Frames in After Effects 5.5

Umgang mit Frames im After Effects 5.5 SDK

Gibt es im After Effects SDK 5.5 eine Funktion, die es ermöglicht auf ein bestimmtes Frame innerhalb der time line zu zu greifen??
Beispiel: Mein Plug-in rendert gerade den Frame 8 von 20 Frames und innerhalb der Render Routine möchte ich nun auf Frame Nummer 7 und 6 zugreifen...
Vielen Dank

Similar Messages

How do I stop the scatter effect being contained in an images frame in After Effects?

I have an image that I want to make scatter with the scatter effect, but when I add the scatter it hits the square frame of my image.
I would like the scatter to go further and not be contained in the square but I'm not sure how to do this.
I would appreciate if anyone could give me some pointers on this. Thanks.
p.s. Im using the CS3 version of After Effects

Pre-compose the image by putting it in a larger comp, then using that composition as a layer in your main composition. You can then appyl the effect there and it will expand beyond the boundaries of the original image.
Mylenium

Add frames in After Effects CS3

I need to add frames to multiple layers of a composition. Is this possible? I have done it in flash by interning frames but i cant see anything similar in AE?

Try looking in the composition settings for comp length. Video footage may be looped and this is found under file interpretation. You can change the length of a solid or a still layer by simply clicking and dragging or you can set in and out point with the Alt/Option plus one of the square bracket keys. IOW Alt (windows) or Ctrl (mac) + ] to set a new out point at the CTI (current time indicator).
This basic stuff is in the help files.

Interlace Consecutive Frames - in After Effects (CS4)

hi
In Premiere there is an "interlace consecutive frames" option in the field render settings which is useful for resolving field judder problems in certain downloaded mpeg files. Unfortunately I need to use these files within an AEX composition and I can't find an equivalent field setting in AEX anywhere. Can anyone help?
thanks

It doesn't exist. You will have to use plug-ins like RevisionFX' FieldsKit or mimic it by manually combining compositions with doubled framerates, and possibly tricks like using Venetian Blinds to create the interlace pattern.
Mylenium

After Effects Autoscroll - Vertical Animation Preset Issue

Hi After Effects Community,
I am hoping someone can assist me with an issue I have been unable to work out when applying the Autoscroll Vertical Animation preset in After Effects CC. I have already spent ages working way through the forums and googling topic but not quite found the answer, so here goes:
Trying to create scrolling credits for a film I am are editing. Normally, I use the titler in Premiere Pro CC for this and then use the scroll setting. This works to a point but it is very limited in terms of editing/formatting and I have been trying to create a template in After Effects where by you can simply go in and edit the text in the layers and drop the new credit roll into any project.
Taking advice from a source online (Trish Meyer I think), I created a new comp (1920 x 1080 @ 25fps and 2 mins long) and then created a precomp inside this and created all my text. I adjusted the size of this comp so that all the text layers fit onto it. This made it very long (dimensions of precomp are 1920 x 16000. Other settings matched the main composition). I then went back to my main comp and applied the Autoscroll Vertical Animation preset behaviour effect. I thought this was it as the effect did create a scroll but I found that it didn't start the roll from the beginning of my text, rather half way down, and also only scrolled so far before it stopped scrolling.
Does anyone have any advice or recommendations as to what I need to do here to create the desired effect? Ideally I need it to roll through the credit text and then slowly stop on last line of credits before fading to black. I notice that the Motion Tile section of the preset effect has numbers that are red (numbers relate to Tile Centre) and assume this links to the expression attached to this effect.
Do I need to animate the centre of the tile? I saw something online about there being a maximum number of frames the After Effects can render or something like this which is why the animation stops. I must admit I can't believe that this is such a hard thing to learn how to do as I would have thought it is a basic that most film makers would need to do at some point yet it is not well covered online in the form of tutorials etc.
Anyway, I would be so grateful if anyone is able to help. If it is easier I am willing to upload my AE project file so that people can take a closer look to see in more detail what I have tried to explain here.
Many thanks,
Alex

