After Effects Rendering

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Hi guys.

I do a fair bit of content creation for my YouTube channel which 100% relies on After Effects.

My current rig, seen here;
|| Intel 4670K @ 4GHz || Corsair H80i || 2x MSI NVIDIA GTX 770 2GB (2 way SLI) || MSI Z87-G45 ||
|| TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (CAS 11-11-11-28 Timings) || Samsung 840 (250GB) SSD ||
|| Samsung 850 Evo (500GB) SSD || Seagate Barracuda 2TB (7200 RPM) ||
|| SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 750W || BitFenix Shinobi (German Edition) ||

|| 2x Asus VN247H || TT eSports Theron (Black) || Qpad Mk-80 (Blue Switches) ||
|| 2013 Astro MixAmp Pro || 2013 Astro A40 ||
takes a relatively long time to render out my videos. I recently stumbled upon this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbPbBgJJ3Co which explains that multicore rendering in CS6 (which is what I use) doesn't utilise the CPU as well as it can and I was wondering whether the script (BG Renderer) used in the video will utilise my 4 cores more than the built in multiprocessing settings in AE.

The gentleman in the video does use a far superior CPU to mine with a lot more cores/ threads + ram to play around with so I was wondering whether the effects would actually benefit me? I don't want to purchase something then find out that it doesn't actually benefit me that much if you catch my drift.

Some misc information:
- My videos heavily rely on trapcode particular

If there's any more information you guys require about my AE setup then please ask.
 
William-Mathew said:
What are your system specs?
Click to expand...

It's in the spoiler in original post...

|| Intel 4670K @ 4GHz || Corsair H80i || 2x MSI NVIDIA GTX 770 2GB (2 way SLI) || MSI Z87-G45 ||
|| TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (CAS 11-11-11-28 Timings) || Samsung 840 (250GB) SSD ||
|| Samsung 850 Evo (500GB) SSD || Seagate Barracuda 2TB (7200 RPM) ||
|| SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 750W || BitFenix Shinobi (German Edition) ||

|| 2x Asus VN247H || TT eSports Theron (Black) || Qpad Mk-80 (Blue Switches) ||
|| 2013 Astro MixAmp Pro || 2013 Astro A40 ||
 
I think you have slightly misunderstood the video.

These days afterfx will fully utilise all of your cpu cores when rendering.

However the video does explain that some of the plugins/effects are not optimised to use all cores especially when running in 16 bits per channel mode, whilst all cores are used in 8 bit mode.
Youtube only can display 8 bit video, however that doesn't necessarily mean your workflow should or shouldn't be in a particular colour workspace, thats for you to decide.

What you need todo, is check as in the video the cpu usage, to determine if you are being restricted to one core. If you are the next step is to figure out what part of your workflow is being restricted to single threading, and either adjust a setting, change the effect or settings to see if you can work around this. Or if it is only used/effects the intro section - live with it.

The BG renderer script suggested in the video is for generating multiple single frame's at a time, which would then need to be re compiled back into a video. Whilst this method of workflow is sensible in a high end production environment I'd expect for a youtube vid, it may not be wise, the mass's of HD space and extra time may counter any benefits by being able to render multiple frames at the same time.

16gb ram - may fill up quickly depending on the complexity of your composition, it may be enough though.
SLI I'd expect has no use other than to create heat and drink energy, afx does support 2x cuda cards, however not in sli mode. You maybe wasting cuda processing opportunities.


TLDR
After fx uses all cores
Some plugins don't.
If your workflow uses all cores - get xeons
If your workflow uses only uses 1 core - overclock (ghz is king), or change plugin and get xeons.
 
Russinating said:
How long do they tend to take to render currently?
Click to expand...

It honestly depends on the project. My content revolves around music so the more bass drops there are, the longer it will take to render out the video due to trapcode particular. With multiprocessing on, this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAqBzRNs0GM took me approx 2 hours and 30-40 minutes to fully render in .avi format and in this time, all of my cores are maxed out and I don't really want to cause a crash by performing other tasks whilst rendering is going on. Perhaps not exporting in .avi will have a major impact on the render times? Any suggestions? :confused: I know h.264 is commonly used in YouTube projects but I don't really want to sacrifice any quality loss. In addition, I don't bother with adobe media encoder to render my videos, I just do them straight out of AE.

As my channel has greatly increased in popularity, I'd like to churn out videos on a fairly regular basis with as little time rendering as possible. I'm starting back at Uni in September so most of my time will be spent working towards my degree which means I'll not have as much time to render content as I normally would.
 
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Blackbadger said:
TLDR
After fx uses all cores
Some plugins don't.
If your workflow uses all cores - get xeons
If your workflow uses only uses 1 core - overclock (ghz is king), or change plugin and get xeons.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing some things up for me, appreciate it. My videos utilise all cores so I presume it's worth investing into a processor with greater numbers of cores and increased RAM per core in order to achieve faster rendering times.
 
Yeah I would use H264 and Media Encoder for a start. You can queue them up then too.

Also why does it need to be in 1080p when the main aspect is music? Also why is it in 60p? It should be in 25p.
 
Sirrel Squirrel said:
It's the 60p that is killing you here. I'd suggest dropping to 30p which will make your renders twice as fast. If you're only uploading to YouTube export out via Media Encoder to H.264 as suggested.
Click to expand...

