which is a category that really needed the upgrade.
See
"Effects and animation presets".
AndyClarke
> prob a really simple little thing but a 'centre anchor point' button could be handy?
Move layers so that their anchor points are in the center of the composition or view?
If so, then done. See the first tip on the
"Move layers in space" page.
silversurfer:
> An intra-project search function that displays properties of every layer.
Done.
See
"Search and filter in the Timeline, Project, and Effects & Presets panels".
(Plus, you can now use the shortcut FF to show instances of missing effects. See
"About effects".)
Thomas Craul:
> the possibility to expand all of the effects parameters in the effect controls window at once.
> just like when expanding all layer properties or all subfolders with strg+klick (little arrow).
Done.
See
"Shortcuts: showing properties in the Effect Controls panel".
Pietje Bel:
> I'd like to see some features I can use with my tablet (I got it for photoshop, though
> I use AE even more than I use photoshop).
We've had features for using the pen dynamics with the paint tools for a while. See
"Brushes and the Brushes panel".
That said, we've made some improvements under the hood that should make using a pen better (e.g., modifying the sensitivity during certain click and drag operations).
Darren McNeill:
> Simple, I would like After Effects to have the ability to extrude Text in 3d space.
> Nothing complicated, just be able to create 3d Text.
How about the ability to do this in Photoshop and then import the 3D object layer into After Effects?
See
"Using 3D object layers from Photoshop"
invisiblerabbit:
> Being able to specify how many processors to use in the multiprocessing preference pane.
Done. Plus other improvements in this area.
See
"Memory & Multiprocessing preferences".
invisiblerabbit:
> I'd love a setting either in the preferences or the output module to write project
> information (importantly: the name of the project) into the metadata of the rendered file.
Done. And then some. On steroids.
See
"XMP metadata in After Effects".
Navarro Parker:
> I'd love AE projects to be searchable. Having the ability to search for comp names or source footage
> names within projects from the Finder would be fantastic.
Done, as long as you have the means to search within XML files. The new XML project file format opens up a lot of scripting possibilities, too.
See
"About projects".
David Bogie:
> I humbly ask the Adobe After Effects team to concentrate first on fixing anything
> and everything that is broken or buggy before adding any more complexity to this application.
> Make it more elgant, make it easier to use, make it faster... sure, fine. But invest the
> creative energy and geek resources to making it work flawlessly instead of adding more stuff.
Though we did add "more stuff", we also spent a lot of time polishing the application this time. The number of small tweaks to address pain points was very large.
AndyClarke:
> I just don't like the help browser.
Better?
After Effects CS4 Help on the Web
Laurie Hogan:
> I got a simple one. Can AE have Spell Check.
AE Enhancers provides
a spelling checker script.
Laurie Hogan:
> Also Can there be more integration between AE and Apple FCP.
I give a link to a script from Dale Bradshaw on the
"Supported import formats" page (at the bottom of the page).

After Effects CS4 WMImport.AEX not loading

Hi,
I just installed a fresh OS and CS4 and AE throws an error when I load it. Can you please help me figure out how to fix it?
The error is:
After Effects error: plug-in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS4\Support Files\Plug-ins\Format\WMImport.AEX" could not be loaded (126).
(48 :: 46)
The machine is a dual xeon quad core 2.5 SuperMicro with 16gb of memory and several TBs of storage. The OS is Vista 64 SP2, with all of the updates applied. AE is version 9.0.2. I've uninstalled AE, and reinstalled it, with the same error still coming up.
All help is appreciated.
Thank you,
Mike

As Steve said, re-installing Windows Media Player seems a good idea. Manually initiate a Windows Update and check, if you are offered to upgrade to WMP 11 or if it's already on your system. if it is, then you may need to download the Windows Media Redistributable package and install it manually. The plug-in may be looking for an old DLL or registry key that is no longer used by WMP 11, but usually would be on your system when you ran the updates from an earlier state. Also consider installing an alternate Media Player like VLC. This may also fix the misconfiguration of the Windows Media components.
Mylenium

After Effects CS4 Performance (BRUTAL)

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