One way to create the correct timing is to create 2 keyframes for position that are 1 frame apart. set the y value for the second key frame to be the number of pixels per frame movement that you need (say 2 pixels). then add this expression: loopOut('continue') the movement will not happen until time hits the first keyframe, so timing can be adjusted in a more familiar way, then the code just continues that movement.
You might add this animation and expression to a null, then parent the credits to the null to make it easy to adjust the credit position separate from the animation. Also, you can split the layer at the point you want it to stop moving and undo the parent for it.

After effects and photoshop ,,,help please

hi all
can anybody help please.
ive been making a short film with my son and putting some basic effects in, just for a laugh.
i noticed an effect on ADOBE TV that was done by Gareth Edwards in his movie MONSTERS which i thought would be good to try out in my film but i carnt get it right,,
here is the link to that effect... http://tv.adobe.com/watch/customer-stories-video-film-and-audio/monsters/
its the effect where he changes the menu board in a cafe to one of his infected area signs, he allso changes a few other signs.
in the video he say that he exports a still frame from after effects into photoshop and puts on his image {with a few tweaks her and there}, when hes got it ok in photoshop ,it some how updates in after effects??
can any please help ,thank you

It's a simplified explanation of the process. He left out explanations of motion tracking and perspective matching that were most certainly required for the shot being discussed.
If you are doing the same process to a static, locked off shot, with no foreground objects passing in front of your sign, it would be very possible to create a single frame in Photoshop and just layer it over your scene in AE. But once the camera moves, you will need to understand Motion Tracking. If objects pass in front of the replaced component, you will need to understand Masking.

Talk something about After Effects

Hi everyone, I love to make VFX and I love After Effects. I just want to talk something about future of AE. I used to try using many softwares like Nuke, Fusion and specially Hitfilm. Hitfilm's really impress, it's so fast and easy to use. With some projects, I can playback realtime in Hitfilm while I got 30 seconds per frame in After Effects. In the future, Hitfilm (and another new compositing/VFX softwares) will developed fully like After effects, but After effects can't be developed to be faster like them, because they got the new technology platform and AE's too old. I'm afraid, afraid oneday, when hitfilm (and the others) grow more and more, get powerful tools like After effects plugin+script, there'll be no one use After effects :(. So I hope Adobe will re-build After effect at the beginning, whether have to renounce the old system that builded from 1993 for that After effect would become to be fast like Hitfilm, powerful like Nuke. I love After Effects .

The majority of the After Effects team is working on rewriting the core of AE to make it run faster, so your wish is coming true.

After Effects skipping frames in animated GIFs

Hello,
I have a 20 PNG sequences (each with 8 images) that I would like to combine into a single Animated GIF. That's 160 frames, which adds up to 00:00:05:10 on my timeline. After Effects shows the proper number of frames when they are arranged in sequence.
When I attempt to render the GIF, however, After Effects drops 12 frames in the final output, giving me a total of only 148. This was confirmed when I re-imported the animated GIF back into After Effects; its duration was only 00:00:04:28. The frames appear to be getting pulled from all over the GIF, with no apparent pattern.
I need all 160 frames because I am eventually going to convert them to a sprite sheet for a game (I have a program that will convert GIFs into sprite sheets). I've attached a copy of the sprite sheet that I just exported from the GIF; notice that 12 frames are missing.
Does anyone know why AE would remove frames like this?

The After Effects forum would be a good place to ask. This is just a general animation forum that is read by only 13 people.

After Effects CS6 error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback - any ideas please?