"H.264 video is encoded with audio compressed with the AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) codec" - Is there a huge/ noticeable difference in audio quality compared with .avi?
 
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It's a video codec yes but it outputs to an MP4 which will contain audio, by default AAC. I'd recommend just using the YouTube 720p HD preset and change the audio settings if needed.

Any reason why you'd suggest 30p Sirrel? I'd suggest 25p which is PAL standard. No need for anything more. And certainly no need for 1080p over 720p for this.
 
Russinating said:
It's a video codec yes but it outputs to an MP4 which will contain audio, by default AAC. I'd recommend just using the YouTube 720p HD preset and change the audio settings if needed.

Any reason why you'd suggest 30p Sirrel? I'd suggest 25p which is PAL standard. No need for anything more. And certainly no need for 1080p over 720p for this.
Click to expand...

PAL is mainly for broadcast and old DVD players, plus obviously shooting in a country with a 50hz power supply.

30p will look nicer on a 60hz computer monitor and you'll get smoother motion on these types of videos, not as nice as 60p but better than 25.
 
As others have mentioned H264 'could' render out a lost faster especially if the encoder allows for cuda acceleration (utilising your 2 GPUS) - disable SLI if you do this. However this will reduce the quality, you are right a lossless codec is the best option. I have a feeling that this is not the issue and changing codec's will only degrade quality in this instance.

Creating high quality video to youtube is a challenge to most, your internet upload connection is likely to be the limiting factor.

Even youtube recommend 100Mbps for a high quality 1080p video.

The problem is that youtube re-encode whatever you send them unfortunately. So unless you record then upload a lossless file your videos most likely will look bad. The Problem with doing that however, is that even with some lossless codec's that enable the file sizes to be a lot smaller than raw, you'l likely be constrained to uploading a 100gb file for a max of 20mins of video if your lucky.


There are additional things you can do to trick youtube into giving you a better image, such as a very mild film grain or even upscalaing your video to 4k, Even if you dont have a 4k file.

If you do this your 1080p video will be encoded by youtube at a significantly higher quality (bitrate), also will likely give better audio.

This is worth a watch, it gives a better explanation of what youtube do.
6:20 in

All I just said - will cause rendering to take longer :D

There will allways be a quality/time compromise. As others have suggested I question the use of 60fps - I'm not judging if suited for your content, however as Russ suggested 25fps may be a more sensible rate for your videos.

Before throwing more money at it, I'd maybe look at your workflow, is it possible to set things to render over night ?

-edit I really should have watched your video first. ;)

There is something very wrong with your AFX settings for trapcode (which I assume is doing the particle effects ?) The particles appear to be animated at 10fps creating a jerky non fluid effect. I'd assume there is a setting somewhere to increase this, even at 25/30fps the subtle motion that is going on it will look so much better. Basically your 60fps is actually 10fps and doesn't look great.

Trapcode fx whilst they look nice and 'easy' to create they are real stinkers for processing efficiency. especially if set up incorrectly I'd expect that some fine tuning the settings within the plugin would allow you to get a increase to 25-30fps render out at 4k and export in avi at a much faster speed.

Have a search on specialist forums about optimising these effects.
 
Uploading an uncompressed AVI to YouTube is massive overkill, h.264 at 60Mbps at 1080/30p will be more than sufficient. Feature films and TV content for Google Play, which uses YouTube encoding is delivered as h.264 at around 50Mbps (depends on content and frame rate).

Definitely ask around on the more specialist forums though to make sure your AE setup is optimal.Media Encoder and AE use GPU acceletation so try disabling SLI as suggested too.
 
What youtube distribute at, vs what the source material encode at is the problem though. If only they made a freely available encoder which when you uploaded the files nothing changed.

Actually if only they encoded things properly we could get much higher quality video at so much less bandwidth. Their 50mbps content would likely have started at 200mbps+
I posted this on these forums 6 years ago :eek:, 500kbps h264 to show what is possible at lower bitrates. (not perfect, however great for the datarate)
http://www.flashvideofactory.com/test/DEMO720_Heima_H264_500K.html
Click to expand...


Your right Sirril - 100mbps is unnecessary. especially for this content.
I'm going off topic with all this codec and bit rate silliness.

I really think that the slow rendering here is just the particle effects calculations and nothing to do with codecs etc.
 
Blackbadger said:
What youtube distribute at, vs what the source material encode at is the problem though. If only they made a freely available encoder which when you uploaded the files nothing changed.

Actually if only they encoded things properly we could get much higher quality video at so much less bandwidth. Their 50mbps content would likely have started at 200mbps+
I posted this on these forums 6 years ago :eek:, 500kbps h264 to show what is possible at lower bitrates. (not perfect, however great for the datarate)



Your right Sirril - 100mbps is unnecessary. especially for this content.
I'm going off topic with all this codec and bit rate silliness.

I really think that the slow rendering here is just the particle effects calculations and nothing to do with codecs etc.
Click to expand...

What I was getting at with the film and TV content is that it is delivered to YouTube at around 50Mbps by the uploader (typically transcoded down from a 200Mbps ProRes), it is then processed again by YouTube to whatever bit rate their streams are.

For what the OP is doing, there is no issue with him rendering straight out to H.264 as AE will be rendering fully uncompressed anyway and then encoding to H.264.

That's a point actually, in AE can you specify whether to render as YUV or RGB, 8bit or 10bit? If you can switch to YUV 8bit that'll speed things up too.
 
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