Hi everyone,
I'm running After Effects CS6 (11.0.4.2) on a MacBook Pro 2.8Ghz with 16GB RAM (Mac OS 10.9.4)
As a test, I created a 3 and a half minute Sequence in Adobe Premiere CS6, and then imported this into After Effects CS6, and placed it on the AE timeline.
This footage involves a couple of 1920x1080p footage movies, some psds and a large number of JPGs exported from two videos arranged as a sequence in two layers in Premiere, one on top of the other. So all in all for a Premiere / After Effects file I'd say it's reasonably heavy.
I then did a RAM Preview with Multiprocessing switched off - the 3 and a half minute sequence loaded into RAM, taking about 1min 30seconds, and played back in realtime at 25fps. This worked fine with 3,4,5 and 6 GB RAM available to other applications in the Memory Preferences. All things considered I think this is quite good. I can make changes, reclick the RAM Preview icon and my changes load into RAM and it previews ok.
My only 'complaint' is how long the RAM Preview takes to load up the whole thing.
I've been reading up on Multiprocessing and decided to try this to see if I can speed up the time it takes my RAM Preview to load up.
So I looked at some recommendations from Adobe and read information on various forums including this one.
My settings in the Memory Preferences are currently
• 6GB reserved for other applications
• Reduce cache size when system is low on memory - unticked
• After Effects Multiprocessing - ticked
• Installed CPUs (processor cores) - 8
• CPUs reserved for other applications - 6
• RAM allocation per background CPU - 3GB
• Actual CPUs that will be used - 2
This combination takes about 25 seconds to load up my 3 and a half minute sequence which I thought was pretty amazing.
I then pressed the stop button and then the play button - so now just playing the sequence briefly.
And also added a new layer - into the timeline - just a simple shape.
Then I tried a RAM Preview again.
I found I could load up part of the sequence but not load the whole thing into RAM.
I kept trying to get a RAM Preview and got this message
"After Effects error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback" which seems to prevent RAM Preview from working.
Eventually I quit and restarted After Effects and the problem went away temporarily and then came back when I tried again.
I tried various changes to the Memory Preferences - trying 3GB available for other applications. This gave 13GB of my 16GB RAM to After Effects.
This made it take slightly longer for the After Effects error to appear but it still appeared.
I tried ticking Reduce Cache size in the Memory Prefs - the After Effects error still appeared, so having read this is supposed to make the issue better I now leave it untucked, but as far as I can see ticked or untucked, it makes no difference, the problem remains.
I've since tried -
Making 2,3,4,5 and 6 CPUs available for other applications.
Changing the Background RAM allocation per background CPU to 0.75GB, 1GB, 1.5GB, 2GB and 3GB
Lots of combinations.
But in the end, I always get the "After Effects error: RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback" error.
It might take less or more time for the message to show up, depending on the combination of settings, but in the end I always got the same message appearing.
And I notice that I can RAM Preview less and less of the timeline. i.e. it becomes more blue than it does green and will load in only a small section of the timeline as opposed to the whole thing.
Reading further, I tried Edit > Purge > Image Cache and Edit > Purge > All Memory but still get the error message.
I also tried ensuring there were no other applications running e.g. Safari or Chrome or Firefox. And certainly not Photoshop or Premiere etc.
Reading even further, I tried two Memory management applications - 'Memory Clean' and 'Purge.'
Neither has had any effect - the After Effects error still appears.
Then I went back into the Memory and Multiprocessing Preferences.
I unticked Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously. And now the RAM Preview loads the whole 3 and half minute sequence in entirety, taking about 1 and half minutes to do so. It's working as perfectly as if I'd just quit and re-opened the application.
Then I went back into the Memory and Multiprocessing Preferences.
I reticked Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously.
The chose Edit > Purge > All
And tried a RAM Preview again. It loaded up in 25 seconds, but then, as previously, the error message came.
I tried Edit > Purge All - no effect.
And I tried going into the Media and Disk Cache Preferences and clicked Empty Disk Cache - still the problem remains.
I understand from my reading that After Effects CS6 11.0.2 was intended to fix this issue but I'm on 11.0.4 and as far as I can tell, I still have it - assuming it's the same thing.
As far as I can see, not using Multiprocessing allows me to work without these errors but take a bit longer to load the RAM Preview.
However I'd like to be able to use Multiprocessing as it seems it can potentially speeds things up quite a lot. I realise I could just not use it and AE would work, but I'd rather be able to make use of a feature of the software if possible, especially if it will speed things up and make optimum use of the my computer's hardware.
I've downloaded a trial copy of After Effects CC 2014. I'm still testing it but as far as I can see the RAM Preview error appears in this version of AE as well, but can take bit longer to show up in my experience.
Thanks everyone - if anyone has any thoughts or advice I'd appreciate hearing your opinions.
Kind regards,
John

You need to have much more RAM reserved for other applications and more CPUs reserved for other applications. Your current settings are crippling your performance.
Read these:
https://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2009/12/performance-tip-dont-starve-yo.html
http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2010/03/performance-tip-dont-oversched.html
After you have adjusted your settings according to the recommendations on those pages, restart your computer and try again.

After Effects Ram Preview Drops Frames , Using Strangely Too Much Ram

System Specs :
     CPU : Core i7 4770k
     Memory : 16 GB DDRIII
     Graphic Card : GTX 770 4GB RAM
     Storage : 256 GB SSD + 2 TB HDD
     OS : Windows 7 SP1
     Using After Effects CC 12.2.1.5
NOTE : NOT ANY ADDITIONAL HARDWARE IS ATTACHED TO MY PC . NO SOUND RELATED EQUIPMENT NOR CAPTURE CARD NOR ANY THING ELSE
Hi there
As you Already Don't know I'm an After effects Specialist Using it for quite long time . There is an Ancient Problem with CS6 CC versions . I have a short Small size 1080p Video , about 8 MB , I drag it into project panel and then put it into timeline hence it creates a sequence . There are no Effects and nothing added to timeline , just a small simple video . The Strange Problem is when I click "0" for ram preview , The video starts playing and the green bar above timeline starts to fill . When Ram preview Finishes and plays the video from beginning I See there are several frames Between which are not being loaded to Ram ! The video plays RGB color bar instead of main video and when I check the Green bar above Timeline I see that those frames are being dropped and there is no Green bar above them !
I have had this problem several times before but this time it is too important and the problem should be solved . What is obvious is that some frames are not being rendered or are being deleted after render !
Another Strange problem is that when I open Task manager , It shows AE uses around 10 GB ! of RAM when I press "0" for Ram previewing this video !
So there is a Logical explanation here , Somehow when I do ram preview this video it uses extra ordinary too much ram so AE is unable to load the full video (8 MB) into Ram and hence deletes some of frames .
most of my videos have not this problem and use acceptable amount of ram .I've had this issue with some of my videos till now .
Listen carefully : "This has nothing to do with AE preferences or low memory or plugins . because there is nothing wrong with any individual components of may hardware or software . I have far more than enough RAM for a 8MB video . My Memory has no hardware or software problem . I tested them and if there was any problem with memory or other hardware that should have affected other applications . I have the most recent AE version . I have the most Recent windows updates and drivers . I have a Clean virus free system , and as a computer engineer this strange AE problem is rarely caused by viruses , trust me . I have not any hardware instead of ones a normal PC has . I have not any problem with my whole entire system configuration because I have benchmarked my PC with several up to date softwares . I have tested my PC with almost any STRESS TESTING solutions available for really long period of time , 3 days by IDA64 . Not any driver conflict , dll missing , registry problem have been discovered , as I know perfectly how to solve them ."
I asked some of my friend whom are expert in AE . I handed them my videos and Watched ALL OF THEM HAD THE SAME ISSUE ! So the problem isn't related to my Local PC . What i believe is that there is some malfunctioning or miss coded part in AE source code that decides to reserve such a huge strange amount of ram for such a tiny 8MB video . The point is that the AE works fine , no crash or any problem report . So the AE it Self decides to allocate such huge amount of ram and thinks it is correct ! So I think this is a work around that AE developers in adobe are using to bypass a problem or conflict ! by Using more amount of RAM . I think that there might be some miss understanding between the AE and my installed codec . I installed MEGA CODEC PACK on my PC to enable some new codec supports , and so are some of Windows default de/encoders changed to new ones . I think there shouldn't be any problem But there is something wrong between AE and de/encoder modules !
Please any one with any suggestion , I really appreciate your advices .

###UPDATED###
Well thank you guys for your patience ...
as you considered I forgot to mention the codec itself and other stuff ...
The video is in 1080p , 35 sec long , it is a green screen shot , this video is directly downloaded from YouTube and plays perfectly on all tested PCs . here are detailed info :
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                          : Base Media
File size                                 : 8.55 MiB
Duration                                 : 34s 993ms
Overall bit rate mode                : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 2 050 Kbps
VideoFormat                            : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Bit rate                                    : 1 927 Kbps
Width                                      : 1 920 pixels
Height                                     : 1 080 pixels
Frame rate mode                      : Constant
Frame rate                               : 30.000 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                 : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                  : 8 bits
Scan type                                 : Progressive
NOTICE : This video is just for testing the lighting and etc , and so the Sampling and other specs are not considered for broadcast .
I think you hit the point ! Thats K-lite codec pack installed on every machine which the video is tested on ! The point is whats wrong with it ?! I have had never ever any problem with this codec pack !!!
The deadly question : So what are the alternative ways to work with codecs that AE doesn't support ?! because installing codec looks simple and sufficient !

When exporting a .wmv in After Effects 5 the export adds additional black/Blank frames at the end

We are experiencing an issue where we or a client provides us with a video that is a .wmv video, exported from After Effects 5 and it adds almost a second of data less video.
What I mean by data less is the video renders out as WMV, 30FPS, 24 Bitrates (No audio) that is say 7 seconds long within After Effects. The moment it is rendered/exported, it is 8 seconds and shows 8 seconds in any program we import it to. That last second is empty, there is no frames, not even black frames, and when you preview the video in any program, you see the scrub bar, drop about 1 second before the actual end of the timeline.
I opened the video in Camtasia, and you can clearly see that at the end, it shows in the timeline (Video Editor), however there is no actual video.
I import the video in my company’s software, and I move the frame scrubber at the end, it says 'Unable to retrieve the requested video frame.'. If we import it to our software, it sees no frames for that second, and automatically loops and adds the first second of the video to the end.
Typically we only import uncompressed AVIs, but would like to know what this issue is.
Windows 7 Enterprise
64bit OS
After Effects 5

I 100% agree about not being a fan of .WMV. We only recently added .wmv video support to our own program our clients use for importing videos and graphics. Our customer only used .wmv because it was on our list, and we are running into this issue.
Two different users (our own Graphic Artist, and our clients Graphic Artist) and we get the same result. We are 100% certain there is no video framerate mismatch in either of the AE files.
It would be interesting to see if anyone else using AE, if they could make a video few seconds long, export as a WMV and see if another program shows a whole extra second at the end, that has no data.
Thanks for your responses thus far.

After Effects CC 2014 problem: Image from frame from the last Premiere CC-After Effects link permanently burned into new project compositions.

One frame from one of the clips I sent from Premiere to After Effects through "replace with After Effects composition" was permanently burned in After Effects and now it appears in every new composition of every new project I create as the background of such composition.
For example, I sent from Premiere a clip of a building to After Effects for color correction with Finesse, and warp stabilization and then after rendering, finishing, and closing all the applications, now, every time I open After Effects for any other project, whether already-created or brand-new, every existing or newly created composition (in a Mac Command N) you see the image of the building as the background of the composition. If you create a new composition, while it remains empty of any layers, you see the image of the building. If you have an already-created composition with layers, when you turn off all the eyes of the layers, you would expect to see black (nothing) in the composition window (if that's the color you assigned to be as the background of the comp), but instead you see the building. If you change the color of the comp's background in Composition Settings, you still see the building as the background. If you render such empty composition (no layers) you render out the image of the building, not black. I tried clicking everywhere and going through the preferences, and even uninstalling the application and re-installing it, but it seems to be permanently burned in into every comp's background.
Please, any ideas of what's going on and how to get rid of it?
Thanks so much for your help,
RR.

Thanks so much Dave. It fixed the problem.
Raoul.

After Effects CC import "Sequence Footage" frame rate settings in "Import" preferences

Just started using the new AE CC (v12 as Adobe will not refer to it as) I noticed one thing that seems to work differently from CS6 and that is in the preferences for import Sequence footage settings. It doesn't seem to work normally, at least for me. I don't know if this is an issue related to how AE CC works with the cloud but the dfault frame rate for sequence footage importing is 30fps. I am trying to import footage that is natively 23.97 at 24 fps. So like in CS6 I go to Preferences - Import - Sequence Footage - frame per second and change it from 30 to 24 frames per second. Closed the software, opened it back up, checked the settings and saw that they took, it still says 24 frames per second like I told it. But when I import a piece of 23.976 footage, it comes in at 23.976 as opposed to the 24 fps I set it as. Same goes for 30 fps footage, it comes in at 30 fps and not 24. User error is always my first assumption, I'm not proud i just want it to work, am I doing something wrong or just confused? Thanks for any help. p.s. help is not someone responding with, "I don't know" or "I don't have AECC yet". I know somebody is going to!

Hi Tim,
WOW! Thanks for the super-fast reply! As soon as I posted this I realised I should have mentioned that I am importing DPX files. I do import quicktimes as well but know that the footage import does not apply to a single file, only a sequence of files. But I still wonder if I may be either doing something wrong or am just a little confused. I have been using After Effects since CS3 doing compositing for film and I always use DPX sequences. I did a bunch of comparing and back and forth with AE CS6 and AECC while trying to figure this out. I always set my preferences up when I upgrade before I start working and I always set them up the same. I have been using CS6 since last July and it still works the same. What I did is imported five or six different DPX sequences, some were rendered out as 24 fps, some at 30 and some at 23.976. Assuming AE looks at the metadata to decide how to auto interpret, AE CC opened them all at their native frame rates of the just mentioned 24, 30 and 23.976 respectively, even though I told it to import at 24fps in the preferences. I also imported the same files in AE CS6 and they all opened at 24 fps like always. I know I can change the frame rate in the "Interpret footage" option, that is what I have been doing today so that I can work with footage in 24fps but since I have it set in the preferences to import image sequences at 24fps, I am perplexed as to why it does not do so, so I do not have to interpret the footage to my preferred frame rate, as is the case in AE CS6 as well as it was in CS 5.5 and CS 3. Since I was lucky enough to have an Adobe employee chime in Tim, I would be curious to see what you may find if you recreated this scenario. Would it be possible for you or someone at Adobe to set the sequence footage import frame rate to 24 fps in the preferences then try to open a piece of footage that is natively 23.976 fps in both AE CS6 and AE CC? Like I said, I certainly beleive I may be doing something wrong but I would be very curious to see what you find on your side. I would not be suprised if it imported at 24 fps in AE CS6 and 23.976 fps in AE CC.

Adobe After Effects CS6 takes FOREVER to lock existing frames before rendering

My After Effects CS6 locks up for 3 minutes "Locking Existing Frames" before it even begins to start rendering, every time I need to preview anything - even at the lowest possible quality.
The render goes perfectly normal - it is not the rendering that is the problem - it is the "Locking Existing Frames" process BEFORE rendering that freezes up my computer for 3 minutes, and ruining my life.
I am using Adobe After Effects CS6 on a Mac Book Pro with a 2.9 GHz Core i7 processor (2 cores) and 8 GB of RAM.
Please help me understand what is happening when it is "Locking Existing Frames," and what some solutions could be to reduce the amount of time it takes to do this.
ALSO: I have scoured the Web for hours looking for the answer to this problem, and to this point it has never been solved. If you can solve this issue, Adobe should give you a promotion and $1 million.

Hi Rick and Greg,
Thanks for the quick responses. Below are all the details to all your questions. Also - just to emphasize again - my rendering goes super awesomely fast. It is not the rendering. It is the "Locking Existing Frames" process before the rendering that is ruining my life.
FREE MEMORY:
This is brand new Mac Book Pro with hardly anything stored on it.
The 8 GB of RAM is split into 2 memory slots, each with 4GB of RAM
3RD-PARTY CODECS:
I am not aware of any third-party codecs in this system. I imported some fonts (ITC Franklin Gothic) and some video files (see below), but I am not aware of any third-party codec installed on this system.
DISC CACHE:
My Disc Cache is enabled
My maximum disc cache size is 69 GB
I do not have a seperate "fast hard drive" or "SSD" seperate from my main hard drive, where I store my footage.
MPEG SOURCE FILES:
If by source files, you're asking about the video files I imported:
2 MP4s (5 sec. each)
3 QuickTime .mov (3 sec. each)
1 Audio-only FLV. (2 minute background music throughout video; used to be a Premiere working file)
MULTIPROCESSING
Turned off, but still locks up forever before rendering.
ADDITIONAL FUN FACTS:
Here are some additional observations that might help:
It doesn't just take a long time to start rendering; it freezes my entire computer for the duration of the "Locking Existing Frames" process - putting my entire life on hold for 3 minutes, every time I need to preview a minor detail... It's a nightmare.
The video is 1 min. 45 sec. long so far, and has 15 sec. to go.
The video is comprised of 99 percent motion graphics, and 1 percent actual footage (Occupy Wall Street hates my footage)
The complexity in this video is that there are a lot of compositions inside of compositions inside of compositions, but even when I go to the very beginning of the first comp - where the only animation is a line being drawn with the "Stroke" effect - it still takes 3 minutes to "Lock Existing Frames."
Again... The rendering goes super fast after the "Locking Existing Frames" process. The problem is NOT with the rendering. The problem is the "Locking Existing Frames" process BEFORE the rendering starts.
This is my job and I can't do efficiently until I solve this problem, so I will be very responsive until we can identify the issue.
Thanks again for all your helpful responses!

Problems with distorted frames when making movies in After Effects

I'm a 3D animator. When I get through with
rendering all of the frames of an animation and they're fine, I create a preview in After FX and it builds and plays back the preview fine. But when I go to make a movie, with those same frames, it produces frames in different spots which are blurred, stretched, distorted, spun and or dropped. What could be causing this? N E help is greatly appreciated.

There MUST be a simple answer to this problem....
There is a simple answer indeed.
Here it is:
The highlighted button in the Comp panel enables Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) Correction.
So, instead of stretching the footage horizontally, you create a Composition with the same frame aspect and Pixel Aspect Ratio as your source footage (just drag the clip to the New Comp button in the project panel and AE will automate this) and then enable PAR correction and After Effects will give you a corrected (deanamorphized) preview so you won't see it squeezed at all on a computer monitor. When you export it, it will look squeezed until you take it to the target video application. Any professional video application will handle this correctly.Millions of people do this every day, since non-square pixels are still dominant among the most popular video formats.
Even Photoshop has had support for non-square pixels (and PAR correction in the document panel) since CS (ie. Photoshop 8.0).
Note that when you turn on PAR correction (just like when you use odd magnification levels) AE switches to a draft filtering mode, which makes type and other elements look a bit jagged. Don't worry, it's just a preview.
The ideal solution, and the one video professionals rely on, is adding video output hardware to your computer, so you can connect a professional video monitor. After Effects can provide a live preview using such a set-up.
For more information on PAR, see Pixel aspect ratio and frame aspect ratio in After Effects Help.

Frames in After Effects 5.5

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for